H.P. Lovecraft has experienced a posthumous renewal similar to many pulp authors. He began his career writing for Weird Tales, but his work found new life in paperback collections for years after his death. Dismissed by mainstream literary critics as a bizarre, wordy peculiarity, Lovecraft found an audience amongst musicians, horror fans, and an assortment of underground scenes and subcultures. Everyone from Black Sabbath to the Fields of the Nephilim and even Metallica have drawn inspiration from Lovecraft’s work. Call of Cthulhu has been a staple of tabletop role-playing games for years. References and nods to the author’s work appear in movies and television, discretely injected by in-the-know writers. And, Lovecraft’s standing with mainstream literary critics has steadily improved as a result. There are annotated editions of his work. Brown University has a notable collection of his books, letters, essays, and more. The prestigious Library of America publishes a Lovecraft volume. Barnes and Noble Classics even published a complete collection of his fiction (which has, unfortunately, gone out of print because of typos). And, Lovecraft has always had a home in comics. From a volume of adapted stories by Graphic Classics to some interesting reinterpretations in Marvel MAX’s H.P. Lovecraft’s Haunt of Horror to a bevy of Cthulhu Mythos pastiches from Boom!, the comic world—in the same manner as so many hard rock bands—recognized the genius of Lovecraft’s work long before the literary establishment did. Besides adaptations, Lovecraft himself has appeared in a surprising number of comics—usually as the protagonist enduring the creations he would later write about. There was the Vertigo graphic novel Lovecraft by Hans Rodionoff, Keith Giffen, and Enrique Breccia. Rebellion released a miniseries by Gordon Rennie serialized in 2000 A.D. called Necronauts that featured Lovecraft teaming up with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini. And now, we are fortunate to have The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft from Image and by Mac Carter, Tony Salmons, and Adam Byrne.
Young Howard Phillips Lovecraft leads an unviable life. He lives with two drunken spinster aunts—his mother committed years before. He writes a bit, but editors find his work strange. Lately, writer’s block keeps him from even doing much of that. And, with all the work he isn’t doing, he can’t even make it to his date with Sylvia on time. Needless to say, she dumps him and finds herself drawn to the rich, suave Grayson Chesser—in her words “a war hero and all around good egg.” Lovecraft doesn’t care for her new beau and the feeling’s more than mutual. Adding logs to the fire, the author gets mugged on the waterfront by two sailors. It only gets worse when, that night, he dreams of their grisly demise at the tentacles of an unnamable horror—and wakes up to discover it really happened. Naturally, the police take great interest to his pocket watch, which they discover at the crime scene. Initially, they can’t really pin the murders on Lovecraft, but then others around him begin to suffer the same nightmarish attacks. The author realizes that when he sleeps, something comes through his dreams and torments those that have wronged him—whether he likes it or not. But, The Strange Adventures H.P. Lovecraft hardly stands as some kind of second-rate Christine-type revenge fantasy—you know: misunderstood protagonist sleeps while dark forces strike down his enemies. It begins with that premise, but the real twist comes when we learn that the eldritch forces that emerge from Lovecraft’s mind want something very particular. Their destruction of his enemies is only a means to an end. Their goal hardly stands as shocking in the razor-wire-cutting-off-limbs sense. But, to any writer who’s said to himself, as Ozzy Osbourne put it, “I have a vision that I just can't control,” the ending will means worlds. Anyone who truly needs to write will understand the way one’s ideas can torment them until they find life on the page. Mac Carter, Tony Salmons, and Adam Byrne take this idea literally and one step forward.
Lovecraft enthusiasts—and those that write biographical fictions like this one—often speculate how one man could express such an intricate pantheon of weirdness. In the spirit of good fun and good horror, writers like Mac Carter suggest that Lovecraft was haunted by the very things he wrote about. In reality, we can probably chalk it up to his raucous upbringing and the unfortunate circumstances of much of his adult life—both parents succumbing to madness at different times, a childhood fraught with illness, frequent nightmares, a failed marriage, and more. But, no writer interested in Lovecraft’s life can resist creating a more literal connection between the author and his work. As such, the team behind The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft sees Lovecraft as a gatekeeper of sorts. And his role—at least to those creatures tied to the Necronomicon at Brown University’s Library—ultimately ends the debilitating writer’s block with which he begins the story. Truly, the entities are terrible, but they lead Lovecraft to the things for which we know him best in our world.
We must give more than respect for the art of Tony Salmons (pencils, inks) and Adam Byrne (cover art, and colors). Appropriate for the period, the art looks like something out of a cartoon printed in The New Yorker. The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft breathes with the spirit of the roaring ‘20s. There is a scene in the first issue in the Dreyfus Hotel, where Grayson Chesser romances Sylvia surrounded by cigar smoke, jazz musicians, and people dancing. Salmons and Byrne dutifully plunge us into Lovecraft’s world of Prohibition-era New England, while handling the author’s terrible visions with equal aplomb. Many authors of Lovecraft pastiches—both biographical and not—often forget to acknowledge the real world around Lovecraft and his fiction, overwhelmed by the larger ideas in his stories. Thankfully, Salmons and Byrne gives us both sides of Lovecraft’s life in stunning, loving detail.
The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft hasn’t been collected in trade yet, but the rights to the film have been purchased by Universal and Imagine Entertainment. Lovecraft’s work has long been ill-treated by Hollywood, though many independent filmmakers have worked wonders. Hopefully, the film adaptation of this wonderful comic will change all that. You can keep up-to-date on the film and the comic’s (hopeful) eventual trade release here.
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When talking about Lovecraft tributes, don't forget to mention Arkham Asylum in gotham City...