Becoming a Cthulhuian Overlord: Episodes 1-20 (2023) by Yi Jian San Lian (一键三连)

Becoming a Cthulhuian Overlord (成为克苏鲁神主) began as a novel by Yi Jian San Lian (一键三连) published on China Literature, which was then adapted in 2020 into a manhua by An Zhu (渚谙, writing) and Na Ti Maeo (拿铁猫, illustration), produced by Kaite Dongman(凯特动漫, Cat Comics), which has been translated into English by Sangria and is now being serialized online at Tapas.

This serial work falls into the genre of isekai: a very broad and currently popular genre in many media that involves an individual who becomes displaced from the real world to another world. The nature of the displacement and the other world are major flavors for the genre; the protagonist might die, for example, and be reincarnated into a fantasy world that follows rules like a tabletop roleplaying game such as Dungeons & Dragons or an equivalent video game like World of Warcraft. Or they might fall through a portal and be lost in the distant past, transported to an alien world, etc.

If this sounds a bit overbroad, it’s because isekai is a term for a mode of fantasy fiction that existed long before the term itself existed. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), a blow to the head sends the Boss back to the Dark Ages Europe; in A Princess of Mars (1912) former Confederate soldier John Carter is transported bodily to a fantastic version of Mars. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and others were familiar with the basic idea; one might consider The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath a kind of isekai, and in “The Challenge from Beyond” George Campbell is transposed into the body of an alien worm—and decides to conquer the alien planet, which is a very appropriate approach for a typical isekai protagonist. These portal fantasies bridge a gap between low fantasy (fantasy fiction set in the mundane world or realistic setting) and high fantasy (fantasy fiction set in a world separate from the real world).

Which is all meat for argument for those who like to argue labels. In Becoming a Cthulhuian Overlord, the premise is that the unnamed protagonist dies in a car accident with his pregnant wife, and has a mysterious supernatural encounter with a certain messenger…

…and reincarnates as Qi Su, an orphaned high school student in Lua City, which superficially looks much like the mundane world. Except now he can see a variety of shadowy and horrific phantoms that he has to pretend not to see, or else they’ll eat him.

If that doesn’t sound very Lovecraftian—it is not, at least at first. Serialized graphic fiction are often paced relatively slowly at first, and this has all the hallmarks of a slow-burn comic. There isn’t a lot of exposition to begin with, and a great deal of the storytelling takes place through the art, which takes advantage of the format to do long-scrolling dynamic shots in odd perspectives. Some of the art is quite effective, even if it obviously draws inspiration from works like Parasyte.

The odd tentacled entity aside, the first few chapters of Becoming a Cthulhuian Overlord are very by-the-numbers stuff, drawing strongly on the basic ideas of Yu Yu Hakusho and similar works, riffing off of Buddhism and traditional exorcism practices, with a few twists and turns. Our protagonist is back in high school, dealing with supernatural threats, teenage romances, etc. However, Qi Su doesn’t know the rules of this new world, and that ignorance helps to build a bit of tension as he learns the ropes.

Readers expecting something more overtly Lovecraftian from the title should pause and reconsider their assumptions. Just as many American and European writers attempt to assimilate the Cthulhu Mythos into a fundamentally Christian worldview, associating Cthulhu and co. with Satanism, non-Western cultures tend to fold the Mythos into their own mythopoetic framework. So for Ultraman Tiga, Ghatanathoa is interpreted as a kaiju of great power; for Soul Eater, the Great Old Ones are extremely powerful beings of madness with great spiritual powers. Becoming a Cthulhuian Overlord, working as it does within a very broadly Buddhist and Chinese folk religion framework, is centered around ghosts and exorcism, with the ghosts tending to have a particular Lovecraftian flavor…but it also develops its own unique metaphysics on top of that, tossing in pop culture borrowings to create a kind of a la carte occultism.

For example, in chapter 13 Qi Su gets Gordon Freeman‘s crowbar.

Which is a long way to say: don’t get too hung up on how Lovecraft wrote things. Different creators incorporate or reference his material differently, and sometimes in minimal or unexpected ways.

John Constantine makes an unofficial cameo in Episode 12!

As of the time of this writing, the whole manhua (over 200 episodes) has not yet been translated and released in English, so it continues to be a very slow burn, building up its world, introducing new characters, etc. Hopefully, the translation will actually be completed; some translations of serial works tend to stop before the end if the interest isn’t there for it, leaving the work incomplete, as happened with Apocalypse Zero.

For readers interested, the first chapters are free to read on Tapas, with updates every Monday.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“Beyond the Past” (1953) by Lou Morales

Have you ever heard of the Necronomicon? No? That’s probably because you’ve led a normal life…a life in which that dreaded encyclopedia of evil has never entered…
The Thing #11 (Nov-Dec 1953), 18

1953. The war was over. On the magazine racks, brightly-colored comic books, eager to catch the eye and earn the dimes of children and adults alike. Romances, westerns, a scattering of super-heroes, crime, science fiction, and horror. The pulp magazines are dying, fewer of them on the stands every month, but the comic books are lurid and varied, each outfit competing with the other.

Charlton Comics was a latecomer to the field of horror comics. Their most notable entry was The Thing, a horror anthology comic consciously modeled on EC’s Tales from the Crypt, launched in February 1952 and lasted 17 issues, ending in November 1954; today most notable for the artistic talents of a young Steve Ditko in the later issues. Under the editorship of Al Fago, The Thing sought to distinguish itself in a crowded field with low page rates and relatively lax editorial oversight, with the hope this artistic freedom would provide solid stories and provocative artwork—and unfortunately for them, they succeeded in drawing attention to themselves, though not the kind they wanted. (The Charlton Companion 48, 52-4)

In The Thing #11, released in November 1953. “Beyond the Past” was a short comic in the middle of the issue, only 4 pages. Artist Lou Morales signed the first page, but the writer, letterer, etc. are uncredited, which was typical. Comics in the 50s were often churned out swiftly, in workshop fashion, and individual creators were not always credited. The other stories in the issue (and many issues before and after) were written by Carl Memling, and he may be responsible for the script on “Beyond the Past” as well.

The story itself is relatively direct and minor: an old professor studies the Necronomicon, mumbles an incantation (“Xnapantha..xnapnatha..Chrtlu..xmondii…”), and accidentally calls up that which he cannot put down. Lovecraft had many fans among the early horror comics, as evidenced by “Baby… It’s Cold Inside!” in Vault of Horror #17 (1951), and “Portrait of Death” (1952) in Weird Terror #1 (1952). For the most part, this would be classed as forgettable filler, but for two things.

