GDT: I’ve been trying to do At the Mountains of Madness for almost twenty years. Right after Cronos, I wrote a version of it set during the time of conquest of the New World with a bunch of conquistadors arriving at the Mayan ruins and finding another city beneath. It’s never been far away for me. In terms of imagination and the creation of worlds, it’s one of the most compelling projects. But I also think it’s a very commercial horror film.
In the notebooks, I’m really thinking about Mountains more than drawing it. The funny thing is, Lovecraft excelled at being ambiguous about the way his creatures look. The creatures that he’s very specific about, once you draw them, are kind of clunky. When you’re drawing the flying cucumbers that are the Old Ones in Mountains, you have to go, “How are we going to make this work?” But the less Lovecraft describes, the more beautiful the creature. And I think the ambiguity provides the opportunity to make them shape-shifters.
What is funny, though, is that this sketch of a character in Mountains with tentacles over his mouth predates Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean by about two years. When I saw Pirates, I was like, “OK, I’m screwed.”
BLUE NOTEBOOK, pAGE 49
E* Fetuses in jars of marmalade.
* A day hasn’t gone by in which I haven’t thought about death.
* National Geographic’s EXPLORER.
G* Hey, what about X? (grave news about someone). Well, it depends.
T* DRAGGED UNDER BY A SUBTERRANEAN RIVER.
G* Someone does something “very special” and/or receives it at once and then (saves it with, throws it among, sticks it amid, or places it among) a pile of objects or things just like it.
T* As he goes down the “subterranean river,” the explorer sees the female octopus and the ceiling littered with clusters of bones.
BLUE NOTEBOOK, pAGE 7B
–Between anguish and hope, pain is the exit.
–Check out the locations for VOOI for the M.M.
–The SCARLET city in the middle of the white one.
–Green water / Scarlet and corroded walls
—Dietist: The key is to avoid eating large portions. Woman: Ah—yes that makes sense, D: Tomatoes, lettuce, celery, non-fat dairy products . . . W: Well-that-that’s good. But what about lunch? D: Well at lunch you can give yourself a treat. W: Sure. D: Or you’ll go crazy. W: A treat! That’s a good idea, thank you. D: You are welcome. CUT A: The woman pigging out.
—A mass hallucination. Suggestion or mass hysteria.
—An empty shell that is a ghost.
–Normally ghosts bring the living warnings or premonitions.
–The husband takes a photograph of it.
–One of the researchers is a nun.
–A ghost is visible at the edge of the photo and a phenomenon occurs that she is the only one to see.
–Record it in small NAGRA recorders to give the images depth to give a catalog to the U.
–The husband thinks that they’re radio waves or waves from a nearby CB and pleads with them to use their common sense.
–She asks for proof and it tells her: “Anna, I’m dead, tell me why?”
–An Arkham sailor
–Perhaps Pabodie, like Holly, knows how to build automatons