Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom

Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom
Written by: Bruce Brown
Illustrated by: Renzo Podesta
Published by: Arcana Comics (March 29, 2010)
Page Count: 96
ISBN-10: 1897548540
ISBN-13: 978-1897548547
Where to buy:
Arcana Comics
Amazon
Publishers Comments:
After visiting his father in Arkham Sanitarium, young Howard Lovecraft ignores his father’s warning and uses the legendary Necronomicon to open a portal to a strange frozen world filled with horrifying creatures and grave danger!

Hello Ghouls and Boils,

It is now just past the witching hour and I have a treat for you! She Never Slept was lucky enough to receive an advanced review copy of the graphic novel Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom. As most of our regular readers know, Lovecraft has a very special place in my heart. I have been waiting for this comic for some time. (Bruce has been talking about it on The Inner Sanctum for a while.) Though I assigned the book to Patrick to review, I must confess… I also snuck time in to read it myself. I adore this book! I can’t wait to see the print copy. Great job fellows! And now for Patrick’s thoughts on this new Strange Tale graphic novel. Enjoy my fiends!

Abstrusely,
Sarah L. Gerhardt

Hi, folks. My name is Patrick J. Kennedy and I was pleased when Ms. Gerhardt asked me to review some of the grotesqueries that cross her path. When I was a young boy, during that dark twilight of years called the early 80s, H.P. Lovecraft’s works were not so readily available, nor as recognized in the mainstream. Now, kids can get their fix of nameless horror at most bookstores, and Netflix carries almost as many HPL inspired films as Shub-Nigurrath has young! When I first turned my visage (Finally got the damn pdf open!) upon Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom, I was actually giddy! It seemed so horrific, foreboding and Christmas! The art has a very Holiday children’s book style to it, and it reminded me of the joy I experienced as a 6th grader, looking upon my first collection of H.P. Lovecraft. The cover of which was emblazoned with a rather dapperly dressed deep-one, an image that still thrills me to this day.

I didn’t want to come right out of the interdimensional gate lauding praise upon the first thing I reviewed for SNS, but I really can’t find much of anything wrong with this piece of Cthulhoid kid-lit wrongness. And, I am someone who firmly believes, Teddy Sturgeon’s law that “95% of everything is crap” applies particularly well to the realm of Lovecraft inspired comics.

I shall sum it up, making sure not to give away too much. Little Howard Lovecraft, a wide-eyed sensitive if you’ve ever seen one, is given a book by his sanitarium interred father and told to destroy it. Upon reading the book, he is transported to an alien landscape of frozen waste; where, in a mouse & lion twist of fate, he gets himself a pet minion of the Great Old Ones. I mean, what elementary school kid wouldn’t want that? Howard and his new pet, Spot – a name with which the ginormous deep-one is none too happy – set off on an adventure, to save the frozen kingdom of R’Lyeh from the curse of the mysterious Jinn.

Writer Bruce Brown manages to simultaneously capture youthful wonderment and eldritch horror. Artist Renzo Podesta’s style is reminiscent of Rick Geary’s and Sam Kieth’s, but is certainly his own. My only minor criticism is that, if you are unfamiliar with sequential storytelling, you may have trouble following some of Podesta’s action sequences. However, his coloring and tone scheme more than make up for it, and there are times when the book is absolutely beautiful. It’s pretty obvious that the creators are poking fun at the Harry Potter trend in fantasy, which can be viewed as an easy target, but they do it very well and without malice or snark.

Final Thoughts:
I really can’t wait to see what these gentlemen do next. The story was fun, yet creepy, and had a genuinely Lovecraftian ending. I found it both appealing to the kid in me, and to the decrepit worshiper of things man was not meant to know. If you like fun kid-stuff like Mercer Mayer’s art or you can’t wait to see what Spike Jonze has done with Where The Wild Things Are, this book is for you. Definitely worth checking out and I would give it a 4 out of 5
Patrick J Kennedey – Minion (Reviewer)