I ran across this term today while researching the kraken.  I understand the author's works (haven't read any of them), so I am curious what this means specifically as to how he writes?

I haven't read any of his works either (though I would love too), but from what I understand is that Lovecraft at his best was a horror/science fiction writer. His works were extremely dark in tone, and always explored a much darker side of humanity. He is known mostly for creating Cthulhu, one of the most notable horrific monsters of all time. He pretty much was the Edgar Allan Poe of the 20th Century.

Using similar themes and a writing style and tone as HP Lovecraft that's what it means. Say for instance if you read some of Lovecraft books then take a look at lets say Steven Kings the Mist the way Steven King describes some of the creatures in the Mist is very similar to how HP Lovecraft described the creatures in his novels. HP would usually give us just enough of a description of what a creature would look like to get a general idea of what something might look like not a full description. He stated in some of his writings that the unknown is more horrifying that what can be seen with the human eye. Many of the creatures he describe lacked a description to be more terrifying. That's what Lovecraftian means to me. :)

@RazzaTazz: Basically it refers to horror by the unknown as opposed to shock and awe with gore.

The first Alien movie would be Lovecraftian because you don't really know what it is and that causes much of the fear as opposed to the horror of something like Saw which is mostly gore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian

All of the above! In particular the hint of an almost incomprehensible reality, only thinly veiled beneath our own.

@RazzaTazz: Horror mixed with themes of dark and ancient cosmic forces, incomprehensible objects and concepts that prove the fragility of sanity--and I suppose if we're being honest--strong themes of racism. Also, as Cthulhu is his most famous creation, anything that visually resembles such is sometimes called Lovecraftian (e.g., the tentacle-faced frog demon things in Hellboy).

@RazzaTazz said:

@fodigg: So then a Kraken would fit in as it is an unidentifiable mass of tentacles from the deep I guess?

Depends on how it's portrayed, but you're definitely in the right visual zone. In the recent New Mutants arc where Doug Ramsey's brain is invaded by an extra-dimensional squid-starfish thing from space? That was Lovecraftian. When Marvel Cosmic had the Rift following the War of Kings where incomprehensible horrors spewed out of it, that was Lovecraftian (especially the figures of the cancerverse). In Watchmen, when a psychic squid (apparently) from space teleports into New York and lets out a psychic wail composed entirely of imagery composed by the world's foremost in horror and it kills or drives insane every psychic on Earth while simultaneously incinerating the city and all its inhabitants, that was about as Lovecraftian as you can get without ancient tentacle-faced space gods and babbling cultists being involved.

@RazzaTazz said:

@fodigg: So just on a related topic, he wrote himself into a lot of his own works right? So that is also Lovecraftian or not so much?

Not really. That's an interesting bit of trivia but it's no more iconic to Lovecraft than it was to Poe, Burroughs, or Hitchcock. Writers have been doing that since and before Dante wrote his Divine Comedy.

@fodigg: So then a Kraken would fit in as it is an unidentifiable mass of tentacles from the deep I guess?

@Metatron_Da_Don: What are you reading?

Really, really f**ked up.

Eldtrich Abomination-y

Indescribable

@Metatron_Da_Don: That is interesting, because he was used as a fictional character in the series Call of Wonderland and he was made a protector of the Earthly realm.