Re: New Ligotti Interview in Weird Tales Spring Issue
 

My copy finally arrived, and yesterday I sat down to read the interview. Excellent, as always. Ligotti's answers are very detailed. He discusses Conspiracy at some length, along with Poe. Somehow, the interview felt a bit short, though it takes up five or six pages of the issue. I suppose you can never get enough of Ligotti.

Then, there's the photo! I had forgotten this interview contains one until I opened it. Though small, it's the clearest image I have ever seen of him--with maybe exception of the one on the back cover of Dagon (the Ligotti special). That one, though, is from quite awhile ago. This appears to be a recent picture. It's fascinating and a slightly jarring to see the man "unmasked." At least for me. Not that there's anything odd about his appearance (indeed, he looks like a writer), certainly, but I'm always a little jolted due to the sheer scarcity of Ligotti pictures.

Re: New Ligotti Interview in Weird Tales Spring Issue
 

He is rather mysterious, isn't he?

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/object3/...59346_2210.jpg

I don't know why, but when I first read "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World" I thought he was an older college professor somewhere in the midwest. Ah, what a babe in the woods I was... The first time I saw a picture of him I did a double-take. Not at all what I expected!

Re: New Ligotti Interview in Weird Tales Spring Issue
 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about Ligotti's image, Sam. I didn't have quite that reaction myself, but I was surprised at how he conformed to my opinion of what he must look like. Perhaps naively, I often conjure up pictures of what authors look like as I try to hear their voices in my head when I go over their words. I was pleasantly surprised by Ligotti's appearance.

He looks very much like an intellectual and writer--or at least how I expect one to look with the type of voice that comes through in his fiction. On the other hand, the image of Ligotti has bled into how I see some of his stories. When I read My Work Is Not Yet Done, I can't not see Frank Dominio as Ligotti like in appearance. I suppose it's much the same with Lovecraft's work, where I view many of his narrators as H.P. Lovecraft look-alikes.

Has anyone else had this experience after reading Ligotti and seeing pictures of him, and then going back to re-read certain tales?

Re: New Ligotti Interview in Weird Tales Spring Issue
 

When I first read Ligotti, I vaguely imagined him as being thin, pale, bespectacled, and with slightly shaggy hair that is neither long nor short -- in other words, looking kind of like R. Crumb (although I wasn't thinking specifically of R. Crumb at the time). So when I first saw a picture of him, I was both surprised and not surprised to see that he looks pretty much like I thought he should.

On the other hand, there are some authors who look nothing like I thought they would -- Hunter S. Thompson and Gene Wolfe come to mind.

Re: New Ligotti Interview in Weird Tales Spring Issue
 

It's interesting because all of the pictures (or should I say the few) floating around of Tom are pretty old. If you saw a recent picture of him you may not recognize him as the man in the previous images that you have seen, at least not immediately. He's changed considerably, as many of us do.

Re: New Ligotti Interview in Weird Tales Spring Issue
 

I finally got around to getting this mag and reading the interview. Ligotti is fascinating as always. I like it when he discusses Poe, Kafka, and Lovecraft.

My favorite line in the interview is when they asked him about The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and he said: "Conspiracy interweaves several thematic threads and ultimately resolves into a view of human existence as an ordeal resembling those depicted in tales of supernatural horror."

Does that book sound great or what? Keep them updates coming about the publication date.