'Part comic book, part artbook, part children’s storybook, A Call To Cthulhu is a fun, irreverent trip through the classic stories of HP Lovecraft, the influential horror writer, and a perfect introduction to his work for your little terrors! His stories and Cthulhu Mythos would inspire later writers such as Stephen King and Alan Moore, and today form the backbone of many movies, TV series, books, comics, and games.'
Whilst H.P. Lovecraft was an awful person (no, he wasn't a product of his times, he was extremely racist even then) the worlds and characters that he created have lived on long after him, and have inspired some truly fantastic works and creators. It's even easy to argue that he invented a whole new form of horror, cosmic horror, and that there are dozens, perhaps even hundreds of works of fiction and art that can draw a line back to him. Call to Cthulhu is a new entry in the ever expanding Cthulhu universe, and it might just be one of the most delightful ones that I've ever read.
Deep in the middle of the night, out in his remote, isolated home, the elder god Cthulhu receives a telephone call, from a person who wants to make it clear to the big guy just how much he thinks he sucks. Written in poetic verse, the book chronicles this call, as the human on the other end of the phone lays into the ancient being, telling him all of their problems with the entire mythos.
Thus begins a wonderful series of pages that touch upon a load of Lovecraft's stories, making nods towards tales such as 'Rats in the Wall', 'The Color Out of Space' and 'At the Mountains of Madness'. Each of these comes as part of a two page piece of art that's frankly, absolutely gorgeous. Every single page in this book could be framed and hung on the wall as a piece of artwork that any Lovecraft fan would love to show off.
The way that the artwork goes with the content of the rhymes works really well, and the fact that Konyu injects a lot of humour into the way that he describes the stories and the things in them had me chuckling multiple times. I found myself in this tough situation where I'd want to turn the page immediately so that I could find out which story or character would get the focus next, and what fun writing we'd get, yet also wanting to stay on the page so that I could soak in the art for even longer. This is absolutely a book that will have you returning to it multiple times just to revisit the images.
A Call to Cthulhu is designed to appeal to a wide range of readers, but its simplicity, its sense of fun, and the way that it's written in verse makes it ideal for younger readers. In some ways it reminds me of the work of Doctor Seuss, and as such I think that this is the kind of book that any parent with a bit of fun and a love for horror would be more than happy to read to their kids at bedtime.
The work of Lovecraft has gone beyond what it originally was, and has almost taken on a life of its own. It's influenced a lot of people over the years, and has given us some amazing new work, and A Call To Cthulhu feels like a light-hearted, playful celebration of those original stories and what made them great. It might not be a particularly long or challenging read, but it's a book that I'd say any fan of Lovecraft should pick up and read at least once.
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