For one, “Beyond the Past” is an early appearance of the Necronomicon in a comic book. For two, it caught the attention of Fredric Wertham, and became a footnote in the moral panic that led, ultimately, to the institution of the Comics Code Authority and the vanishing of horror comics from the shelves in the United States and other countries.

The Thing, No. 11. Two young people cook and eat an old woman. . . a man hears his own limbs being wrenched from his body by a 30ft. octopus . . a creature called a Necronomicon drinks a man’s blood and devours his flesh.
Keith Waterhouse, “Horrors Unlimited” in the London Daily Mirror, 13 September 1954

Nearly a year after The Thing #11 was first published, an article ran in the London Daily Mirror, decrying the comics that kids were buying these days. This was not exceptional; the United Kingdom had been undergoing its own moral panic about comic books, which would eventually result in the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act, which was passed into law in 1955. For details see Martin Baker’s excellent A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign; see also John A. Lent (ed.)’s Pulp Demons: International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-Comics Campaign, which adds important detail.

Keith Waterhouse focused on imported American horror comics and described a handful of issues in a sensationalist style. Never mind the issues he rants about had likely been off the stands (in the United States, at least) for months; and that he could hardly have read them very carefully if he mistook the Necronomicon for the blood-thirsty monster Xnapantha the professor had summoned. No one was likely to fact-check him.

This article was paraphrased in at least one other British paper, which asked “What is a necronomicon?”:

Someone in the United States, however, also read Waterhouse’s article.

Do you know what a necronomicon is? Probably not. But for thousands of children this is part of their education. They know that a necronomicon is a creature that, of course, drinks people’s blood and eats their flesh.
Fredric Wertham, “It’s Still Murder” in the Saturday Review 9 April 1955, 11

By 1955, Wertham had won. In April 1954 his book Seduction of the Innocent had stirred a moral panic in the United States and abroad to the highest level, he testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in April and June, and in September the collective comic book publishers in the United States formed the Comics Code Authority, censoring themselves to stave off government interference. Crime and horror comics vanished from the newsstands, and would have a ripple effect around the world, starting similar moral panics in the United Kingdom and other countries.

Yet Wertham continued to campaign against the deleterious influence of comic books on the youth. Thanks to the research of Carol Tilley, we now know that Wertham faked his research, distorted facts and figures to match his narrative. What most folks don’t acknowledge is that Wertham didn’t stop. He certainly wasn’t above reusing Waterhouse’s garbled idea of what a Necronomicon was to his own benefit.

Wertham used the leading question about the Necronomicon more than once; a 1954 article titled “The curse of the comic books” appeared in the journal Religious Education Vol. 49, No. 6 a few months prior with essentially the same opening, and Wertham may have reused it elsewhere.

There is no surprise in this case that Wertham got the details wrong; there are numerous examples in Seduction of the Innocent where his apparent encyclopedic knowledge of comic characters and plots is shown to be superficial at best. What’s surprising is how he got ahold of a British newspaper article—possibly through a clipping service—and how swiftly and avidly he seized on the word Necronomicon, apparently in complete ignorance of its provenance.

Like a weird game of telephone, the misconception about the Necronomicon, now totally separated from its source material, continued to promulgate through the web of concerned citizens.

Dear Parents:
“Do you know what a necronomicon is? Probably not.[“]
Isabelle P. Buckley, “Your Child” in the North Hollywood Valley Times, 22 Apr 1955, 11

Buckley depended on Wertham’s integrity as a scholar; she took his article as fact as she clutched her metaphorical pearls and told parents to worry about what their kids might pick up down at the corner drug store or newspaper stand. Wertham depended on Waterhouse’s journalistic integrity, that the reporter had gotten his facts correct. Neither of them bothered to investigate for themselves, any more than Lou Morales picked up an Arkham House book to confirm whether it was supposed to be “Chrtlu” or “Cthulhu” in the incantation.

North Hollywood *Valley Times*, 22 Apr 1955

After all, who would notice? Well, at least one weird fiction fan did.

Alas, Wertham’s error would remain largely unknown outside of fannish circles.

“Beyond the Past,” like many of the stories from The Thing, has relished in relative obscurity. Now in the public domain, it was finally reprinted in Haunted Horror #25 (2016, IDW), and in rougher form in The Giant Readers Thing (2019, Gwandanaland Comics), but the whole story can be read for free at Comic Book Plus.

Addendum: A sharp-eyed reader pointed out that while this might be one of the earliest comic appearances of the Necronomicon by name, the story “Dr. Styx” in Treasure Comics #2 (Aug 1945) includes the writings of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. Read G. W. Thomas’ article on the story here. The Necronomicon also featured in “The Black Arts” in Weird Fantasy #14 (Jul-Aug 1950).

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

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Yuggoth Rising: Erster Act (2012) by Sebastien Dietz

En Episches Abenteuer in den Welten H. P. Lovecrafts
Back cover copy of Yuggoth Rising #1

“An Epic Adventure in the world of H. P. Lovecraft,” is what is promised, and that is what writer/artist Sebastien Dietz sets out to deliver. Yuggoth Rising is a German-language black-and-white 9-issue independent comic series, originally produced by Undergroundcomix.de in 2012. While physical issues were limited in number and now quite scarce, the series is collected in both German and English through Comixology/Amazon Kindle in three acts, beginning with Yuggoth Rising: Erster Act (Deutsch) / Yuggoth Rising: First Act (English, translated by Craig Stanton).

The epic adventure gets off on a bit of a left foot. February 1930, the Great Depression is settling in as our protagonist, an unemployed but educated young woman, returns to New York City—and on the ship runs into Lionel P. Hatecraft, author of popular romances.

At first glance, this is a set-up for a farce; in light of what comes later, it may be more appropriate to think of it as an unsubtle hint that while this takes place in the world of Lovecraft’s Mythos, this is not the world we know, the one that Lovecraft inhabited. Like the future envisaged by Robert W. Chambers in “The Repairer of Reputations,” or the 1920s and 30s envisaged in the Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game, this is a subtly different setting.

