H.P. Lovecraft in the cultural industries: the writer and the brand

The article focuses on the problem of discrepancies between literary texts perception practice and literary theory. Traditional literary theory addresses individual works. Literary text is presented to the reader in conjunction with other interconnected works. That is the way most of the fantasy genre works are perceived. Texts, games, series, films are incorporated into franchises. The reader interacts with a text that is a part of a franchise. The author, main or supporting characters, or artistic universe may serve as a unifying brand. Interconnectedness of a franchise involves hypertextual logic. The author of this article has analyzed the components of Lovecraftian works as a fiction-based franchise and identified the factors that contribute to integrating separate works into hypertext. Lovecraftian works include short stories by various authors, as well as tabletop games, videogames, comics, and memes. There are games, comics, and storybooks that combine different fictional worlds. The author of this article substantiates the structural interconnectedness of the works with intermedia correlations. For instance, short story genre defines game mechanics or film adaptation genre. Game mechanics promotion influences the following short stories of the same universe. Literary crossovers provide an opportunity for game crossovers development. The author of the article explains turning to fantasy genre by the fact that it is the most flexible and fashionable one. Mass culture is extensively turning to the plots of classical literature. And that is a symptom of franchisation as a trend in arts development.