Lovecraft

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: A wonderful, beautifully written and illustrated tribute to America's master of the weird and creepy, H. P. Lovecraft. This "may have been/could have been" pseudo-biography of Lovecraft provides deliciously horrid explanations for why Lovecraft's life went the way it did. From his bizarre childhood in which his mother insisted on dressing him as a girl to the difficulties he had in maintaining personal relationships, the authors unceasingly engage with word and pictures in this excellent example of what the graphic novel should be. An astounding, if unsettling work. Readers of Jonathon Scott Fuqua's IN THE SHADOW OF EDGAR ALLAN POE will also enjoy this.

Rating:
Summary: Lovecraft's creepy crawlies eat psyches
Review: A wonderful, beautifully written and illustrated tribute to America's master of the weird and creepy, H. P. Lovecraft. This "may have been/could have been" pseudo-biography of Lovecraft provides deliciously horrid explanations for why Lovecraft's life went the way it did. From his bizarre childhood in which his mother insisted on dressing him as a girl to the difficulties he had in maintaining personal relationships, the authors unceasingly engage with word and pictures in this excellent example of what the graphic novel should be. An astounding, if unsettling work. Readers of Jonathon Scott Fuqua's IN THE SHADOW OF EDGAR ALLAN POE will also enjoy this.

Rating:
Summary: Lovecraft's creepy crawlies eat psyches
Review: A wonderful, beautifully written and illustrated tribute to America's master of the weird and creepy, H. P. Lovecraft. This "may have been/could have been" pseudo-biography of Lovecraft provides deliciously horrid explanations for why Lovecraft's life went the way it did. From his bizarre childhood in which his mother insisted on dressing him as a girl to the difficulties he had in maintaining personal relationships, the authors unceasingly engage with word and pictures in this excellent example of what the graphic novel should be. An astounding, if unsettling work. Readers of Jonathon Scott Fuqua's IN THE SHADOW OF EDGAR ALLAN POE will also enjoy this.

Rating:
Summary: "Lovecraft" sets the standard for comic book craft
Review: The line between genius and madness is often difficult to draw, but especially so when considering the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Lovecraft, who died at age 46 in 1937, is best known for a series of horror tales surrounding a fictional book called the Necronomicon, a hellish text that could call forth any number of gruesome creatures. While the black magic book is merely a figment of Lovecraft's rich, twisted imagination, some believe the Necronomicon to be actual text dating back to A.D. 730 and even referenced by famed future predictor Nostrodamus.

Hans Rodinoff, Keith Giffen and artist Enrique Breccia explore the notion that the Lovecraft family was caretaker to the ghastly text in their superb graphic novel "Lovecraft", easily one of the finest graphic novels of the 21st century, perfectly blending Rodinoff's prose with Breccia's magnificent artwork.

While Rodinoff weaves plenty of truth about Lovecraft into his fiction - such as his oppressive mother forcing him to wear dresses as a small child - he creates a story of a slow decent into madness that might well have been penned by Lovecraft himself. Breccia's artwork perfectly pulls the reader across the planes of delusion and sanity by mixing media in an artistic achievement seldom seen in the comic-book genre. For sequences of delusions, Breccia works in a loose watercolor. Characters flow and bleed in bright, vibrant reds, greens and blues. In waking-world sequences, Breccia adopts a tighter pen-and-ink style with watercolor accents and a heavy cross-hatching shading creating a realistic study of Lovecraft's life outside of madness, where the watercolor highlights are more muted and controlled with tighter brushwork.

Rodinoff's choice of Lovecraft as a subject should hopefully shed more light on one of the great American horror fiction writers of the early 20th century. Lovecraft bridged the gap between Edgar Allan Poe in the mid-19th century and today's horror masters such as Stephen King. Lovecraft's stories often drew upon Poe's spiritual studies of the human condition while incorporating the twists from unintended consequences of the new scientific and technological era emerging in his time.

Lovecraft remains something of a counterculture fascination to this day. A Dungeon and Dragons-style role-playing game based on Lovecraft fiction is still played by devotees. The Necronomicon, and Lovecraft's writings, are referenced in countless pop music songs, most notably by Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult. And Lovecraft has inspired a handful of horror movies. Perhaps the most well-known is 1985's "Reanimator," the tale of a doctor who discovers a serum that reanimates the dead.

Rodinoff's treatment of Lovecraft's legend and legacy is a true and tender tribute. Rodinoff's story incorporates not only a fascinating study of the human mind and madness, but also a beautiful tale about the redemptive power of love and the struggles of a dysfunctional childhood.

Daniel P. Finney
St. Louis Post Dispatch(...)

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: What a great, fresh take on Lovecraft...the man and the mythologies. A Lovecraftian tale about Lovecraft's life, deftly splitting the hairline fracture between imagination and insanity. The most highly-recommended graphic novel I've read in the past 2 years.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty but Dumb
Review: While the artwork has its own rather kinky charm and the fictive story line is obvious enough (unless you've really gone off the deep end of Devil's Reef), Lovecraft novices are still liable to come away from this book with misconceptions, and some old-timers are likely to find the blend of tabloid style and speculation vulgar. Does anyone still believe, for instance, that Sarah Susan L. was doing anything outside the 19th century norm in dressing little Howard in a frock (not a dress), or that this had the least effect on his psyche? It's rather like the film Amadeus - where does the fun stop and the misinformation begin? If you want to get close to Lovecraft the man, go with S.T. Joshi's mammoth bio (Necronomicon Press) or Peter Cannon's splendid collection of memoirs, Lovecraft Remembered (Arkham House), and if you want really good comic adaptions, try something like Esteban Maroto's Call of Cthulhu(Cross Plains Comics).