Diving into The Lovecraft Atlas with cartographer Laurent Gontier Cover art for The Lovecraft Atlas. Photo: Courtesy of Bragelonne A look at Miskatonic University's Antarctic expedition in The Lovecraft Atlas. Photo: Courtesy of Bragelonne A diagram of the Miskatonic University grounds in The Lovecraft Atlas. Photo: Courtesy of Bragelonne As a veteran player of the Call of Cthulhu RPG for the last 40-plus years, Gontier "used to make player handouts for quite a while," he recounted. "That's why I wanted to make documents in addition to maps [for this one]." He also called on his knowledge of history, which he studied at university, and 15-year stretch writing tourism guidebooks in his native France. "So I was very familiar with what paper documents and period documents may inspire when you see them," Gontier said. "I like that a document [gives] you something by its form—its physical layout, the font it uses, how it's written, and even the kind of paper it's printed on." The goal was to have a collection of timeworn maps, documents, and images that felt realistic and believable, as though they had come from genuine human beings living through extraordinary events. How, for example, do you simulate a human mind taken over by an advanced alien race? What is the method for showing that the sunken city of R'lyeh was constructed via non-Euclidian geometry? These were actual questions Gontier had to answer. In other words, he had to make the famously indescribable nature of Lovecraft…well, describable. "Writing the book was really like getting into the head of a period cartographer," he continued. "It's like the Stanislavski method for actors and comedians. It's trying to step into the cartographer’s shoes and act [a certain] way." Given that Lovecraft's stories are spread across different locations, time periods, and narrators, the cartographer also found himself varying his own writing style, "especially when the character is very stressed" or losing their sanity (as happens quite commonly in the cosmic horror genre), he noted. "The writing reflects the state of mind of the person that's writing." The section dealing with The Shadow Out of Time, for instance, contains a map written by Professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee while he's possessed by a member of the Great Race of Yith. "I made illustrations from the perspective of a human mind inside a three-eyed creature," Gontier revealed. "It's a very twisted, David Lynch-ian perspective." Where he could, Gontier included small instances of ironic humor—be it a cheeky advertisement for a reservoir of supposedly pristine water built upon the "blasted heath" in The Colour Out of Space or a nifty guide to all the exits of Innsmouth's Gilman House hotel. "I read the novels and short stories in French," the cartographer said. "But when there were doubts about how the translation was made, they systematically referred to the English version. I don't know why, but reading Lovecraft was very funny and I wanted to add some sort of humor inside … It didn't have to be absolutely serious." A fictional advertisement for an Arkham reservoir in The Lovecraft Atlas. Photo: Courtesy of Bragelonne It is worth noting that The Lovecraft Atlas is only available in French at the moment and has yet to be translated into English or, say, the forbidden tongues contained within the Necronomicon and De Vermis Mysteriis. "Every document and map I made is in English since it was supposed to be real," Gontier explained. "There was no reason to do it in French. So it’s very easy for foreign publisher to make a translation. There is only the [main text by Alain T. Puysségur] to translate, provided my English translation and writing is correct [laughs]." But there's no denying a global demand exists. "I think people who discovered Lovecraft 40 years ago are grown-up now and still want to feel the thrill of their teenage years," he concluded. "Lovecraft is everywhere. It's in Batman with the asylum [Arkham], in Stephen King books. It’s everywhere." Ftaghn-A-right! Source: https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-lovecraft-atlas-book-maps-hp-lovecraft-cthulhu-mythos-in-great-detail