Today is Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s birthday, and the prolific author would’ve turned 125 years old. While not incredibly popular in his time (though his tales did populate many a page in pulp magazines towards the end of his life), Lovecraft has ended up being a prescient and enormously influential writer whose tales of creeping dread, ancient evils, and monstrous visions have been reflected in works as diverse as John Carpenter’s The Thing, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and even Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. Lovecraft himself is a bit of a problematic figure, as his xenophobic and racist beliefs tended to inform his writing, but those elements are glossed over in today’s world where Cthulhu has become a pop icon, appearing in dozens of games, videos, and the occasional dessert.