H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness (rank 2.5)

Publisher: Dark Horse
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

H.P. Lovecraft’s the Hound and Other Stories (rank 3)

Publisher: Dark Horse
Volumes: 1/1 (Complete), In Print
Seinen
Genre: Horror

Summary: This manga of adapted short stories from H.P. Lovecraft contains 3 short stories:

The Temple: The steadfast commander of a German submarine refuses to abandon his mission, while the ship’s crew start to act strangely, asking for the return of an artifact back to the ocean.

The Hound: Two wealthy young men, bored of ordinary pursuits, become interested in the thrill of grave robbing. One night, seeking a greater thrill, they decide to rob a grave of a corpse said to be protected by a Great Beast...

The Nameless City: An explorer discovers a nameless city, the ruins of an ancient race from a time before humans.

Review: As a general rule of thumb, a lot of manga adaptations of classic literature have been fairly underwhelming. But these adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft’s works are unusually exceptionally good. They convey the spirit and atmosphere of tense, creeping dread and otherworldly wonder of the original horror stories in a very accessible and faithful way. The art style is also very western, and doesn’t look like most manga, but it really fits well with the stories here.

Recommended: Of course this is probably of most interest to H.P. Lovecraft fans, but as a general horror comic it works very well too. That being said, H.P. Lovecraft is one of those classic writers who had so much influence on the genre that his stuff might seem passé to modern horror readers because of how much his style became a classic horror trope.

Age Rating: Older Teen: This kind of horror focuses more on atmosphere than straight up gore.

Related Works: H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountain of Madness

Attack on Titan Anthology (rank 3.5)

Publisher: Kodansha
Volumes: 1/1 (Complete), In Print
Shounen
Genre: Tribute Anthology

Summary: A Western Tribute Anthology of full color American Comic short stories inspired by Attack on Titan.

Under the Surface: A story about the downfall of San Francisco in the Titan Apocalypse in the near future.

Attack on Attack on Titan: One page each gag comedy strips of the original Attack on Titan series.

An Illustrated Guide to the Glorious Walled City: A travel guide to the walled cities done in the style of old Victorian newspapers.

The Titan’s Laugh: a humorous story about killing Titans with bad jokes.

Live and Let Die: A Survey Corps member gets separated from the others and then discovers a group of survivors living outside the safe zone in a network of tunnels. 

Good Dog: A Girl and her Dog escape the Fall of Shiganshina.

Attack on Playtime: A little girl with a pet Titan has it eat all the teachers she doesn’t like.

Skies Above: A lesbian couple seek to escape the walled city through the secret invention of an aeroplane.

Bahamut: a playwright famous for a play where a Titan-shifter eats the one he loves, gets eaten by a Titan-shifter who was his girlfriend.

Attack on Demoncon: some cosplayers cosplaying as Survey Corps members encounter some women cosplaying as Titans. After one of the cosplayers harasses one of the women they fight a mock battle.

Fie Fie Foh: a druidic settlement in old England is regularly attacked by Titans, but keeps them below the cliffs with bait made of human blood. One day their hero forgets to set the bait and their settlement is wiped out.

Memory Maze: an elderly couple living together in a remote area are attacked by a Titan, and it stirs up old memories.

Review: Overall, I felt like a lot of these stories felt they were rushed on a tight deadline, they aren’t bad but not great either.

The best ones IMO, were Memory Maze and Attack on Attack on Titan. Memory Maze has beautiful artwork and the story is very poignant and tragic. Attack on Attack on Titan is a bunch of gag comedy strips and they were all pretty funny, definitely recommended. Lastly I would say two runners up for best story, The Titan’s Laugh and Skies Above were also pretty good.

Recommended: A lot of these stories aren’t going to appeal to manga readers just from the art style alone. After that, a bunch of these stories are underwhelming and some are confusing. But there are a few gems in here that are worth checking out.

Age Rating: PG13: mostly for violence. One lesbian kiss.

The Tipping Point (rank 4)

Publisher: Humanoids
Volumes: 2/2 (Complete eBooks), 1/1 (Complete Book), In Print
Seinen
Short Story Collection

Summary: 13 creators, both manga and western, contribute very very short stories around the theme of a Tipping Point.

Taiyo Matsumoto: Hanako’s Fart: Hanako farts, she blushes and no one notices. Around the world a number of other things happen at the same time.

Emmanuel Lepage: The Awakening: A loner boy at summer camp unintentionally has his first gay awakening.

