As much as it would be nice to claim to have invented everything in Lovecraft Country single-handedly, credit must be given to those depraved weirdos who actually did invent the styles, genres, and mind-blasting horrors used therein.
The most important body of source material for Lovecraft Country is of course the works of H P Lovecraft. Although written 70 years ago, they are still frequently reprinted, and available from a variety of publishers.
Many other authors, both at the time and in the decades since, have written stories using the Cthulhu Mythos, but their work is harder to find and frequently just not as good. One exception is the short story "The Big Fish" by Kim Newman, available in his anthology Famous Monsters, which is highly recommended.
The roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu (now in release 5.5 or thereabouts from Chaosium Inc) and the various supplements for it provide a great deal of information about the Mythos in a form convenient for gamers. CoC is both a serious game and one with a substantial amount of system, so much of the information will be only vaguely useful, but it sure beats looking through ten volumes of purple prose for a description of a byakhee.
There is also a collectible card game based on CoC, Mythos. Mythos doesn't really have any information that CoC doesn't, but if played with the sort of warped people who make Deep One faces and talk in Peter Lorre accents when their Sanity drops, it can provide the same tone as Lovecraft Country.
The Guide to Cthluhu Monsters and Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands (also from Chaosium) are oversized books detailing some important monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos and the Dreamlands (respectively), with no gaming material but full-page illustrations, and excellent bibliographies. Unfortunately, they were last printed in 1988, so may be somewhat difficult to find now.
For the anime-comedic aspects of LC, no single reference can beat Teenagers From Outer Space, now in its third edition from R. Talsorian Games. Although it is not quite the same genre as LC, and is more over-the-top in many ways, TFOS has a great deal of good advice for both GMing and playing anime comedy games. Most of the plots in the back of the book can probably be stolen, too.
TFOS is based generically on the numerous and widely varied anime shows set in high school, but particularly on Urusei Yatsura, by Rumiko Takahashi (available in both magnetic-tape/reflective-circle and dead tree versions from Viz Comics. Except for providing great examples of some motivations, UY is not that relevent to LC, but if you were wondering where TFOS came from, now you know.
Pokéthulhu, from Dork Storm Press, is another humorous Cthulhoid game. Although considerably different than LC, it is of notable silliness and can probably be mined for ideas.
Nothing is quite like Lovecraft Country, but many things are similar enough to be mined for ideas. The truly twisted imagination can find inspiration anywhere, of course , but here are a few particularly rich veins to try.
Hellboy, a comic book series from Dark Horse Comics, is about a distinctly abhuman investigator of occult and sometimes Lovecraftian mysteries, and his sidekick who bears a suspicious resemblance to a Deep One.
The main character of Gold Digger, a comic book series from Antarctic Press, is a crazed archaeologist with a tendency to find dimensional gates, ancient beings of unspeakable power, and other exciting things.
The works of Daniel Pinkwater demonstrate that high school doesn't need tentacled abominations from beyond space and time to be both bizarre and horrifying. Plus, Pinkwater is a twisted genius.
This file was last modified at 1439 on 02Aug01 by trip@idiom.com.