Volumes: 2/2 Omnibuses (Complete)
Seinen
Genre: Historical Fiction, Horror, Surreal Horror, Scifi
Summary: Following the footsteps of the famous early Antarctic explorers, a group of explorers and scientists from the Miskatonic University set out an expedition to explore and discover more of the unknown Antarctic continent. The story starts with the second half of the group catching up to the advance team that had reported some extraordinary findings, and then went silent. Fearing the worst, they set out to regroup with the other team, only to find them murdered in a grisly fashion. Then the story goes into flashback and recounts what had happened up to that point.
Afterwards, they go looking for the sole possible survivor only to find a horror beyond imagination.
Review: So for those who aren’t familiar with this story, this is H.P. Lovecraft’s most famous story that establishes the Old Ones, Cthulhu, and the Shoggoths. This is done in a western art style, although it still reads right to left. The art style works well with the story IMO, although I know some won’t care for it.
Honestly, I had mixed feelings about it as adapted into a comic. The first half of the story felt somewhat bogged down with text heavy exposition and reads like very dry historical fiction. Although halfway through volume 1, it did start to get slightly more interesting as they discovered the first remains of the ancient life forms. Then in volume 2, it quickly turns into a story recounting the ancient epic of a great civilization well before the existence of humans. This IMO, is where the artwork really shines as the mangaka envisions some gorgeously surreal and aquatically inspired out-of-this-world alien life forms, and was easily the best part of the story.
On one hand this story just isn’t as accessible as the Hound and Other Stories and this type of horror- called “cosmic horror” is quite different from a lot of more typical horror stories. On the other hand, if anyone is interested in reading H.P. Lovecraft’s most famous story, I think this adaptation is more accessible and easier to read than the original text, as the adaptation added some more emotions for the scientists instead of just being a straight up retelling of what they found, plus there are the gorgeous illustrations.
Recommended: TLDR; Definitely recommended for H.P. Lovecraft fans, as the impressive illustrations are gorgeously detailed and creative additions to the Lovecraft lore. This graphic novel also works well as an introduction to the most famous H.P. Lovecraft story. But those looking for something more casually accessible and easy to read would probably be better off checking out the Hound and Other Stories.
Age Rating: Older Teen: for some graphic gore and very detailed monsters
No comments:
Post a Comment