Frank Belknap Long
Frank Belknap Long was an early contributor to the Cthulhu Mythos. Long was good friends with H.P. Lovecraft up to his death in 1937 and was a co-member of both the Kalem Club and Lovecraft Circle along with the original founder of the Cthulhu Mythos. As early as 1928, Frank Belknap Long was writing a preface for an anthology of Howard Phillips Lovecraft stories (never released), while HP Lovecraft ghostwrote a preface to a 1928 release of a poetry collection by Long's aunt.
In fact, the friendship between Frank Belknap Long and H.P. Lovecraft was so deep that noted Lovecraft scholar Peter Cannon wrote a 1985 novel called Pulptime: Being a Singular Adventure of Sherlock Holmes, Lovecraft, and the Kalem Club as if Narrated by Frank Belknap Long, Jr., which fictionalized the two writers' friendship. As late as 1975, Frank Belknap Long was writing an biography of Lovecraft in order to fuel the legend and fill in the gaps of knowledge about his late friend.
Frank Belknap Long's Hound of Tindalos
Frank
Belknap Long introduced a number of favorite Lovecraftian horrors, including
the Hound of Tindalos. The creature first appeared in a 1931 short story of
the same name, "The Hounds of Tindalos". A collection of horror and science
fiction short stories released in 1946 also used the same name.
The Hounds of Tindalos are time traveling monsters. They may not look like hounds at all--it's been suggested they are bat-like or something stranger--but certain characteristics about them are known. The Hounds inhabit the "angles of time", where most normal life inhabits the curves of time. For this reason, a Hound of Tindalos manifests out of sharp angles of 120 degrees of less. Their exact appearance is unknown, since no one has survived long enough to report it. If a hound appears in a puff of smoke and gets on a trail, it pursues that creature through anything. Time travelers risk attracting the attention of the hounds, while a strange blue pus excretes from their tongues or nose. The hounds are said to have lived on the Earth in the distant past, when other animals had only evolved into one-celled organisms.
The Hounds of Tindalos come from a long literary tradition of hell hounds, black dogs, and black shucks, but Frank Belknap Long created them as something different and far stranger. These creatures remain one of the starkest and most enduring of the monsters in any Cthulhu Mythos bestiary. You'll find the Hounds of Tindalos in any board game like Arkham Horror, as well as all versions of the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game.
The Horror from the Hills
Frank Belknap Long's 1963 The Horror from the Hills, first serialized in Weird Tales in 1931, is one of his most famous stories with the general public. He claimed the story came from a dream related to him by H.P. Lovecraft himself.
The Space-Eaters
The early Lovecraftian short story, "The Space-Eaters," includes a fictionalized version of H.P. Lovecraft as the main character. This is one of many in-jokes and sly references to one another Howard Phillips Lovecraft and members of the Lovecraft Circle included in their exploration of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Comic Books Written by Frank Belknap Long
In the 1940s, Frank Belknap Long wrote scripts for a number of comic books. Only some of these scripts, such as his contributions to Adventures Into the Unknown, were horror-related. Other comic contributions include Superman, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Captain Marvel during the Fawcett Comics era, Congo Bill, and Planet Comics. Though he didn't write screenplays in the 1940s, Frank Belknap Long worked as a script-reader for Twentieth Century Fox.
Gothic Novels
Starting in 1966, Frank Belknap Long wrote a series of Gothic novels. These novels started with So Dark a Heritage, which was released under the name Lyda Belknap Long--including the name of his wife, Lady Arco, in the publishing line. These gothic novels weren't of especially great quality, as they were only written to provide a living for Frank and his wife.
Frank Belknap Long Biography
Frank Belknap Long was born in Harlem in 1901. By 1919 or so, he was contibuting to the United Amateur Press Association. His 1921 contribution to the UAPA, The Eye Above the Mantle, won the approval of H.P. Lovecraft. The two began a correspondence and friendship that lasted until Lovecraft's death in 1937. From 1923 onward, Frank Belknap Long sold short stories to pulp magazines like Weird Tales and Astounding Science Fiction. These contributions would continue into the 1960s.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside
Frank Belknap Long wrote a 1975 biography of H.P. Lovecraft detailing the life of the founder of the Lovecraft Circle and chief creator of the Cthulhu Mythos. Just under 5,000 copies of the book were released by Arkham House and the editor, Jim Turner, claimed to have been dissatisfied with the result. If you want a reference point for why this opinion would be included, Jim Turner was editor of two Lovecraftian horror anthologies: Cthulhu 2000: A Lovecraftian Anthology and Eternal Lovecraft: The Persistence of HPL in Popular Culture. The Frank Belknap Long biography of Lovecraft was one of three Lovecraft biographies to come out in 1975, signaling an increased interest in the late-writer's life story. The other two biographies were Lovecraft at Last by Willis Conover and Lovecraft: A Biography by L. Sprague de Camp.'