Lovecraft and Kafka
Panel discussion with Fufu Frauenwahl (moderator), Cody Goodfellow, Adam Scott Glancy
H.P. Lovecraft and Franz Kafka - what do they have in common, apart from there being adjectives derived of their last names? One was a modernist, the other a pulp writer, and while they were contemporaries, they most certainly never heard from each other. But could it be that they both created subgenres of the fantastic tale which in some ways parallel or even compliment each other? The fact that, while both died practically unknown, today their names like no others stand for a specific horrific aspect of the modern human condition should at the very least merit a discussion about what unites them, what separates them, and what makes them unique - which is what we’re gonna do on this panel.
in the classroom
FuFu is a German-American comic book artist and illustrator. He studied Visual Communication in Germany and "la Bande Dessinée“ (comics) in Angoulême, France.
Since around 2000 FuFu has worked as a freelance illustrator in various fields. He has done countless illustrations for role playing games, but has also worked on books, stage productions, computer games, and animation. In 2013 he created the Zombie-card game Zombory. His personal comics have appeared in many anthologies and zines in several countries and typically revolve around the surreal adventures of Ray Murphy – Detective of Dreams and his assistant Molluskhead.
Today he lives in Portland, Oregon and Berlin, Germany, with his partner Susanna, who is a painter and a modelmaker for the film industry and their son Rocco.
Cody Goodfellow has written ten novels and five collections of short stories, and has won three Wonderland Book Awards. His comics work has been featured in Mystery Meat, Creepy, Slow Death Zero and Skin Crawl. As an actor, he has appeared in numerous short films, TV shows, music videos by Anthrax and Beck, and a Days Inn commercial. He wrote, co-produced and scored the Lovecraftian hygiene films "Baby Got Bass" and "Stay At Home Dad," which can be viewed on YouTube.
In 1998 Scott Glancy left a perfectly functional career as an attorney to join up with the role-playing game publisher Pagan Publishing, the nerd equivalent of running away to join the Foreign Legion. Today Scott is the man in charge of Pagan Publishing (much in the same sense that the last surviving legionnaire can be said to be in command of Fort Zinderhoff). Pagan’s most recent project is “Horrors of War,” an anthology of scenarios set during the Great War for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. Scott is a contributing author on the award-winning Delta Green series of Call of Cthulhu rpg supplements and has had Lovecraftian fiction published in several short story collections including the recent "Book of Cthulhu II," "Shotguns v. Cthulhu," and the upcoming “Swords v. Cthulhu.” You can hear his recorded games sessions on Role-Playing Public Radio, and listen to him bloviate on the Unspeakable Podcast and Podcast at Ground Zero.