By Silvia Moreno-Garcia
I’ve been under the weather and haven’t been able to write a Found on the Net. Did you miss me? At any rate, I’ve got acool Lovecrafty thing to talk about today.
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ horror comic book series Fatale features Alfred Ravenscroft, a Lovecraft stand-in and pulp horror writer. Fatale has been described as a supernatural noir story, initially announced as a 12-issue maxi-series, but upgraded to an ongoing title in November 2012. It follows the titular fatale, Josephine, in the present and the past. She is possibly an immortal creature and probably dangerous.
In a recent interview, Brubaker says:
I like Lovecraft a lot more in theory than in reality in some ways. There’s no dialogue in [his stories]. It’s rough going, as a modern reader. But what I like is, he created this mythology, and he made the stuff that you’re not seeing the stuff that’s the scariest. The idea of Cthulhu arriving is what drives people crazy, and I love that.
If you’re interested in reading the issues released last year, they’ve been collected in two volumes, titled Fatale, Book 1: Death Chases Me and Fatale, Book 2: The Devil’s Business.
I’ve been reading it since the first issue release. Fantastic stuff. Well written and drawn. I look forward reading each issue and trying to put it all together. The most recent issue had a character that seems to be a composite of HPL and Robert Howard and Ambrose Bierce. Good creepy stuff.
Brubaker actually has a bit of a point. It’s really the ideas that make Lovecraft the literary superstar that he’s become rather than most of the other stuff that we typically tend to associate with brilliant writing. Most of HPL’s dialogue tends to lean towards the expositive side, after all. Still, considering the number of worthy disciples he’s inspired, it’s not enough to really quibble about on balance.