be) of the story intact has got to be tough. Each of the volume’s six adapters, including Lockwood, who penned three of the seven tales himself, have managed to do just that. Each adaptation manages admirably to retain the flavor and pervasive creepiness of the original, and stands as a compelling narrative in its own right. At times I did find myself rescanning a frame or two, or flipping back a page to see if I might have missed something, but overall the reconstructions are comprehensible and flow well. Common wisdom tells us that “a picture is worth a thousand words”, and in these abridged accounts the contribution of the artwork to that end cannot be denied.
Each of the seven artists who contribute their creative vision have imaginatively rendered the background, and often foreground, for the text. Every story is illustrated in its own distinctive style, often utilizing specific color palletes. The variety of illustration techniques makes for an exciting and visually sumptuous feast for the eyes. Many are detailed and “realistic”, while others are more fanciful. All are slightly disturbing in what they portray, in several cases actually pretty gross, which is as it should be, given the bizarre and disturbing subject matter. Personal preference dictated that some styles appealed to me more than others, but in each case the technique and text were appropriately matched, and represent the finest in genre art. I was particularly impressed in several stories by the illustrator’s ability to create inspired visual images when nothing particularly graphic was suggested by the text, or where the story was left to unfold through pictures alone, rather than words.
Picture book layout is often an overlooked specialty, so vital to the success of a publication of this type, so kudos go to Andy Huckle, who is credited for both the layout and lettering. The layout of the book varies nicely, some stories with boxed panels neatly organized against a white background in the traditional way, some with panels or against full-size illustrations that bleed off the page. Various fonts are used for the easy-to-read lettering, and are boxed in solid white, or sometimes transparent panels which allow the underlying art to show through, or are left unfettered and superimposed directly onto the images in black or white as required.
Considering anything Lovecraftian as a “light read” is perhaps a contradiction in terms, however that is how I would classify this (and possibly any) graphic compendium. I enjoyed reading The Lovecraft Anthology Volume 1, and I think that any fan of macabre, otherworldly scenarios, stunning illustrations, and yes, even the unexpurgated writings of H. P. Lovecraft, will feel the same. I await Volume 2 with anticipation.
—Jon Koons
MUMMIFIED
BY JILL BAUMAN
Dying was the easy part.
Now I lie upon a slab
tightly wrapped,
bound to myself
become so hard and cold.
I am a feast for others.
My organs vandalized
crawling things
ravage me
nourish themselves
as I fall into ruin.
Examining myself
my outer self preserved
permanently
an eternal
monument
to my existence.
I leave my remains behind
my spirit hovers
for a while
then dissipates
as my soul
enters another
and my journey continues.
THE LONG LAST NIGHT
BY BRIAN LUMLEY
Born 2nd December, 1937, Brian Lumley came into the world just nine months after the most obvious of his forebears—meaning of course a “literary” forebear, namely, H. P. Lovecraft—had departed from it. In his early teens, as a result of reading Robert Bloch’s Lovecraft pastiche Notebook Found in a Deserted House, he became more surely attracted to macabre fiction, an attraction that has lasted a lifetime. HPL’s publisher August Derleth asked Lumley, whom he knew to be an aspiring author, whether he had anything solid he could use in a book he was preparing for publication, to be entitled Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. Thus Lumley began writing in earnest. Derleth included stories by Lumley in a number of Arkham House anthologies and went on to publish three of the author’s books, Beneath the Moors; The Caller of The Black and The Horror at Oakdeene, all set mainly in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos milieu and echoing HPL’s literary style. After 22 years in the British military, Lumley became “a professional author” (he had never really considered himself that before) and began to write in earnest. His breakthrough book was the ground-breaking horror novel Necroscope®, featuring Harry Keogh, the man who can talk to dead people; it became a best-selling series. Thirteen countries (and counting) have now published, or are in the process of publishing these and others of Lumley’s novels and short story collections, which in the USA alone have sold well over three million copies. In addition, Necroscope comic books, graphic novels, a role-playing game, quality figurines, and in Germany a series of audio books have been created from themes and characters in the Necroscope books, and Lumley has added his “real” voice to Dangerous Ground, a Downliners Sect rock & roll album released in the UK in 2004. In March 2010 Brian received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association. This was presented to him at the World Horror Convention in Brighton, UK. HPL’s most accomplished successor, Mr. Lumley helps launch the Elder Gods issue of Weird Tales with the following frightening science-fictional version of tomorrow’s London.
I met or bumped into the old man on what was probably the very rim of the Bgg’ha Zone. And after careful, nervous greetings (he had a gun and I didn’t) and while we shared one of my cigarettes, he asked me: “Do you know why it’s called that?”
He meant the Bgg’ha Zone, of course, because he’d already mentioned how we should be extremely careful just being there. Shrugging by way of a partial answer, I then offered: “Because it’s near the center of it?”
“Well,” he replied, “I suppose that defines it now. I mean that’s likely how most people think of it; because after three or four years a name tends to stick, no matter its actual origin. And let’s face it, there’s not too many of us around these days—folks who were here at the time, old’uns like myself—who are still here to remember what happened that time.”
“When the Bgg’ha Zone got its name, you mean?” I prompted him. “There’s a reason it’s called that? So what happened?”
Getting his thoughts together, he nodded, and finally said, “The real reason is that shortly after that damn twisted tower was raised not long after they first got here, after they came down from the stars and up from the sea, or whatever, the only time anyone went anywhere near the twisted tower voluntarily—‘to find out what it was like!’ I’ve heard it said, if you can credit anyone would do such a thing!—the damn