Dietz’ art is detailed, and cityscapes, streets, buildings, and ships are especially well-executed; he has an eye for splashes of darkness that stand out against the page. If there’s a criticism of his work, it is his human figures, whose heads are often slightly oversized in proportion to their bodies—but that’s more in the nature of a stylistic convention than a flaw. When he does break out for splash pages, the effect is worth it.

It’s not a tale told exclusively in comic panels. The end of each issue is punctuated by letters, articles, pages from magazines and newspapers, a convention used in other works to give the series a lived-in feel, to expand on things happening in many places during the same time period. Some of which are connected, and some of which are not.

Dietz’ story takes a broadly familiar shape: different threads, interweaving; widely separated characters working their way together until they meet. A young woman down on her luck, a brilliant expert in Mayan script, a millionaire embroiled in an international conspiracy, a slightly seedy newspaper porter on the werewolf-and-alien beat…ancient mysteries, the hunt for Planet X, and the Unaussprechlichen Kulten. The story moves at its own pace, neither too slowly or too quickly in this first act, these first three issues…

…but it just the opening act, the preliminaries. What revelations are here are just the beginning; our characters haven’t all met yet, the epic adventure has just begun. Taken by itself, it is promising…but readers shouldn’t be expecting “At the Mountains of Madness” or “The Shadow Out of Time,” although it takes a few cues from those works. Dietz’ inspirations more likely lie in Call of Cthulhu the Roleplaying Game, or the slightly pulpier adventures of August Derleth’s Trail of Cthulhu. The story of Yuggoth Rising—if the name isn’t clue enough—is things moving into place, the stars becoming right, cults and investigators getting into position, to destroy the world or redeem it.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because “when the stars are right” is the natural end-game of the Mythos; the Ragnorok or End Times, the eschatological frontier that looms in the unspecified future. Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows worked with that idea at the end of Providence, Jonas Anderson & Daniel Thollin did the same in 1000 Ögon: Cthulhu, and there are dozens of literary examples, in Cthulhu’s Reign and elsewhere. As with every Mythos story, it is less the tropes that are important than how it is told, how the characters develop and toward what end.

None of which a reader can tell in Yuggoth Rising: Erster Act, not on a first reading. On subsequent readings, readers can pick out more details, foreshadowings, hints that maybe they overlooked. Dietz has done a very credible job in setting the stage…and it is fortunate that this is a case where readers of both English and German have the opportunity to read it to the end, even if only digitally.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

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De Rode Ridder 124: Necronomicon (1987) by Karel Biddeloo

De Rode Ridder (“The Red Knight”) is a long-running Flemish-language medieval fantasy comic created by Willy Vandersteen in 1959, based on a series of children’s novels by Leopold Vermeiren in the 1940s. Roughly comparable to Prince Valiant, although not quite as consistent in storyline, as de Rode Ridder involves many standalone episodes and more fantasy and even science fiction elements. Vandersteen, who is credited with writing and drawing the strip for the first 43 albums (although gruntwork was done by others in his studio), passed it on to Karel Biddeloo, who wrote and drew the next 150 or so albums of De Rode Ridder’s adventures. About in the middle of Biddeloo’s run was album 124: Necronomicon, with Biddeloo joined by Urssla Lundmark (colorist) and Anita Schauwvlieghe (lettering).

While at sea returning from Byzantium, Johan, the Red Knight, is besieged by harpies…who are defeated with the aid of the Seal of Ishtar, which Johan acquired in the last album, Oniria. Except the amulet that de Rode Ritter pulls out from underneath his tunic may look a bit familiar:

The Goddess of Venus is the most excellent Queen INANNA, called of the Babylonians ISHTAR. She is the goddess of Passion, both of Love and of War, depending on her sign and the time of her appearance in the heavens. […]

This is her Seal, which you must engrave on Copper, Venus being exalted in the heavens, with no one about watching its construction. Being finished, it is to be wrapped in the purest silk and lain safely away, only to be removed when need arises, at any time.
Simon Necronomicon 14-15

The Seal of Innana/Ishtar from the Simon *Necronomicon*

The Simon Necronomicon was first published in 1977, and by 1980 was released as a mass-market affordable paperback, to grace the New Age shelves of bookstores forevermore. While the impact of the Simon Necronomicon on Lovecraftian occult literature is sizable—see Dan Harms & John Wisdom Gonce III’s The Necronomicon Files for details—the artistic impact of it is often more apparent. The Gate Sigil on the cover of the book, created by artist Khem Caigan, has gone on to be appropriated by dozens or hundreds of artists for illustrations, comics, album covers, tattoos, and various and sundry merch.

The other illustrations in the book provided the first real visual occult symbols of the Mythos. While Lovecraft and Derleth had described their Elder Signs, and Robert W. Chambers had mentioned the Yellow Sign, Lord Dunsany the Sign of Mung, etc., there was no consistent popular depiction of these symbols or gestures—it was up to the readers to imagine what they would look like. Now, thanks to the Simon Necronomicon, there was a visual reference for various occult signs and talismans. Not surprising, then, that writer/artists like Karel Biddeloo opted to work them in.

Not the Simon Necronomicon gate sigil on the back cover of the upper-right panel.

The Necronomicon of this Rode Ridder album isn’t a cheap paperback however, but a full-blown grimoire stored in a pillar of flame in a cavern beneath the earth, with a will of its own. A group of cultists working with Johan’s old foe, the sorceress Demoniah, manipulate him into retrieving the book for them. What follows is a rather typical adventure, full of action and a bit more swords & sorcery than horror—and I rather suspect that since the cultists are “der Meesters van de Swarte Kring” (“the Masters of the Black Circle”) that Biddeloo was also inspired in part by Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, which includes “The People of the Black Circle.” The Necronomicon survived the destruction of the Swarte Kring, and would reappear in album 128: De Boeienkoning (“The Escape Artist, lit. “The King of Fetters,” much as how Houdini was sometimes billed “the Handcuff King”).

The *Necronomicon* literally flies off to its next adventure.

De Rode Ridder: Necronomicon is a fairly typical dip-of-the-toes into the Mythos; while Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, et al. don’t merit a mention, that’s probably as much as because Biddeloo was drawing from the Simon Necronomicon rather than directly from Lovecraft for inspiration; if this had been published after The Evil Dead came out in Belgium, the Necronomicon might be bound in human skin with a face on it! The book itself becomes a typical MacGuffin, since for all its portentous power it does not do much of anything by itself. For readers already familiar with the Necronomicon, it might be a fun or cute reference that gives de Rode Ridder another adventure; for those whose first experience with the Necronomicon was reading about it in this comic…perhaps this was their first step toward reading Lovecraft.

