Three-Lobed Burning Eye

The "three-lobed burning eye" is one of many manifestations of Nyarlathotep, a messenger of the Outer Gods, from fiction penned by H. P. Lovecraft. This particular manifestation is a huge bat-winged creature, with a burning tri-lobed eye. In Lovecraft's story "Haunter of the Dark," the character Robert Blake discovers a Shining Trapezohedron in a church steeple in Providence, RI, a place of worship for the Church of Starry Wisdom cult. Narrowly escaping an unseen horror released by the Trapezohedron, Blake realizes the horror can only travel in the dark. When a storm and power blackout envelop the city, he scribbles down his findings, concluding the story with his terrified record of what he can only glimpse of the approaching beast. "I see it-- coming here-- hell-wind-- titan-blur-- black wings-- Yog-Sothoth save me-- the three-lobed burning eye..."

Lovecraft indicated in his letters with then-young writer Robert Bloch, that the character Robert Blake was an intentionally thinly-veiled gesture at killing off one of his friendly correspondents. In 1936, Bloch would publish a story that continued the professional fun, in which Blake did not actually die, but was possessed by Nyarlathotep, and kills off a character based on Lovecraft.

The Magazine

The "Three-lobed Burning Eye" is an online magazine of speculative fiction edited by Andrew S. Fuller. Stories tend to be from the genres of horror and dark fantasy, occasionally science fiction, as well as the styles of magical realism or slipstream. "3LBE" has been publishing triannually since 1998 with stories by writers including Gemma Files, D. F. Lewis, Laird Barron, Tim Waggoner, and Kealan Patrick Burke. An art gallery was featured until issue #15, including award-winning artists Joachim Luetke, David Ho, and Alessandro Bavari. While the magazine takes its name from a Lovecraft story, it is decidedly not a publisher of continuing Cthulhu Mythos stories. A annual anthology is also collected in print.

The Independent Record Label

Three Lobed Recordings is an independent record label based in High Point, NC. The logo and company name are an obvious reference to Nyarlathotep and the exclamation "Iä! Shub-Niggurath!" appears sporadically throughout the site.

References

*Harms, Daniel. "Nyarlathotep" in The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed.), pp. 218–222. Oakland, CA: Chaosium, 1998. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568821697 ISBN 1-56882-119-0]
*Lovecraft, Howard P. "The Haunter of the Dark" (1936) in The Dunwich Horror and Others, S. T. Joshi (ed.), Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1984. ISBN 0-87054-037-8
* [http://www.hplovecraft.com The H. P. Lovecraft archive]
* [http://www.owlsoup.com/3LBE Three-lobed Burning Eye (3LBE)] online magazine
* [http://www.threelobed.com/tlr/home.html Three Lobed Recordings]