In 2005, State of the Art Toys released a set of three
figures representing two of the greatest creations from American horror
literature luminary, Howard Philips Lovecraft. The two figures were Dagon and
Cthulhu. Cthulhu would be released in three versions: green, black and light
blue. Dagon would get a single release. The third figure in the set was this
guy, the Ghoul from Lovecraft’s 1926 story “Pickman’s Model”. In 2007, I would
acquire four of the five figures in this set, and in 2015 I’d decide that I
wanted to write on them. So, probably better late than never, here is the first
one: Pickman’s Ghoul.
SOTA for those unfamiliar was an excellent company that
specialized in the pre-2010’s statue-figure market, all the rage in the
post-2000’s with companies like MacFarlane Toys and later NECA leading the
charge. This was back in the absolute halcyon days of the Spawn toyline, when it seemed like every trip to a store that sold
toys (not even specifically a toy store) yielded an entire wave of new Spawn purchases. I am trying so hard
right now to hold back an absolute two thousand word sidebar about those days,
believing that it may make for a better Grave Consideration in the future
weeks, but it is difficult. SOTA specialized in horror and movie related
pieces, sort of like what NECA has been doing the last few years with
properties like Aliens and Predator and their occasional Freddy
Kruger or Jason Voorhees figures. SOTA eventually put out the Nightmares of Lovecraft series, and
would add a pair of large resin statues a few years later before more or less
disappearing.
"Pickman’s Model" tells
the story of an artist by the name of Pickman who produces the most lifelike
and gruesome portraits of ghoulish creatures in his secret studio. No one can
figure out how Pickman is able to conjure the images of his grisly beasts in
his mind and place them in such true-to-life situations, until it is revealed
that Pickman actually has one of these creatures chained up in his secret
studio. Scary. This figure is an attempt to produce a physical representation
of said ghoul, and I think it does a pretty solid job of that. One of the
things that is so, so maddening about Lovecraft and his monsters was the man
was woefully poor at writing descriptions. It’s hard to actually get a mental
image of the thing being referenced, and this is both a blessing and a curse.
The blessing should come in the form of there not being any definitive version
of the creature, allowing for a vast array of concepts to come to life, and
allowing for variation among them. There is no one correct ghoul, and so all ghouls are accepted. The curse comes
from the seeming inability of anyone to actually produce decent representations
of the creatures. Like at all. Descriptions in the text are vague enough to
afford creators a lot of leeway: Dagon is a fish god; Cthulhu is an octopus on
top of a bear with wings; Shoggoths are formless, shifting masses that cannot
be described; a ghoul is kinda just a ghoul.
SOTA’s ghoul is a fearsome monster to be sure. Taking a lot
of cues from the fairly standard werewolf/beastman design, the ghoul is hunched
over in a fashion that speaks of menace but betrays its true height. It is
standing on a base made of human bodies, and holds in one claw a dead and
gnawed body, providing a real sense of the size of the creature. The ghouls
described in the story are kind of convoluted, as the narrator speaks of inbred
families of New Englanders descended from witches and imbued with the powers to
change shape but also made inhuman through generations of inbreeding and
conference with unnatural and evil powers. So, more or less cannibal, feral
humans; but this ghoul is quite obviously a true monster. The increased size of
the beast makes it sit a bit better in context next to the other figures in the
series, as both Dagon and Cthulhu are giants, and so a man-sized monster
doesn’t really measure up. The ghoul has a leathery looking skin, like an
alligator, with a bunch of bumps and spines along the back. The belly is
painted in a cream color, while the rest of the beast is black. One long, lanky
arm touches the ground in front of it, while the other is bent to hold a body
close to its mouth. The mouth is open with two large lower tusks sticking way
out. The eyes are two different colors and are looking in two different
directions. Although, this may be a production error, as that kind of error is
fairly common in this kind of figure: not at all is it unusual to find the more
statue-y figures displaying a couple of paint application issues, as the upper
teeth on my ghoul here can exhibit. In the case of the eyes on this guy, it’s
not a big deal, because it gives an extra dash of unnatural terror to this
beast. It is a monster, it should be monstrous, and as 1818’s Frankenstein taught us all, the primary
characteristic of something monstrous is that it is outside of the natural
order. It’s a pretty scary monster overall. 
Not much in the way of poseability here, as this is one of
those figures that is molded in the pose it is intended to stay in. The ghoul
is the way it is supposed to be: it has a little bit of movement in the arms at
the wrists, and the arm that holds the dead body does swivel a tiny bit. But
too much movement in that arm makes the body slide around and, ultimately, out
of the hand. The body is just cradled in the ghoul hand to begin with, so
without much effort it will slip right out. There is a little bit of play in
the legs as well, but if they get moved too much the feet won’t attach to the
base, and then the whole figure is kind of useless. The feet are cloven hooves,
so the figure doesn’t have the ability to stand on its own independent of the
base. 
What the figure lacks in playability though it makes up for
in detail. The base the figure stands on depicts several human bodies in
various states of desiccation and decay, ranging from recently killed to
practically mummified to a pile of skulls. All of the bodies are different, a
super nice attention to detail touch, rather than repeating like two bodies
four or five times. Some of them have their entrails spilling out, and I’ve got
to say, the base looks very plain from even a medium distance. Get two or three
feet away from it, and it basically looks like a pile of stones or some other
generic thing for a monster to be standing on. But get a good, close look, and
prepare to be amazed at the amount of detail in the sculpt and paint applied to
it. 
Overall, and in comparison to the other two figures in the
set, the Ghoul is pretty plain and simple. Most of the detail and interest is
found in the base, which was not terribly uncommon for a figure of this type
made in this time. Bases or backgrounds were often the more interesting
components of such toys, but that’s not to disparage the actual figure. Neither
of the other two figures come with a base, as they are larger figures and so
don’t need anything to take up the extra mass as the ghoul does. Originally the
figures came is large window boxes, all of them the same size, but the ghoul
would have worked out in a fairly standard plastic clam shell package for its
size. It is the simplest and most easily overlooked piece in the set, and not
really without good reason. Compared to the other two, the ghoul is rather
plain and uninspiring. I have to imagine that with the bestiary Lovecraft left
behind the designers should have been able to come up with a better third entry
for the line, but probably settled on the ghoul for the sake of having a
simpler, cheaper entry when compared to the other two, who are for another day,
but are far more complex and detailed than this guy. Because of the rarity and scarce
initial availability of these figures, even the pretty simple ghoul commands a
fair price on the secondary market, as an eBay auction I found real quick had
one sell for $115. Unless you were interested in the entire set, as I was/am,
or have a real affinity for “Pickman’s Model,” you could probably skip this one
and concentrate on the others.
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