In terms of art, Karel Biddeloo is no Hal Foster, and the coloring sometimes muddies what might be better linework, yet it is still a very competent product with occasional dynamic illustrations that break out of the panel borders and breathe a little life into the work.

Regrettably, the adventures of de Rode Ridder have never been translated into English, although the Belgian albums and reprints are fairly available from European booksellers.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

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Die Faust des Cthulhu Teil 1: Opfergaben (2014) by Marco Felici

In naher zukunft existiert die menschliche zivilisation, wie wir sie kennen, nicht mehr. Alte wesen sind aus ihrem schlaf erwacht und haben die herrschaft über die erde übernommen. Die wenigen überlebenden ergaben such der beuen religion und ihrer propheten. Dies ist die geschichte eines mannes, der sich nicht unterwirft, sondern den kampf gegen die neuen mächte aufnimmt.	In the near future, human civilization as we know it will no longer exist. Ancient beings have awakened from their sleep and have taken control of the earth. The few survivors surrendered to the new religion and its prophets. This is the story of a man who does not submit, but takes up the fight against the new powers.
Back cover of Die Faust des Cthulhu 1.	English translation

Die Faust des Cthulhu (The Fist of Cthulhu) is an independently published, black-and-white, German-language post-apocalyptic action-horror comic from writer/artist Marco Felici (lettering by Till Felix, cover colors & title design for issues 2-4 by Olaf Hänsel). Published irregularly, the series appears to consist of four separate issues and a collected edition:

Teil 1: Opfergaben (Part 1: Offerings) (2014)
Teil 2: Offenbarung (Part 2: Epiphany) (2015)
Teil 3: Untergang (Part 3: Downfall) (2018)
Teil 4: Übermacht (Part 4: Superiority) (2020)
Sammelband (Collected) (2022)

(Note: the listing I’ve seen for the collected edition says it collects the first five issues, so I may well be missing one.)

The art and story are strongly reminiscent of American underground comix of the 1970s-1980s, with the occasional shade of Richard Corben (especially in the color covers on issues 2-4), or Eastman and Laird’s early, relatively grungy-looking black-and-white issues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, long before the children’s cartoon softened their image and sensibilities. Story-wise, there may also be more than a touch of a manga influence, with shades of Fist of the North Star or other post-apocalyptic action-adventure series. Surprisingly, there’s also a touch of luchador influence, with the humanoid monsters sometimes going masked, at least initially.

We open on the scene of a sacrifice to the Old Gods.

Fundamentally, the story is straightforward: a mysterious stranger takes exception to one of the regular innocent sacrifices to the Old Ones, and deals with a cultist and his minion—a half-human spawn of elder beings. Of course, our hero soon shows that he isn’t entirely human either…imagine if Wilbur Whateley decided he related more with his mother than Yog-Sothoth and chose to try and rid the world of eldritch horrors, and you’ve about got the scope of the series. Along the way, a kid sees him fight and becomes witness-cum-sidekick as they travel through the hellscape of the future.

Down below, the dismembered bodies of the sacrifices are fed to… something.

The art is a mix of that underground comix serviceable-enough grunginess and moments of interesting character and creature design. Backgrounds tend to give way to action lines or solid blocks of black or white, which makes sense in black-and-white comics where the focus is on the figures more than the surroundings.

Mythos references are a bit scanty; Die Faust des Cthulhu isn’t a pastiche in the sense that it wants to expand on the lore in vast detail, and while there is a bit of exposition the actions tend to speak louder than words, and the explicit connections to the Mythos are usually relegated to a few exclamations in the heat of battle. There is more of an element of Robert E. Howard to the story than Lovecraft; the nameless hero is of the same mind as Conan that if something bleeds then it can die, even if the thought is not expressed in so many words. Readers hoping for deep pathos or character development may be disappointed, but primarily this is fun. A guy with a pair of knives wrestles tentacled monsters and cuts them apart. It’s closer to sword and sorcery than cosmic horror.

Sometimes that’s silly. Sometimes that’s awesome.

It is not clear how many copies of a given issue are printed, but given the scarcity probably not many; readers interested in tracking down a few should check out German comic shops or eBay.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Lovecraft (1994) by Reinhard Kleist & Roland Hueve

Lovecraft. H. P. Lovecraft. Saft Dir das was?

Nur flüchtig.

Also, paß auf. Schriftsteller. Amerika. 1890-1937. Hat in Edgar Allen Poe—Nachfolge phantastiche Geschichten geschrieben. Origien des Grauens. Versponnen Wissenschaftler und romantische Helder gegen unheimliche und unbekannte Mächte aus den Tiefen des Universums. Ganz eigene, in sich geschlossene Mythologie. Kosmische Götter und Monstren mit merkwürdigen Namen. Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu…

Okay, okay. Ende des Klappentextes. Was hast Du vor?

Ich will was über die Lebensgeschichte von Lovecraft machen.

Und was?

Einen Comic.

Einen Comic? In wieviel Bänden?

Lies erst mal!

Lovecraft. H.P. Lovecraft. Mean anything to you?

Just in passing.

Okay, pay attention. Writer. America. 1890-1937. Like Edgar Allen Poe’s succesor—wrote fantastic stories. Origins of horror. Weaves scientists and romantic heroes against sinister and unknown forces from the depths of the universe. Completely separate, self-contained mythology. Cosmic gods and monsters with strange names. Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu…

Okay, okay. End of blurb. What are you up to?

I want to do something about Lovecraft’s life story.

And that is?

A comic.

A comic? In how many volumes?

Read it first!

Roland Hüve & Reinhard Kleist, introduction to Lovecraft

English translation

Lovecraft (1994) is a standalone German-language graphic novel in the European format normally associated with bandes dessinée—a slim, full-color hardback. The creation of Roland Hüve (script) and Reinhard Kleist (script & art), the 80-page story is focused on the idea of the character of Randolph Carter as a literary expy and alter ego for H. P. Lovecraft himself. As part of that, it adapts or partially adapts the story of “The Statement of Randolph Carter” as sort of an arching narrative of Lovecraft’s life, drawing on L. Sprague de Camp’s 1975 biography for details.

