H. P. Lovecraft: He Who Wrote in the Darkness Review (Alex Nikolavitch, Gervasio)

I find HP Lovecraft absolutely MADDENING!

I’ve been drawn to his strange stories ever since I discovered them as a teenager even though they’re badly written and horribly boring. But the visions in them and what they represent are so appealing. If you read summaries of his stories you wonder how they could possibly be anything but the most riveting horror fiction you’ll ever come across - and then you read them…

Similarly, I’m forever fascinated with his short, rather dull life despite it being decidedly unremarkable. Who was this odd man to come up with such influential and original fiction? And they are influential - Lovecraft’s popularity grows by the year. There are so many adaptations of his stories in comics, in film, with creators like Alex Nikolavitch and Gervasio one more to produce their own book on Lovecraft’s life.

And yet, like so many Lovecraft and Lovecraft-inspired books, He Who Wrote in the Darkness is a bit of a snore-y let-down. The biographical comic is about Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s final 12 years, from 1925 to 1937, when he wrote most of the fiction that he’s remembered for today.

I suppose one good thing about the book is that Nikolavitch made Lovecraft more human than in other books about him I’ve read (he loved ice cream and hated typewriters). I didn’t realise he travelled so much or that he collaborated with Harry Houdini on a book, and it’s interesting that he corresponded with another iconic genre writer of the time, Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian.

But most of the book is incredibly tedious to read. Lovecraft sits around writing, talking to his few friends about writing, and the book is interspersed with extracts of Lovecraft’s awful writing. What did Lovecraft do in the last 12 years of his life? Mostly writing. It doesn’t make for gripping reading, reading about that! I didn’t think much of Gervasio’s art either - so many other artists drawing Lovecraft’s work have done much better elsewhere that it suffers badly in comparison.

It’s not a very good comic but if you’re interested in Lovecraft’s life I highly recommend Michel Houellebecq’s Against the World, Against Life, though it very often reads like a mash-note!

And the crazy thing? I know I’ll keep reading and watching adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories and his life regardless of their quality - maddening!