Jarred W. Wallace

Hopefully this will be the last fluff mythos item I see for a while. The natural backlash for Cthulhu becoming such an iconic representation of hopelessness and horror is humor, irony and ridicule. I guess that's why we have so many Cthulhu plushies, Cthulhu prokeds hitops, Cthulhu for president bumper stickers and send ups of children's books using mythos critters. Off hand I can think of the very handsome productions of The Antarctic Express and Where the Deep Ones Are by Ken Hite (probably with more to come), The Littlest Shoggoth, a chapbook by Stan!, Baby's First Mythos by CJ Henderson (with superior art by his daughter, Erica) and the entertaining Cthulhu Rainy Day Activity Book by Michael Zug. All of these books are basically novelties, collectors items for fans of mythos material, comic books or related geekery. Maybe I'm not the same level mythos geek as Robert Price but I have managed to get copies of all of these, which probably says something about me...hmmm, moving on...

Mother Hydra's Mythos Rhymes was written by Jarred W. Wallace, the proprieter of Dagon Industries, which offers up such memorabilia, novelty items and collectibles as I mentioned in the first part of this review (interestingly editing is by Scott Glancy of Delta Green fame). He goes to a number of mythos conventions annually and obviously has affection for the material so it was only natural for him to come up with a chapbook/booklet like this. As you might imagine, Mr. Wallace took some popular nursery rhymes and children's songs, and wrote mythos type lyrics for them. He also provides a mythos alphabet, not dissimilar to Baby's First Mythos. As for the 'poetry' it is only slightly amusing at first glance, and wears out its welcome pretty fast. On the other hand, that won't be the reason anyone buys this book anyway. They probably were collectors, liked the idea and bought it right away, or glanced at it and saw the really big selling point. Cover art and a very generous number of interior drawing are provided by Heather Hudson, and they are wonderful! The cover is especially charming with three children sitting at Mother Hydra's knees. The art for the mythos alphabet is outstanding.

I think most copies available for list price are long gone, but it's worth it to scrounge around for an unclaimed or used copy somewhere. The art by Heather Hudson will make this a classic.… (altro)