That bare description doesn’t really do the book justice. While the story is familiar—making Lovecraft himself a central character, part and parcel of the Mythos has been a favored treatment of many comic book creators—the real pleasure of the book is in Kleist’s artwork. The style is impressionistic, shifting, often mixing watercolors and frantic pencils, charcoals, and mixed media to great effect. It is a style very far away from the clean figures and lines of most comics at the time, either in Europe or North America. Much as if Dave McKean‘s lauded covers for The Sandman (1989-1996) were stretched out to fill a book.

Although that still might not be giving Kleist quite enough credit; as an artist, he has his own style, adaptable and varied. It is a visual feast, and readers familiar with Lovecraft’s biography will find many interesting visual references…and some amusing errors. Sonia H. Greene goes from a Juno-esque brunette who was seven years older than Lovecraft in real life to a young, ginger-haired flapper with a bob-cut…until she turns into a succubus.

Following the trend of blending real-life and fiction, more than a few liberties are taken. Don’t try to take it as a straight biography, but as what it is: a flight of fantasy spinning out from Lovecraft’s reputation as a horror writer and the rather neurotic and sexually-inhibited depiction of the man in de Camp’s flawed but ground-breaking biography.

The second story in the book is a separate adaptation by Kleist alone, a much more restrained and deliberately grungier adaptation of “The Music of Erich Zann,” done in black and white and red, a much more sparse style that contrasts neatly with the rather more busy and cluttered compositions of the lead story.

As an adaptation, this one is rather faithful and does more to capture the mood and atmosphere of the story with its bold use of red; it’s an aesthetic choice that serves to suggest and convey the invasion from beyond in a way that a tentacle or a starry blackness doesn’t.

Like many European graphic novels, Lovecraft was never translated into English, so remains fairly obscure among English-reading audiences today. Of course, today it would have to compete with any number of competitors like Lovecraft (2004) by Hans Rodionoff, Enrique Breccia, and Keith Giffen; The Strange Adventures of H. P. Lovecraft (2010) by Mac Carter, Tony Salmons, Adam Byrne, and Keaton Kohl, and Some Notes on a Nonentity (2017) by Sam Gafford and Jason C. Eckhardt among many others.

That is a pity, because while the writing may lose something in the translation from the German, the art is compelling and might have universal appeal.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

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1000 Ögon: Lovecraft (2014) by Jonas Anderson & Daniel Thollin

Tänk om H.P. Lovecraft hade levt idag och bott i Uppsala! Hur hade hans berättelser sett ut då? Vår bok heter helt enkelt 1000 Ögon: Lovecraft och är vår hyllning till denna skräckens mästare. Vi tolkar några av hans berättelser och placerar dem i vårt 1000 Ögon-universum.	What if H.P. Lovecraft was alive today and lived in Uppsala! What would his stories look like then? Our book is simply called 1000 Eyes: Lovecraft and is our tribute to this master of horror. We interpret some of his stories and place them in our 1000 Eyes universe.
Swedish pitch on Indiegogo	English translation

1000 Ögon (1000 Eyes) is the label for a contemporary Swedish-language series of horror graphic novels (really, thin bandes dessinée-style hardbacks) by the creative team of Jonas Anderson, Anders Björkelid, and Daniel Thollin, the last three published by Albumförlaget. Several of these have Lovecraftian influences, notably Filgia (2013), Lovecraft (2014), and Cthulhu (2015), but like a lot of non-English language publications that don’t make it into translation, they tend to get overlooked by English-reading audiences. The name “1000 ögon” is presumably a reference to the Swedish horror film Skräcken har 1000 ögon (“Fear has 1000 Eyes,” 1970).

This is a bit of a shame because Lovecraft has an interesting basic premise: taking the core of four of Lovecraft’s stories (“The Hound,” “The Shunned House,” “The Statement of Randolph Carter,” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth”), and reworking them in a shared, contemporary setting, keeping what they feel is the essence of Lovecraft’s stories while freely altering the trappings and settings. In this way, the two graverobbing aesthetes of “The Hound” become more notably occult in their predilections (and apparently drive a Citroën GS); the protagonist of “The Shunned House” is a young woman named Cecilia dealing with something more than the standard mildew and black mold in the house, “The Statement of Randolph Carter” involves facetime over a smartphone rather than a field telephone, and “The Shadow over Innsmouth” takes some specific visual cues from the buildings of Uppsala and the Swedish fishing industry.

Like many contemporary takes on the Mythos, Thollin and Anderson each work in references to the Cthulhu Mythos in these stories, even if there were none before. As each one writes and draws their respective episodes independently (“The Shunned House” and “The Statement of Randolph Carter” for Daniel Thollin and “The Hound” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth” for Jonas Anderson), this provides a degree of narrative continuity that might otherwise be lacking. Readers get the sense that these stories are connected, expressions of some common threat or body of myth, in a way that might not be obvious otherwise.

For those at least passingly familiar with Swedish architecture or Uppsala in particular, the connectivity of the stories is also geographic and cultural. Which is rather the entire point of this exercise. While Lovecraft never weighed in on localization per se, he did famously note:

Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness, and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous.
H. P. Lovecraft, “The Picture in the House”

Which is to say: horror can be found closer to home than you think. Forget for a moment all those Hollywood horrors set in the United States, don’t think yourself safe just because Lovecraft restricted himself primarily to New England. Horror can be anywhere, closer than you would like…you may be in some corner of Lovecraft Country already and not even know it.

Visually, Thollin’s style is “cleaner” and closer to American-style comic figuring, while Anderson’s is a little scratchier and closer to the Franco-Belgian school, and the digital coloring on Anderson’s work in particular can look a little muddy at times. While it wouldn’t be correct to say that none of the stories being adapted lend themselves to grand visuals, it seems both Thollin and Anderson lean into a more subdued approach, focusing on the human characters and generally keeping things at their scale. So there are few grand visuals, but several clever and well-designed elements, like the stark outcropping of Devil’s Reef, which really stands out when compared to how it is normally portrayed, as barely a bump above the waterline.

Lovecraft was followed up by a sequel titled Cthulhu. Whereas Lovecraft consists of four adaptations, Cthulhu is made up of two original works, both set in Uppsala, before and after the stars are right. The stories maintain much of the same artistic style and themes of the Lovecraft adaptations, but the creators have a little more free play to indulge their imaginations. Readers who dig the style and want to see what happens what Thollin and Anderson move beyond adaptation to pastiche won’t be disappointed.

