For a writer who created a race of malevolent mushroom-based life-forms inhabiting a distant world, Howard Phillips Lovecraft was not exactly what you might call a fun guy.

A lonely, illness-prone child, he grew up to inhabit an insular, hermit-like life in which he suffered greatly from the deaths of his parents and eventually succumbed to a painful end from intestinal cancer in 1937. No surprise, then, that he produced an enduring body of work that had at its core bleakness, nihilism, and the frailty of the human race against the cosmic horror of all-encompassing galactic beings.

Lovecraft's stories are gathered under the banner the Cthulhu Mythos, taking its name from the great, ancient god at the heart of his downbeat cosmology. Cthulhu is described by Lovecraft as "... an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature ..." and with "a pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque scaly body with rudimentary wings".

What is surprising is that, the best part of a century after Cthulhu was created, the muck-encrusted god has spawned an entire industry that seems intent on making the Great Old Ones, well, cuddly.

The Elder Gods alone would know what Lovecraft would make of Plush Cthulhu – the perfect accompaniment to help any self-respecting cultist embark on their own dream-quest. The idea of the slime-god forever sleeping in his underwater city of R'lyeh rendered as a soft toy is all kinds of wrong. A particular soft toy – known as Fluff Cthulhu – is a regular on the SF/Fantasy convention circuit, and may be working his eldritch magicks through his earthbound minion, the author Charles Stross.

Cthulhu mints, anyone? As the makers say, "We're just speculating here, but it would seem that a hideous, tentacle-faced monster like Cthulhu could have some seriously nasty breath." Perhaps wash them down with a drink from your Cthulhu Evil Elixir waterbottle?

There's more. In a bid to make Lovecraft's dark creations appeal to a younger audience than intended, Bruce Brown and Dwight L MacPherson have written two graphic novels aimed at children, Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom (which they created with artist Renzo Podesta) and Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom (created with artist Thomas Boatwright). Putting a young Lovecraft as the protagonist at the centre of his own mythos (he's bequeathed the dreaded Necronomicon book by his father), the boy-hero Howard adventures through the squamous terrors of Lovecraft's fiction with a friendly monster he names Spot, much like a modern Little Nemo or perhaps Calvin and Hobbes. It's great stuff, well illustrated – and shows that it's never too early to expose your children to the crushing certainty that the universe is full of malicious entities who want to eat us all.

Finally, no cultist's collection is complete without a selection of HP Lovecraft's words put to bluegrass music, such as the album courtesy of the Back to Lovecraft project. If you've ever wondered what the result of adding banjo and harmonica to Lovecraft's flights of fancy would be, take it from me: it certainly takes the edge off.

There's only one major gap in the Lovecraft merchandising machine that I can see, so come on, Heinz – how about a special edition HP Sauce, perhaps in time for the 75th anniversary of his death on 15 March?