My outrage has been building for a long time, but Penny Arcade pushed me right over the edge with its The Last Christmas project. Yes, that’s right — it’s time to start doing something about the excessive commercialization of Cthulhu.
Look, when I was a kid Cthulhu was straightforward. You’d read the HPL stories, maybe some Clark Ashton Smith, and, if you were really lucky, some Arabic works that would drive you insane if you weren’t careful. In those days, Cthulhu was straightforward — it was about those wonderful cult get togethers, ordinary people making the transformation into Deep Ones, and tracing the lineage of in-bred New Englanders.
This new generation doesn’t appreciate or understand any of that. To them, Cthulhu is only about Santa Claus plushies, and tentacled slippers.
People have completely forgotten the spirit of Cthulhu. It’s not about collectible card games or high performance racing.
Where are the investigators being driven insane, or slimey trails left by horrors that cannot be named? That, I submit, is the true spirit of Cthulhu, and one that this generation is sorely missing.