Review Tuesday: HP Lovecraft by Gou Tanabe

After discovering the horror stylings of HP Lovecraft, spooky season just isn't the same, to me, unless I have something related posted here. This year I am posting the manga adaptations of some of HPL's work by Gou Tanabe. 

 

H.P. Lovecraft's The Hound and Other Stories

 

This cover contains three of HPL's stories told in the manga format. Throughout the body of work by Lovecraft he had several recurring themes. In same way or shape, everything has something to do with the occult. Whether the characters are actively trying to summon something, or do it unintentionally, it's usually with horrific and deadly results. Gou Tanabe selected a handful of stories that were rooted in our reality. There was none of that dream world stuff or any other oddities that HPL would sometimes visit in his writings. These were ALL unfortunate and tragic human endeavors into things they didn't know nor understand. 

 

THE TEMPLE

After the crew of a u-boat discovers the body of a sailor attached to their deck, strange things begin to happen.

For centuries sailors have been known to be a very superstitious lot. It's no different when the crew of a WW2 u-boat finds the corpse of a British sailor clasped to the deck. They pry him off and send him back into the sea, but not before discovering a piece of a small statue on his person. To make matters even more uneasy a couple of the sailors insist they saw the body SWIM AWAY. Everything about this encounter spells out bad omens and the crew starts coming apart at the seams. Matters only continues to get worse as they continue on with their collective descent into madness and death.  

HPL died in 1937. Two years before the German invasion of Poland. He never knew anything about WW2. Oddly, the artist adapted this to a WW2 ship. I suppose the imagery of the swastikas would be more meaningful to the readers than the crosses and the Prussian Eagle. None of those details impacted the story, however. The artistry brought back my memories from reading this story and I very much enjoyed seeing my thoughts as artwork on a page. Excellent rendering.

 

THE HOUND

A pair of grave robbers get more than they bargained for when they steal a relic from a remote site. 

Sometimes there's a reason why things are taboo. Other times things should be left buried. A relic from a grave they robbed seems to bring with it violence, death, and paranoia. 

 

HPL liked to touch on all sorts of taboo subjects. Defiling the dead was something that seemed to come up time and again. People would invade graves, and usually meet terrible consequences for their misdeeds. In this tale, two men take a trip across Europe specifically to rob a particular grave containing some artifact, to add to their collection. Trouble began the moment they acquired their prize and continued up and even AFTER returning it. Madness and paranoia taking over!  

 

THE NAMELESS CITY

In the desert is an ancient city that no one will acknowledge, and for good reason. 

A man discovers the lost and ancient city of the desert that the Arabs want nothing to do with. He quickly learns why. 

 

For me, this was exciting to read because of how the artist's renditions of the forgotten city and the beasts that dwelt within were exactly as I pictured them in my mind's eye. This isn't the scariest story, but it is very descriptive. It was a delight to see it rendered on the page.  

 

Get it on AMAZON

 
H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness Volumes 1 & 2

A scientific excursion into Antarctic ends in tragedy.

Lovecraft generally short stories to be published in various periodicals. He only wrote a couple of novellas. AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS was his first. It was not received well by his publishers. It would later go on to be the cornerstone of his work, the anchor for his Cthulhu mythos, and was (is) even the HPL story that Del Toro would like to adapt to the silver screen. In fact, that is what caused me to begin reading the works of HPL. Years ago Del Toro had already begun work on adapting this for film when PROMETHEUS was announced. Del Toro shelved the idea because he felt the two films might have too many similarities. He just didn't want that sort of comparison. 

 

That intrigued me. While I had always been aware of HPL and his Cthulhu mythos, I had never actually read any of it. So I started with this story and adored the descriptive nature of the writing. From there I got a complete collection of his works that was in chronological order and read it from cover to cover. I became a fan for life. 

 

Having started my own descent into Lovecraftian madness with this story I couldn't wait to see how Tanabe would put the imagery to paper. I must say, I was pleasantly rewarded. He did and amazing job bringing the book to life. But he didn't just turn it into a manga, he did things with the characters that I had never imagined. His depictions of all the various abominations and how they operated was quite different than what I had imagined but didn't go against the sensibilities of the source material. One aspect I did find amusing is that all the human characters look shocked all the time, as well they should with what was going on. 

 

Since Tanabe was turning an entire book into a graphic novel. it took two volumes and some 300 pages to tell this story in this format. I believe he really captured the feel of the story and brought the important parts to life, and in ways you might not expect.

I found these three books REWARDING to read and believe that if you are a fan of the works of HP Lovecraft and like to read graphic novels, you might want to give this collection a shot!

 

Get them on Amazon:

Vol 1

Vol 2