I enjoyed Gou Tanabe’s graphic adaptations of Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness (you can read my review here) and THE CALL OF CTHULHU (you can read my review here) so I ordered Tanabe’s H. P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth (2023).
“The Shadow Over Innsmouth” is one of Lovecraft’s most iconic stories. It has all the dread and horror you could ask for in Cthulhu Mythos story. A narrator tells of a town in Massachusetts that embodies the word “creepy.” As the story unfolds, more and more details about the weird residents and the threat Innsmouth presents becomes apparent.
“The investigation ultimately concluded with the arrest and detention of many of the town’s residents in concentration camps as well as a submarine torpedoing nearby Devil Reef, which the press falsely reported as Prohibition liquor raids.” (Wikipedia) Lovecraft slowly ratchets up the suspense (and chilling aspects) as the secrets of Innsmouth are revealed.
Once again, Gou Tanabe’s wonderful artwork illuminates Lovecraft’s tale. GRADE: A
Great creepy cover!
Jeff, Gou Tanabe really channels H.P. Lovecraft in his graphic books! Creepy indeed!
Not available at any of my local libraries. Time to crank up the InterLibrary Loan Machine.
Jerry, you will be impressed by Gou Tanabe’s H.P. LOVECRAFT’S THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH. He brings one of Lovecraft’s greatest works to life…and death!
The illustrations are fine and look far better than most I’ve seen for Lovecraft stories although I’m still of the Lewton mindset that horror is best imagined and not depicted. I’ve read the story and have to say that the fact monstrous residents of older, decaying neighborhoods were typically thinly disguised stand-ins for immigrants makes their round-up and internment in concentration camps a bit disturbing, and I’m typically not thin-skinned about Lovecraft’s racist streak.
The ending is also reminiscent of, and I’m sure inspired, a sequel published back in the thirties by an obscure author whose name I can’t recall wherein the army takes to subways to track down and eradicate all of Pickman’s monstrous relatives. It was penned long before the Kiernan story.
Byron, there’s no disguising Lovecraft’s racist and anti-Semitic tendencies in THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH (and his other work). But my focus is on Lovecraft’s Mythos of powerful alien creatures secretly affecting our world. That trope never gets old for me!
HPL’s attitudes (though his marriage with a Jewish woman, and kindnesses toward his writer friends of various ethnicities, suggest to me he was Wising Up some by the end of his short life), and tendency to attempted heightened effect though distressed vagueness always did lead to my enjoyment of his greater heirs more–though I will never discount his influence and encouragement of particularly Robert Bloch and Frirz Leiber. And these are impressive illustrations.
Years since I read Lovecraft. Don’t remember reading this story. Is this a graphic novel?
A lot of younger people can’t — or just won’t — remember the old days, and they scoff when I tell them trhis, nit I actually went to school with Cthulu (That’s how he spelled it in those days. He later added the “h” because he thought “Cthulu” sounded noyrr
A lot of people don’t believe this, but I actually went to school with Cthulu (That’s how he spelled it in those days; he later added the other “h” to make it sound less ethnic.) Of course, I was just a Freshman, and he was an upperclassman, and the BMOC, so we didn’t mix much, but I could tell you stories….
Dan, I can just imagine you and your pal Cthulhu…with his tentacles wrapped around you!