While you might find Filgia, Lovecraft, and Cthulhu available online in some second-hand bookstores, the best way to order them is probably direct from Albumförlaget.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Wolff (1971) by Luis Gasca & Esteban Maroto

Luis Vigil, que ne época fazia a revista Nueva Dimensión, tinha me mostrado algumas capas norte-americanas de um gênero resgatado sa antigas pulps estadunidenses: Espada & Feitiçaria. Essas capas eram maravilhosas. Em uma, um guerreiro selvagem protegia uma donzela seminua, rodeados por um conjunto de figuras misteriosas, caveiras, bruxos, fortalezas, dragões… Tudo apenas insinuado. Em outra, o guerreiro montado nas costas de uma gigantesca serpente, com diversas caveiras e outras formas monstruousas, preso em um calabouço. Elas raziam todos os elementos que eu sempre amei. Perguntei a Luis se havia alguma tradução daquelas histórias para o espanhol e ele respondeu que não (anos mais tarde, a editora Bruguera a publicaria). O protagonista das imagens se chamava Conan e o ilustrador era Frank Frazetta.

Quando em, 1969, Luis Gasca me pediu idias para uma história que seria publicada em uma nova revista, props um personagem daquele estilo. Ele aprovou, e assim nasceu Wolff, para a revista Drácula. Eu desenhava o que queria, fazia uma pequena sinopse e ele escrevia os textos finais com a pseudônimo Sadko. Mese depois, começaram a publicar nos Estados Unidos a adaptação do personagem de Robert E. Howard, Conan, no clássico formato dos comics, na revista Savage Tales, da Marvel, com desenhos de Barry WIndosr-Smith e roteiros de Roy Thomas.

Luis Vigil, who at the time was at Nueva Dimensión magazine, had shown me some North American covers of a genre rescued from the old American pulps: Sword & Sorcery. Those covers were marvelous. In one, a wild warrior protected a half-naked maiden, surrounded by an array of mysterious figures, skulls, witches, fortresses, dragons… All just hinted at. In another, the warrior riding on the back of a gigantic serpent, with several skulls and other monstrous shapes, trapped in a dungeon. They brought out all the elements that I’ve always loved. I asked Luis if there was any translation of those stories into Spanish and he answered no (years later, Bruguera publishing house would publish it). The protagonist of the images was called Conan and the illustrator was Frank Frazetta.

When, in 1969, Luis Gasca asked me for ideas for a story to be published in a new magazine, I proposed a character in that style. He approved, and thus Wolff was born, for Drácula magazine. I would draw what I wanted, make a short synopsis, and he would write the final texts under the pseudonym Sadko. Months later, they began publishing in the United States the adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s character Conan in the classic comic book format in Marvel’s Savage Tales magazine, with drawings by Barry Windsor-Smith and scripts by Roy Thomas.

Esteban Maroto, Espadas e Bruxas (2017) 10

English translation

In 1971, Spanish publisher Buru Lan published began publishing Drácula, which despite the name had little to do with Bram Stoker’s character, but was a general fantasy and horror comic comparable in some ways to Warren Comics’ Eerie and Creepy in the United States—especially since Warren would, at about the same time as Drácula came out, begin relying heavily on Spanish artists such as Esteban Maroto. At the same time, the paperback fantasy boom in the United States was blossoming with the Lancer editions of Robert E. Howard’s Conan, with covers by Frank Frazetta (who also lent his talents to Warren magazines).

*Conan the Usurper* (Lancer 1967), art by Frank Frazetta

Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian comic by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith first hit the stands in 1970, and its success helped to spread the fantasy boom to comic books. It was a good time to build your own barbarian…and so, Gusca and Maroto created Wolff, inspired by and in the mold of Conan (or at least, Frazetta’s covers for the Conan paperbacks). The series caught the eye of English-language publishers, and the British publisher New English Library translated and published twelve issues under the title Dracula; Warren combined several issues as a standalone graphic novel, also titled simply Dracula…implicitly competing with Dracula Lives! and Savage Tales, both produced by Curtis, Marvel’s magazine imprint. Full-size comic magazines could circumvent the restrictions on nudity and content imposed by the Comics Code Authority on comic books.

One gets the impression the English publishers of Dracula understood exactly what they were doing; in the intro to the first issue of Dracula, the editors wrote:

The Wolff comics themselves would seem to reinforce these arguments, since Wolff is happy to swear by Crom, Mitra, and Set and throw in other references to Howard’s Conan stories and Lovecraftian allusions. All of which are, in hindsight, a bit odd if Maroto claimed they hadn’t been translated yet.

What happened is that Gusca’s script was changed in the translation. Compare this same scene to that in the 2017 Brazilian Portuguese translation, which is closer to the original Spanish:

The uncredited translator obviously took a few liberties in order to emphasize the connections between Wolff and Conan, inserting the occasional “By Crom!” or whatnot wherever convenient. Whatever injustice was done to Luis Gusca’s script, however, was balanced by accurate reproduction of Maroto’s artwork, especially in the 1973 trade paperback edition, which is larger than the average magazine page size and on glossy paper rather than newsprint.

From the description Maroto gives, he and Gusca appear to have used something similar to the Marvel Method—and the evidence of Maroto’s freed is clear in nearly every page and panel; while more restrained than the other blatantly psychedelic stories in Dracula, Maroto’s backgrounds are often sparse, but with well-proportioned, realistic figures and phantasmagoric tableaux.

Wolff’s adventures follow a series of interlinked quests. Unlike Howard’s Conan stories, the plots tend to be rather straightforward, with few betrayals or moral complexities to vex the hero; but there is much of wonder and horror. This was before Conan had become widely-parodied as a simple musclebound brute, and Wolff often overcomes the challenges set regularly in his path by luck and cunning as much as brute strength or swordplay. Wolff is obviously inspired by Conan, right down to the visual details, but he is not Conan; there is none of the brooding and cynicism that mark Howard’s hardboiled fantasy.

In terms of fantasy comics of the 1970s, “Wolff” is sadly little more than a footnote, much like Dagar the Invincible (Gold Key, 1972-1976) by Don E. Glut and Jesse Santos, or Maroto’s other barbarian Dax the Warrior for Warren’s Eerie (based on his Spanish comic “Manly”), and remembered today largely for Maroto’s artwork than for the stories themselves. These were the barbarians inspired by Conan, both as Robert E. Howard wrote him, and increasingly as Conan was depicted in the artwork and adaptations created by folks like Frank Frazetta, Roy Thomas, and Barry Windsor-Smith.

