On this week’s 68th anniversary of the death of horror writer and myth-maker, H.P. Lovecraft, the Library of America has re-released his writings; Tim Clodfelter at Relish surveys the wealth of horror and sci-fi movies, comic books and video games spun from the work of Lovecraft; and John Miller, at The Wall Street Journal, piously smirks at the posthumous success of the atheistic author, and declares the real horror of Lovecraft’s work to be its “nihilism”: that is, the meaninglessness of life lived where mankind is less significant than a fly, but still manages to attract the attention of malevolent forces. Which malevolent forces does Miller mean? The “Old Ones,” of course: the race of ancient, alien gods, who inhabit Lovecraft’s fiction; waiting at the edge of the galaxy or under the sea to resume their dominion over Earth. Though the entire mythology was Lovecraft’s invention, many readers believed his writings on the “elder gods” and the fictitious text, The Necronomicon, to be references to actual legends, to such an extent that Lovecraft’s works have gained “alternative religion” status. In honor of the god-maker, we’ll follow the lead of both Miller and Clodfelter, who close their tributes with mention of the plush-toy Cthulhus now available for sale, and contribute our own examples of the cute n’ cuddly side of damnation, in Jack Chick or Hello Kitty style.