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It was another dreary comics month. I didn't see anything I felt
like reviewing, so I let Chris pick something out. He's braver than
I am, after all. His choice was "Neil Gaiman's Only The End of the
World Again." He read it, proclaimed it as good, and said to me "This
is funnier if you've read Lovecraft." Well, I was bored. I had a week
until the CT deadline. So I spent 3 or 4 days reading Lovecraft. Then
I read aforementioned comic and came to this conclusion: Lovecraft's
writing would have been a lot more enjoyable if his protagonists had
been sarcastic instead of melodramatic.
"End of the World" (as I shall call it for short as I am incredibly
lazy and that's an awfully long title) is set in Innsmouth, a New
England town as dreary and smelly as this month's comic book selection.
You Lovecraft fans out there will surely remember.
Innsmouth as the town of pop-eyed worshippers of the Elder Gods. In
Lovecraft's story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", the place was pretty much
wiped out. "End of the World" is set in modern Innsmouth. Either the
place came back or this is a modern story completely apart from Lovecraft's
story. Doesn't matter. Decide whichever you like. The geography's the same,
everyone looks like Peter Lorre, and they're still trying to raise those
Elder Gods.
Add to the mix Lawrence Talbot, adjuster by profession, werewolf by
nature. For whatever reason he's decided to set up shop in Innsmouth,
and has been there for 2 weeks. It's a good thing he did, because he's the
key to stopping the Elder Gods from rising. Those poor Elder Gods, there's
always someone around to spoil their party. Maybe they should try getting
a large town like LA under their sway instead of going for dinky New
England towns.
A good deal of humor comes from people offering Lawrence advice on "curing"
his lycanthropy. Everyone knows he's a werewolf, and everyone has some silly
folklore cure. We don't know how they know, it's left for you to wonder. You
can come up with some funny scenarios, I'm sure.
This is a collection of a serial that ran in the "Oni Double Feature" (so,
of course, it's published by Oni Press). The original is black and white. This
one is color. That might be nice if the colorist had paid some attention to
the narrative and not made eyes that were supposed to be "red and swollen" a
shade of green reminiscent of Nickelodeon slime.
For that matter, it's based on a short story by Neil Gaiman. Let me correct
that... The narrative, word for word, is plucked from the story of the same
name. I read the story this morning to make sure. It's adapted by P. Craig
Russell. Adapted apparently meaning "I decided what parts of the story we could
leave out because the pictures did a fine job of describing, and what order
the pictures should be in." This would be okay, even a good idea, because it
keeps the great sarcastic feeling of the narrative of the original story, except...
This art is TERRIBLE! Absolutely yucky and nasty! When I say "everyone looks
like Peter Lorre", I should add "if Peter Lorre had been hastily formed from a pile
of day-old mashed potatoes. Everyone's lumpy. Their faces are distorted. Bodies are
at weird angles. Hands look like gnarled jumbles. You know, if it was just the
Innsmouth residents, I could understand it. They're supposed to look weird. But I
get the idea that Lawrence is supposed to be normal looking. So the blame definitely
lies with the artist, Troy Nixey.
If you've already read the short story version, or already read the comic
adaptation in Oni Double Feature, don't bother spending $6.95 on this version. The
color isn't worth it. For that matter, just go buy Smoke and Mirrors at your local
bookstore. It has the short story version, AND my personal favorite "We Can Get
Them For You Wholesale."
Just remember. A picture is only worth a thousand words if you can stand to look at the picture.
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