The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft (2010)

By Mac Carter, Tony Salmons, and Adam Byrne

Image Comics

176 pages

Opening with the legend of Abdul Alhazred’s discovery of an ancient temple and of an ancient race that walked the Earth before humanity, “The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft” fires without warning. The prologue continues through Alhazred’s mysterious death at the hands of an invisible being in the middle of a crowded marketplace.

Fast forward to 1920’s New England, in the middle of a discussion between two publishing executives for Weird Tales about a writer whose works may be too weird even for that publication. Howard Philips Lovecraft struggles to write stories that appeal to the masses, and finds himself in a dreadful fit of writer’s block while living with his alcoholic aunts. His father dead, Lovecraft often visits his mother at an asylum and regularly meets with the head psychiatrist to get updates on her condition. Lovecraft also seeks the affection of a librarian, but his preoccupied personality and habitual tardiness causes a rift between them, and leads her into the arms of another. H.P. Lovecraft’s life is in shambles, and things are about to get worse.

One night, while on a walk near the docks, Howard is accosted, mugged, and assaulted by two thugs. This event leads into a series of events that promise to change Lovecraft’s life forever. His mind and sanity will be tested, as will the police and the public’s perceptions of reality. Just as Howard’s life begins to crumble, a book is brought to the Brown Library at Brown University, and Lovecraft falls under its spell. He begins to have dreams of eldritch creatures and horrors unimaginable, and these dreams are not confined to the Sandman’s reality; they mirror events in his world, and soon the police and even his loved ones begin to suspect that he is responsible for these events and murders.

The story in this graphic novel is engrossing from the start, and beautifully blends Lovecraftian lore with the author’s own biography to create a new legend about the origins of his ideas, particularly “The Dunwich Horror”. The story moves mysteriously, taking the reader on a tour of Lovecraft’s life and the unfortunate events that make his life dreary, and eventually climbing higher to a zenith just before dropping the reader in a freefall of mystical events.

The dialogue and narration are perfectly suited for this type of work, and the art is similar to that of many of the “Silent Hill” comics, making for a combination that marks an enviable standard for horror comics. The 2010 tome is labeled as “Volume 1”, but a second has not yet been produced, which is a shame, because I give this a solid 5 out of 5.