I’ve been meaning to post about this for nearly a month now, because it was such a cool find, and luckily, it’s not time-sensitive, so here’s the deal…

The good folks over at Tor posted I, Cthulhu, author Neil Gaiman‘s humorous take on Lovecraft, for your reading pleasure.

The short story — with an actually very lengthy full title I, Cthulhu, or, What’s A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9′ S, Longitude 126° 43′ W) — was published in 1986 and has been posted on the author’s blog for quite some time, but Tor has included some new illustrations by Brian Elig to accompany the tale. And I absolutely love these illustrations (especially the inclusion of shoggoth’s bowl).

I, Cthulhu is supposed to be H.P. Lovecraft‘s Cthulhu dictating its autobiography to the human slave, Whateley. In this story, we learn much about the mysterious Great Old One’s ancient origins, including information on its parents. Be sure to pay close attention to the surprise reveal at the end you definitely won’t see coming.

Check out more of Elig’s illustrations for the story over at Irene Gallo’s Blog and be sure to read I, Cthulhu in-full for FREE over at Tor.