"Eldritch Etchings: Cthulhu in Comics" (I told you it'd probably change!) continues with the second installment highlighting the little known adaption of a prose piece entitled, Only The End of the World Again. Originally written by Neil Gaiman, then adapted for the comic form by P. Craig Russel and pencilled by Troy Nixey, the story originally appeared in three issues of the now canceled Oni Double Feature, an anthology title from Oni in it's early days.
The story itself is an odd blend of Lovecraft and Gaiman, featuring not only the infamous locale of Innsmouth, but a werewolf character created by Gaiman for a Baywatch/Beowulf spoof poem he wrote. The story focuses around the inhabitants of Innsmouth's attempts to raise the Elder Gods and the werewolf's, Lawrence Talbot's, roll in their schemes.
Possible Spoilers
The first thing you'll notice when opening the book is Troy Nixey's art. I'm not really sure how to describe it other than ugly. Now, usually this would be considered a bad thing, but it's not.. well, not mostly. Everyone and everything in the book is fairly unattractive, but when you consider the setting and the things involved that makes perfect sense. A run down Innsmouth in the middle of winter, a populace carrying "the Innsmouth look," strange tentacled beasts, etc. The art fits, though one might get vaguely annoyed with Nixey's fondness for oddly smoosh-y faces.
The story is really helped by the ugliness of Nixey's art though. It lends itself to the creepy and biologically wrong feeling that one would get from looking at fishmen or people about to become fishmen. The rotting town looks fantastic and there's a great sense of the isolation and decay that's infecting the town, not to mention the feel of stark New England winters. As mentioned before the story revolves around an attempt by the townspeople to raise the Elder Gods, and most of the story is dedicated to this. Mysterious phone calls, strange fortune tellers and a populace who seem to know every possible folk cure for lycanthropy bombard Talbot, a werewolf/private investigator as he tries to.. well, just find somewhere to stay and be left alone. This is really driven home by his nonchalant attitude towards just about everything that happens. Waking up and vomitting childs fingers? Just flush them down the toliet and take a shower, weird notes describing the end times? May as well get a drink. One really gets the feeling that Talbot would've sat back and let the world end if the townspeople hadn't targeted him for whatever reason. Of course this mistake ends up being their undoing, but hey.. as it says in the story, sometimes the end of world is averted by little things like dumb luck.
The comic mostly meanders around a bit with Talbot roaming from one encounter with chatty townsfolk to the next, with the end finally coming when he confronts the.. ringleaders, including an avatar of the Elder Gods, by a large bonfire in the evening. This is were Nixey's art really shines. Talbot in his werewolf form and the Avatar look fantastic and creepy and ugly all at the same time, particularly the Avatar.
It's a short fun little read with some nice creepy and moody art, plus some nice third person narration straight from Gaiman's original prose story. Plus all the various cures to lycanthropy are amusing as hell. It's definately not his best work, and might not even be his best Lovecraft work, but something about the comic works for me. Not overly horrorific or creepy, it's got a nice sense of bleakness to it and Nixey's ugly art really works for the various critters, giving them a natural-yet-not fleshiness.
It's pretty short, about 48 pages, full color and will set you back about $7, which is cheaper than hunting down the singles issues.. not to mention that they're in black and white and the coloring was done especially for this collection.
All in all though I like it, but I can easily understand where others wouldn't, especially with Nixey's art. Also, I'd love to see Gaiman do more with the Talbot character and hope he does at some point.
Related links:
Neil Gaiman.com - The official site of the author of the original prose piece that the comic's adapted from. He's also done at least one other Lovecraftian story entitled "Shoggoth's Old Peculier" which I personally adore.
P. Craig Russel.net - The official site of P. Craig Russel who adapted Gaiman's short story to the comic format.
Onipress.com - The publisher of the comic and of other great comics as well.
The story itself is an odd blend of Lovecraft and Gaiman, featuring not only the infamous locale of Innsmouth, but a werewolf character created by Gaiman for a Baywatch/Beowulf spoof poem he wrote. The story focuses around the inhabitants of Innsmouth's attempts to raise the Elder Gods and the werewolf's, Lawrence Talbot's, roll in their schemes.
Possible Spoilers
The first thing you'll notice when opening the book is Troy Nixey's art. I'm not really sure how to describe it other than ugly. Now, usually this would be considered a bad thing, but it's not.. well, not mostly. Everyone and everything in the book is fairly unattractive, but when you consider the setting and the things involved that makes perfect sense. A run down Innsmouth in the middle of winter, a populace carrying "the Innsmouth look," strange tentacled beasts, etc. The art fits, though one might get vaguely annoyed with Nixey's fondness for oddly smoosh-y faces.
The story is really helped by the ugliness of Nixey's art though. It lends itself to the creepy and biologically wrong feeling that one would get from looking at fishmen or people about to become fishmen. The rotting town looks fantastic and there's a great sense of the isolation and decay that's infecting the town, not to mention the feel of stark New England winters. As mentioned before the story revolves around an attempt by the townspeople to raise the Elder Gods, and most of the story is dedicated to this. Mysterious phone calls, strange fortune tellers and a populace who seem to know every possible folk cure for lycanthropy bombard Talbot, a werewolf/private investigator as he tries to.. well, just find somewhere to stay and be left alone. This is really driven home by his nonchalant attitude towards just about everything that happens. Waking up and vomitting childs fingers? Just flush them down the toliet and take a shower, weird notes describing the end times? May as well get a drink. One really gets the feeling that Talbot would've sat back and let the world end if the townspeople hadn't targeted him for whatever reason. Of course this mistake ends up being their undoing, but hey.. as it says in the story, sometimes the end of world is averted by little things like dumb luck.
The comic mostly meanders around a bit with Talbot roaming from one encounter with chatty townsfolk to the next, with the end finally coming when he confronts the.. ringleaders, including an avatar of the Elder Gods, by a large bonfire in the evening. This is were Nixey's art really shines. Talbot in his werewolf form and the Avatar look fantastic and creepy and ugly all at the same time, particularly the Avatar.
It's a short fun little read with some nice creepy and moody art, plus some nice third person narration straight from Gaiman's original prose story. Plus all the various cures to lycanthropy are amusing as hell. It's definately not his best work, and might not even be his best Lovecraft work, but something about the comic works for me. Not overly horrorific or creepy, it's got a nice sense of bleakness to it and Nixey's ugly art really works for the various critters, giving them a natural-yet-not fleshiness.
It's pretty short, about 48 pages, full color and will set you back about $7, which is cheaper than hunting down the singles issues.. not to mention that they're in black and white and the coloring was done especially for this collection.
All in all though I like it, but I can easily understand where others wouldn't, especially with Nixey's art. Also, I'd love to see Gaiman do more with the Talbot character and hope he does at some point.
Related links:
Neil Gaiman.com - The official site of the author of the original prose piece that the comic's adapted from. He's also done at least one other Lovecraftian story entitled "Shoggoth's Old Peculier" which I personally adore.
P. Craig Russel.net - The official site of P. Craig Russel who adapted Gaiman's short story to the comic format.
Onipress.com - The publisher of the comic and of other great comics as well.