Aside from translation issues, the full series was only ever collected in English in a scarce Australian edition printed on newsprint in black and white:

So, most collectors would have to hunt down the original issues if they want to see what Wolff’s later adventures were. In other markets, a resurgence of interest in Esteban Maroto’s art have led to reprints like Espadas e Bruxas, but most English-speaking readers who want to admire Maroto’s work will have to content themselves with volumes like Lovecraft: The Myth of Cthulhu (2018).

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard & Others (2019) and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos (2014).

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

El Puritano (2021) by El Torres, Jaime Infante, & Manoli Martínez

¿Dónde está Bess?
—El Puritano (2021)

“Where is Bess?” said Solomon Kane.
“Woe that I caused her tears.”
“In the quiet churchyard by the sea
she has slept these seven years.”
The sea-wind moaned at the window-pane,
and Solomon bowed his head.
“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,
and the fairest fade,” he said.
—Robert E. Howard, “Solomon Kane’s Homecoming” (1936)

For any other pulp writer, Solomon Kane would be a breakout character. Robert E. Howard’s original pulp stories, even the unpublished drafts, fragments, and synopses, have been collected, published, translated into other languages, and recorded as audiobooks. Kane has been adapted to comics by at least Marvel, Blackthorne, Dark Horse, Diabolo Ediciones, and now Karras Comics. In 2009 a feature film titled Solomon Kane was released; no less an author than Ramsey Campbell handled the novelization, and Campbell had also previously completed some of Howard’s Solomon Kane fragments. There is a Solomon Kane roleplaying game, a Solomon Kane board game, toys and action figures, and bootleg t-shirts. Solomon Kane has even been borrowed into the work of other authors, like Paul Di Filippo’s “Observable Things.”

Few pulp characters can claim as much success in publication, commercialization, and longevity. Yet Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane has since the 1930s dwelled in the shadow of Conan the Cimmerian. While Solomon Kane was Howard’s first successful series character, Conan was easily his most popular, and the tales and poems of the Puritan swordsman are often discovered by readers after they have already been hooked by Conan.

El Puritano (“The Puritan,” 2021, Karras Comics) is an original graphic novel based on Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane, who has fallen into the public domain in Europe. The creators of this graphic novel are El Torres (script), Jaime Infante (pen & inks), & Manoli Martínez (colorist); the logo was designed by Ferran Delgado. While it is a standalone graphic novel in that the story is self-contained, the framing narrative makes this a kind of “second chapter” to Sangre Bárbara (2021) by El Torres, Joe Bocardo, & Manoli Martínez—El Puritano begins where Sangre Bárbara ends, with the former slave Mary Bohannon telling tales to a young Robert E. Howard, so while each stands on its own, taken together there is an episodic narrative…or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Robert E. Howard’s own story, the narrative and mythology of his life, have been closely entwined with his characters so that he becomes the common bridging element between them.

Solomon Kane did not attract as much fan interest as Conan in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, so there were fewer efforts to define a canonical chronology of his adventures—and indeed, Howard made no particular effort to set down a timeline; certain adventures clearly take place after others, because they refer to earlier events or Kane had acquired his strange cat-headed staff, but trying to fix real-world dates gets problematic. We never see Solomon Kane’s parents or home, we never get a fix for when he was born or how old he is; Kane steps onto the page, fully formed, and leaves the same way after completing his mission.

In El Puritano, El Torres and Jaime Infante have placed a much older but still spry Solomon Kane in the English colonies of North America. Various influences are at play here, some more obvious than others: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1956); Twins of Evil (1971), starring Peter Cushing as a witch-hunter; and The VVitch (2015) by director Robert Eggers all play their part in the mix, with little nods and homages to the various creators, actors, and storylines at play. Solomon Kane, the self-declared Puritan, is present in a colony of fellow believers, and yet he is apart from them. As it may be, since Howard noted:

All his life he had roamed about the world aiding the weak and fighting oppression, he neither knew nor questioned why. That was his obsession, his driving force of life. Cruelty and tyranny to the weak sent a red blaze of fury, fierce and lasting, through his soul. When the full flame of his hatred was wakened and loosed, there was no rest for him until his vengeance had been fulfilled to the uttermost. If he thought of it at all, he considered himself a fulfiller of God’s judgment, a vessel of wrath to be emptied upon the souls of the unrighteous. Yet in the full sense of the word Solomon Kane was not wholly a Puritan, though he thought of himself as such.
—Robert E. Howard, “Red Shadows”

The story that unfolds is a love letter to the character, with many references to past adventures without dwelling on them. Kane is faced once again with supernatural evil, and the need to defend an innocent young woman whose only crime may have been to love a witch. But Kane is also faced with his own conscience and past deeds—and how his own people, with all their superstition and ignorant faith, judge him and others. N’longa makes a surprising but very appropriate appearance, this time inhabiting the flesh of a Wampanoag woman, a kind of transgender experience that is at once novel and yet very fitting for the character.

Jaime Infante’s subdued, realistic artwork greatly compliments the script, and Manoli Martínez does some really notable work as a colorist, shifting the palette of the scenes to depict flashbacks, astral visitations, somber daylight, and vicious battle.

The story ends, not with Mary Bohannon talking to a young Robert E. Howard, but with Bob himself in his room, standing before the typewriter. The house still stands in Cross Plains, TX, now a museum with Bob’s room restored. You can see a Tour of the Robert E. Howard Home by Ben Friberg online, if you can’t get out there in person, and see it just as Infante tried to capture it on the page. Bob needs to write a story, and begins to type the opening words of “Red Shadows”…so it is both an ending and a beginning; what might be the last tale of Solomon Kane loops around as Howard records his legend. It begins and ends with Robert E. Howard.

El Puritano can be purchased from Karras Comics; they are working on other new works based on Robert E. Howard’s stories and characters as well.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sangre Bárbara (2021) by El Torres, Joe Bocardo, & Manoli Martínez

“Sabed, oh Principe…

“…que entre los años en que los océanos enguilleron Atlantis y sus resplandecientes ciudades, y el surgir de los hijoes de Aryas…

“…hubo una edad no soñada.”

Brillantes reinos se esparacían por el mundo como mantos azules bao las estrellas.

“Nemedia, Ofir, Brithunia, Hiperbórea…”

“Zamora, con sus mujeres de oscuros cabellos y sus torres plagadas de arácnidos misterios…”

“Zingara y su gallardía, Koth, que lindaba con las tierras de pastoreo de Shem.

