The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re pouring ourselves into our rubber suits and orthopaedic shoes. Doing up all these straps can be murder when your fingers are made of protoplasm. We’re going to need a nice, tasty stray dog or two to get our energy back after all this messing around. At least we’ve learnt how to maintain a human countenance atop all the ooze, fat face and all. Extruding a new head can be, well, a headache.



Fat Face



This episode is our discussion of Michael Shea’s Mythos tale, “Fat Face”. Originally published as a chapbook in 1987, this nasty little novelette has since been collected in countless anthologies. It’s probably sitting in one of those Mythos books on your shelf right now, waiting patiently for you.



As well as being a great story in its own right, “Fat Face” is the origin of shoggoth lords, as seen in the Call of Cthulhu RPG. We take a little detour into their presentation in the game and some of the ways they’ve been used.



The protagonist of the story is a sex worker, and while the story isn’t at all prurient, it also doesn’t shy away from some of the more dangerous aspects of Patti’s profession. Be warned that our discussion mentions the story’s depictions of violence against women, threats of sexual violence, drug use, body horror and animal cruelty.






Links



Things we mention in this episode include:




* FatFace clothing brand



* Michael Shea



* A Quest For Simbilis by Michael Shea



* The Dying Earth by Jack Vance



* Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities



* Weird fiction











* Sword and sorcery



* Nifft the Lean by Michael Shea



* Mr Cannyharme by Michael Shea



* Demiurge by Michael Shea



* The Autopsy: Best Weird Stories of Michael Shea



* The Best Fantasy and Horror Volume 1 edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling



* Cthulhu 2000



* The Color Out of Time by Michael Shea



* “The Colour Out o...