In his house at R'lyeh the Geek Picture of the Day waits dreaming. A plush "Summer Fun Cthulhu" doll on sale in the Dealer's Room at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio, on June 23, 2011.

For a writer who created a race of malevolent mushroom-based life-forms inhabiting a distant world, Howard Phillips Lovecraft was not exactly what you might call a fun guy. A lonely, illness-prone ...