Atsushi Kaneko: Screwed: A young guy in trouble with the Yakuza tries to figure out where his life went wrong.

John Cassaday: Huckleberry Friend: Huckleberry Finn tries to decide whether to tell the escaped slave Jim’s masters his location, or to commit what he was taught was a sin and let his friend go free. 

Eddie Campbell: Cul-De-Sac: An old man who has lost his cat, walks his blind dog and ponders a street with two dead ends and other wandering thoughts.

Naoki Urasawa: Solo Mission: A man and his wife argue about him going on a dangerous business trip to a third planet in a faraway solar system, but they really need the money for the house and the kid’s college tuition. He goes on the mission, and then a twist.

Bob Fingerman: The Unbeliever: A militant Atheist is sitting in a diner, eating greasy food and arguing about God with his friends when suddenly he finds himself in Hell.

Boulet: I Want to Believe: A man overhears his friends talking about urban legends, chuckles, only to find out they’re all true- all of them.

Paul Pope: Consort to the Destroyer: A half naked woman flees a burning ship, then fights a pirate in a lifeboat, and then jumps into the ocean and fights a shark.

Bastien Vives: The Child: Two astronauts discover a child in a hole and try to rescue him. But it might be a trap.

Keiichi Koike: Fish: A Psychedelic colorful story that follows a fish caught from the ocean.

Frederik Peeters: Laika: Laika, the dog that was sent to space, is back… for revenge.

Katsuya Terada: Tengu: a one page story about a Tengu who challenges a goddess only to land inside a mangaka’s head. 

Review: This graphic novel has a lot of famous comic creators in it, both eastern and western. There’s Naoki Urasawa (Monster, 20th Century Boys fame), Taiyo Matsumoto (Tekkon Kinkreet, Ping Pong), Eddie Campbell (From Hell, Bacchus), Boulet (Bouletcorp.com a famous webcomic). And the others are not as famous but respectable.

That being said, basically this collection of short short stories is more about style than story. The mostly full color comics are beautiful and lavishly illustrated, but each story is about ten pages long or less. Some of the stories were interesting, some were funny, others were weird, but for the most part they read more like excerpts or prologues than complete stories. 

For the two most famous mangaka, I would say this, Taiyo Matsumoto: the art is beautiful, but it’s not really a story. It just kind of wanders. And Naoki Urasawa’s story was kind of amusing, but also kind of silly. Neither is their best work.

A surprise stand out was Boulet’s I Want to Believe. It’s short, but very funny. I also recommend his free webcomic to anyone who hasn’t read it yet. (http://english.bouletcorp.com/)

Recommended: TLDR; This is the kind of thing I’d borrow from the library, enjoy the lavish color art, and then I’ll probably forget I ever read it in a couple years.

Rating: PG13: some gore and violence, semi-nudity but nothing terrible.

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún (rank 2)

Publisher: Seven Seas

Volumes: 8+ (Ongoing) (Read: 1-8), In Print

Shounen

Genre: Slice of Life, Fantasy, Family

Summary: Living in an abandoned village in the middle of nowhere, lives a young girl and a mysterious creature that looks like a man with the head of a beast. He warns her not to stray far from where they live, and to never touch him. They live peacefully, but there is a quiet air of mystery and danger that surrounds them. What is going on? And why?

Review: This series has two central parts to it. About half of it is slice of life, showing us the mostly peaceful everyday life with the young girl and her guardian, who is like a father to her. The other half of the story is a slowly unfolding mystery that reveals more and more about the world they live, and the backstories of both the girl and the beast, and those who are after them.

The fantasy style artwork and the foreboding atmosphere is the main draw of the series, it’s not like most manga at all, it reminds me more of western comics and fairy tales, and a slightly macabre bent from the motif of skeleton heads and dark creatures so black that seemingly no light reflects off them. It's a lot like those fairy tales about dark forbidden forests and things that lurk inside them.

The actual story, to give a hint of what it is about without spoilers, is about a curse and the girl who might be very important somehow. 

Recommended: Highly recommended, especially if you like stories about a heartwarming father and daughter-like relationship. Or a more fairy tale-like mystery story that slowly unfolds.

Other Works by this author: (2 one volume collections)
Love on the Other Side: A Nagabe Short Story Collection, The Wize Wize Beasts of the Wizarding Wizdoms

Age Rating: PG: so far this series is safe for younger readers