Julius Schwartz, HPL and Alan Moore

Julius "Julie" Schwartz 

Below, excerpt from The story behind the stories, an interview by William Christensen, edited by Antony Johnston, investigating Moore's lost project Yuggoth Cultures which was inspired by Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth. Originally published in Alan Moore's Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths n. 3 (Avatar Press, 2003) and reprinted in the collected volume (Avatar, 2007).

Alan Moore: [...] The first poem in Lovecraft‘s cycle is called The Book, and as an example of the way I was thinking at the time, my first piece for Yuggoth Cultures was also called The Book. But in my case it was a couple of pages long, and was an account of me, on one of the first occasions where I’d met Julius Schwartz. Julie had been showing me this huge book of autographs and memorabilia that he keeps in his office to dazzle impressionable young Limeys with. I was looking through this book, which was full of pictures of Julie as a younger man in a long dark coat, with a dark homburg hat, standing on a wintery New York street corner and talking with some fresh-faced newsboy that actually turned out to be Ray Bradbury, and all of these other giants of science fiction and fantasy...

So Julie was showing me this, and l got to this small piece of paper that was fixed into the book where it just said, in this very spidery pen and ink handwriting, “I remain, Sir, your obedient servant— Howard Phillips Lovecraft."

l was stunned, and asked, “So this is from Lovecraft‘? You knew Lovecraft'?” And he said, “Yeah, sure, I agented a story for him.” I foolishly asked, “What was he like?” To which Julie replied, "Well, it’s funny you should say that, because I remember at the time thinking, “I'd better remember what this guy’s like 'cos in fifty years Alan Moore's going to ask me about it..."

So I basically expanded that anecdote as my version of The Book. And there were subsequent chapters of Yuggoth Cultures, also based on Lovecraft's titles, or the feeling of the individual pieces. But most of these were subsequently lost in a taxi cab in London—the only copies. [...]

More info about Lovecraft and Schwartz HERE.