“Estigia, con sus tumbas custodiadas por sombras.

“E Hirkania, cuyos jinetes vestían de acero, seda y oro.

“Pero el reino más orgulloso del mundo era Aquilonia, que reinaba suprema en el oeste.

“Ya hacía años que allí regia el poderoso Rey Conan, el cimmerio, aquel que fue guerrero, ladrón, pirata y saqueador antes que gran monarca.

“Y llegó el tiempo en que una sombra se agitó en las junglas Pictas que dormitaban al oesta de Aquilonia.”

“Know, oh Prince…

“…that between the years when the oceans engulfed Atlantis and her resplendent cities, and the rise of the sons of Aryas…

“There was an age undreamed of.”

Brilliant kingdoms spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars.

“Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea…”

“Zamora, with its dark-haired women and its towers plagued by arachnid mysteries…”

“Zingara and her chivalry, Koth, which bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem.

“Stygia, with its shadow-guarded tombs.

“And Hyrkania, whose horsemen wore steel, silk, and gold.

“But the proudest kingdom in the world was Aquilonia, which reigned supreme in the west.

“It had been years since the mighty King Conan, the Cimmerian, ruled there, the one who was a warrior, thief, pirate, and plunderer before being a great monarch.

“And the time came when a shadow stirred in the Pictish jungles that slept west of Aquilonia.”

Sangre Bárbara (2021, Karras Comics)

So begins Sangre Bárbara (“Barbarian Blood,” 2021, Karras Comics). It is a fitting opening, with a variation of the incipit that Robert E. Howard wrote for “The Phoenix on the Sword,” which was the very first Conan the Cimmerian story, and which ran as a masthead across the Marvel Conan the Barbarian comics for decades, and even ran in a slightly different form at the beginning of the Conan the Barbarian (1982) film that starred Arnold Schwarzeneggar. The opening sets the mood; it immediately places the reader in the time and place for the action, and then the story opens…

As with The Barbarian King 1: Le Spade Spezzate (2019) by Massimo Rosi & Alessio Landi and The Song of Bêlit (2020) by Rodolfo Martínez, this is an original work which takes advantage of the fact that Robert E. Howard’s characters and fiction have fallen into the public domain in Europe. The creators of this graphic novel are El Torres (script), Joe Bocardo (pen & inks), & Manoli Martínez (colorist); the logo was designed by Ferran Delgado.

Like The Barbarian King, Sangre Bárbara is set after the series of stories written by Robert E. Howard, giving the creators a freer hand in writing the adventure. Unlike that work, the principal character in the story is not Conan of Cimmeria…although he is still very much in the story…it is his son, the Prince Conan. A lean young man with the lean build and close-cropped hair of a boxer or legionnaire, scouting in the Pictish wilderness over the Aquilonian border, much as his father did in “Beyond the Black River.”

The story that follows wears several of its literary and artistic influences openly: the iconography of the 1982 film runs through the book like a river, from the cover to almost the last page. There is strong dedication to the original Howard texts, as shown in the opening. And there are hints of suggestions from the Marvel comics as well; I wouldn’t liken it to any kind of borrowing, but more of an inspiration: there was a storyline in Marvel’s Conan the King series titled “The Prince is Dead” which might have been the seed of this story…but Karras Comics takes the storyline much further than Marvel would ever have dared.

There is nudity, and there is gore; the writers and artist get away with it because they finally can—the same way the writers and artists of the French Glénat adaptations, and the Italian Leviathan Labs The Barbarian King books. Conan comics have almost always been a little more mature than the standard superhero fare, a little more bloody and sexy and visceral, but they have never been primarily ago either sex or blood. There are plenty of pornographic and horror comics that go in for plenty of each, if those are what readers want; so the trick for Conan comics nowadays is finding the right balance—in 2006, Dark Horse released a nude cover for Conan the Barbarian #24, and that was too much for some. In Sangre Bárbara, for the story being told and the atmosphere being set, it is certainly not much more explicit than in the 1982 film.

When reading this neo-Howardiana, it is interesting to see the choices that the writers and artists make in the depiction of the Hyborian Age. In this particular case, it is notable how racially diverse the cast is. Robert E. Howard held many of the racial prejudices one would expect of a young white man who grew up primarily in small towns in Texas; it was mentioned in the memoir One Who Walked Alone (1986) by Novalyne Price Ellis how Cross Plains was a sundown town. Some of this 1930s Texas racial stratification made it into Howard’s tales of the Hyborian Age—and some of that was continued in the Conan pastiches by other authors, which is why Charles R. Saunders wrote “Die Black Dog! A Look At Racism In Fantasy Literature” (1975, rev. 2011)—but they aren’t essential to it. Of course you can have Black characters in the Hyborian Age. Why not?

It is difficult not to compare Sangre Bárbara and The Barbarian King, since both works are branching off from similar premises, but they go about their work very differently. The Barbarian King is more acid sword & sorcery, heavier on the magic and the melancholy, the dream-like sequences and monstrous clash of color. Sangre Bárbara is much more gritty, subdued, and realistic; there is sorcery, but it isn’t bolts of flame erupting from fingertips, and the conflicts in the story are more complex than just a math problem of how many bodies can be piled up with a sword. There is a constant thread on the nature of civilization that runs through the story…right down to the last, and my favorite page.

As regards African-legend sources, I well remember the tales I listened to and shivered at, when a child in the “piney woods” of East Texas, where Red River marks the Arkansaw and Texas boundaries. There were quite a number of old slave darkies still living then. The one to whom I listened most was the cook, old Aunt Mary Bohannon who was nearly white—about one sixteenth negro, I should say.
Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, c. Sep 1930, A Means to Freedom 1.44

This is, as far as I am aware, the first appearance of Mary Bohannon in comic book or graphic novel—and I like the sentiment, that to honor the past does not mean to be bound to every part of it irrevocably, and that the future remains to be written. The adventures of Conan are far from over, there are tales of the Hyborian Age left to tell—and maybe they will be a little more mature in more ways than just enough blood and nudity to ensure an NC-17 rating, but in what stories they tell and how, and how race fits into the age undreamed of. Certainly, this is a good start.

Sangre Bárbara can be purchased from Karras Comics; they are working on other new works based on Robert E. Howard’s stories and characters as well.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.