Scan barcode
A review by caitcoy
The Lovecraft Anthology, Volume 1 by Dan Lockwood, H.P. Lovecraft
4.0
If you wish to maintain your sanity and not creep yourself out, I’d recommend reading these stories a few at a time. I of course did not do this and read them all in one sitting. Lovecraft tends to get a different reception depending on who you talk to. Hardcore horror fans who enjoy gore and unrelenting terror are unlikely to be much impressed by Lovecraft’s stories. Lovecraft relies heavily on creeping dread, fear of unfathomable darkness and the darker sides of human nature. The trick of reading Lovecraft is that his writing is dense and sometimes downright dull even when the story he’s telling is a compelling (if horrifying) one. The greatest thing about this anthology is the way that it makes Lovecraft so much more accessible. Instead of having to fight through Lovecraft’s dry writing style, the adaptations and illustrations bring the full creepiness of his stories to vivid life. While I don’t always like graphic novel adaptations in the sense that writing styles can get lost or overwhelmed, in this case it makes the stories so much more readable. Many of the artists and particularly Matt Timson and Alice Duke match the tone of the adaptations with gorgeously disturbing panels that up the creep factor tenfold. Volume 1 includes The Call of Cthulhu, The Hunter of the Dark, The Dunwich Horror, The Colour Out of Space, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Rats in the Walls and Dagon.
If you ever wanted a horror story that will slowly raise the hairs on the back of your neck and make you wary of the darkness, The Lovecraft Anthology is an excellent adaptation of a master of horror. The graphic novel adaptations diminish the worst parts of Lovecraft like his dry writing style and tendency towards suspension of disbelief breaking racism and accelerate the forbidding nature of the stories themselves. Highly recommend it for other Lovecraft fans or anyone who’s been turned off by the denseness of the novel form of the Lovecraft universe.
Full series review here
If you ever wanted a horror story that will slowly raise the hairs on the back of your neck and make you wary of the darkness, The Lovecraft Anthology is an excellent adaptation of a master of horror. The graphic novel adaptations diminish the worst parts of Lovecraft like his dry writing style and tendency towards suspension of disbelief breaking racism and accelerate the forbidding nature of the stories themselves. Highly recommend it for other Lovecraft fans or anyone who’s been turned off by the denseness of the novel form of the Lovecraft universe.
Full series review here