MONSTROUS BAT
"She affirm'd, and her good neighbours likewise, that it had been borne to her, and took oath that she did not know by what manner it had come upon her, for it was neither Beast nor Man but like to a monstrous Bat with human face. It made no sound but look'd at all and sundry with baleful eyes. There were those who swore that it bore a frightful resemblance to the Face of one long dead, one Richard Bellingham or Bollinhan who is affirm'd to have vanished utterly after consort with Daemons in the country of New Dunnich. The horrible Beast-Man was examined by the Court of Azzizes and the which then burnt by Order of the High-Sherif on the 5th of June in the year 1788."
H.P. Lovecraft & August Derleth, The Lurker At the Threshold
I've made my disdain for Derleth's fiction well known on this blog, but sometimes his prompts do inspire some cool creatures. I imagine this thing was related to the four-pawed thing, which I modeled after the weird dog in Invasion Of the Body Snatchers. I think Derleth was going for a witch familiar-style creature which makes sense.
This was redrawn purely to fix line, coloring & rendering.
As far as I can tell there are no other renditions of this creature. Probably because, while Derleth's fiction is hard to read, his HPL "collars" are worse and this one, in particular, is the most meandering, confused and difficult to parse of all. It's just stilted and poorly written.
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