Thomas Ligotti Online - 20 Year Anniversary

[dr. locrian]

After discovering, Ligotti’s work back in 1991, I felt like the only reader alive who had a profound connection with his fiction. And I wanted to share that feeling. Sure, I successfully recruited a Ligotti reader here and there over the years, but for the longest time I felt like my enthusiasm for his work wasn’t widely or even moderately shared, and I longed to discuss Ligotti’s prose with other like-minded readers. As a research and, later, law librarian—in the days before Netscape—I began surfing the World Wide Web using an early version of a text only browser called lynx. For years of solid web presence thereafter, I tried to spread the word about Ligotti’s work but became increasingly frustrated at the relative lack of awareness about his fiction throughout cyberspace.

Finally, in 1997—upon receiving a job in New York City which paid me very little but gave me tons of free time to mess about on the Internet—I truly became a Ligotti advocate (some would say an annoying advocate) on the old alt.horror.cthulhu Usenet newsgroup. After some argument and semantical wrangling (see this [http://tinyurl.com/yg6tras] rather hilarious proposal thread featuring a much more uptight version of myself), I managed to get the alt.books.thomas-ligotti newsgroup created, with the nearly sole support of Matt Cardin, who spent so many of those early days creating impromptu, brilliant analyses of Ligotti's work. A website, cobbled together using stolen HTML from a William Faulkner fan website, wasn’t far behind the newsgroup. Version 1 of TLO from early 1998 is—sadly—lost to the cyber-void as far as I know. Version 2 from the Fall 1998 can be found here (at least in part), and Version 3 existed for the next five years of so and looked like this.

I’m proud of these difficult, initial efforts. In version 1 through 3 of TLO, we published a number of Ligotti stories, some for the first time. TLO—for instance—was the first publisher of the Ligotti and Brandon Trenz penned, original X-Files­ screenplay, Crampton, and was the original home for Ligotti’s masterful novella, My Work Is Not Yet Done. It has also been—for 20 years now—the source for (more or less) updated Ligotti-related news, a place for Ligotti readers to chat and share thoughts and ideas with each other, and—notably—a place in which Ligotti-inspired work may be shared. TLO published Matt Cardin’s remarkable short story, “Teeth,” for the first time anywhere.

About five or six years into TLO’s twenty year life to date, the website had fallen into quiescence—mainly due to my challenging job and active home life in New Orleans. Fortunately, back in 2004, Brian Poe (aka Dr. Bantham) contacted me with a plan to revive the site. And, boy, did he ever revive it. For the next 14 years, TLO became a thriving, vigorous community of Ligotti readers, which is what I originally intended but didn't have the know-how or time to pull off. I can never repay Brian for what he’s accomplished. We've had our ups and downs over the past two decades, but TLO remains an important source of analysis and discussion of weird fiction and more, well beyond its original Ligotti-centric intent. Back in 2005, in fact, Ligotti himself wrote of TLO, “what I like the most about the site is the idea of people who appreciate my horror stories talking about stuff that has nothing to do with my horror stories and, as we used to say in the sixties, just doing their own thing.”

Two decades after its inception, TLO is more energized than ever, with the imminent launch of Vastarien: A Literary Journal (Kickstarter campaign dropping this Tuesday) to Cadabra Record's release of Ligotti's The Bungalow House. And there will be some more TLO-related surprises to share in the coming months.

Happy Birthday, TLO. Here's to twenty more years of weirdness, derangement and macabre goodness.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Nemonymous]

Happy Birthday, TLO. And thanks and congratulations to Dr Locrian and Dr Bantham. I thought I was slow in not finding this site until 2005, and I was!
I have made valuable friends here and been inspired since then by what goes on here. Ups and downs, too, yes, but that is the rich tapestry of TLO in an otherwise largely empty universe.

And RIP and many thanks to GS Carnivals aka Spotbowserfido.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Michael]

Many wishes for another 20!!!

[waffles]

"As events transpired, however, the recipient of my commemorative bouquet had to be someone named ... "

TYLER

Happy birthday to the best horror site on the internet.

[ramonoski]

A hearty thank you to both Drs. for keeping this site up and running, and to everyone that has made and keeps making this community the good, comfy place it is.

To celebrate, here's a cake that presumably comes from the bakery department at the red tower

[Mr. Veech]

Happy birthday to my little place of refuge! This is quite literally the only place where I can be myself.

Happy 20th. Another year and TLO can have a drink.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Thossyphus]

Thanks for all you do and have done Doctors L and B. I don't say much, but I adore this little haven and its menagerie of ghouls.

[Insentient Traveler]

Thank you, both Dr.s. You have created and maintained an excellent refuge, an awesome resource, and a unique and friendly meeting place.
(Strangely I would like a slice of that cake from the Red Tower, even if it would be my last.)