At ON AN UNDERWOOD NO. 5, Todd B. Vick writes about the recent Comicpoolza and one of his two favorite panels.

To be honest, I do not remember all the panelists on the Essential Horror panel, except one: Richard Klaw. He was in the middle of the table wearing an ape T-shirt that I recognized right when I walked into the room. The T-shirt was the cover of the book he edited titled THE APES OF WRATH. The reason I recognized the shirt/book cover was because I own a copy and Mark Finn contributed to the volume.

Then, one of the final questions asked by an attendee was, “Can you all list off some of your favorite horror writers.” Several names were thrown out there until one attendee piped up and named the elephant. “What about H.P. Lovecraft?”

The room fell silent, the panelists looked around at each other, and then Richard Klaw spoke up. “If you all don’t mind, I’ll address this first,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t care for H.P. Lovecraft.”

“Why?” the same attendee piped up and asked. “Well, because I think Lovecraft’s writing does not get to the point in horror. He’s all over the map. You get characters, you get a little bit of story, but you really don’t get much that grabs you. There’s not a whole lot underneath it all, and he doesn’t go anywhere with his creatures.”

The room was silent, for a few seconds. In my mind, I was really hoping Robert E. Howard was going to be brought up. And just as I thought that, Klaw stated, “From that era of writing, Robert E. Howard’s stories are far better, I think.”

If you have not already picked up a copy of Richard Klaw’s edited volume, THE APES OF WRATH, then I highly recommend it. One of the works that Klaw mentioned as a work way ahead of its time is in the volume: “Quidquid Volueris” by Gustav Flaubert. There’s also stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Clark Ashton Smith, Joe R. Lansdale, Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, Mark Finn, Philip Jose Farmer, and others.

Read the rest of Vick’s piece at at ON AN UNDERWOOD NO. 5.

For info on THE APES OF WRATH, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Alex Solis 

Design by Elizabeth Story.

For more info about the t-shirt, visit the Threadless page.