H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth by Gou Tanabe Review

Gou Tanabe continues his HP Lovecraft manga adaptations with one of HP’s more famous stories, and the only one that was published in book form in his lifetime, The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

The narrator, on a tour of New England, sightseeing and doing some genealogical research, decides to spend the day at the small fishing town of Innsmouth, before moving on to Arkham. Except Innsmouth has other ideas and he finds himself trapped in this strange place with its even stranger inhabitants…

I’ve read all of Tanabe’s Lovecraft adaptations but I haven’t loved any of them, including this one. I don’t think it’s entirely Tanabe’s fault - Lovecraft, as influential as his stories have become, was not a good writer. He was more of an ideas man than a gifted craftsman or storyteller, and so, even if Tanabe is being faithful, he’s got an uphill struggle to make the sluggish narratives compelling.

So it goes with this version of The Shadow Over Innsmouth which has a very tedious, exposition-heavy first half. Reading the first 250-ish pages of this book is like playing one of those old point and click games where you’re forced to talk to every side character in each location before you can get to the real story - and none of those characters are the least bit interesting!

Thank Cthulu Tanabe’s art is fantastic. The character designs of the Innsmouth folk are really disturbing and the imagery of the decaying, isolated and lifeless town is often haunting, perfectly suiting the increasingly oppressive and creepy atmosphere. There are numerous amazingly detailed splash pages too (no pun intended - lotta sea stuff in this story!).

The story actually becomes temporarily exciting when the narrator is forced to spend the night in Innsmouth and his ordeal in surviving it is quite compelling. Then we’re onto a drawn-out ending, which isn’t bad but is kinda anti-climactic after the narrator’s escape. It contains famous Lovecraftian references to Dagon and the Deep Ones, and has one of the most quoted lines by Lovecraft: “Under the oceans… where in his house in R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.”

As ever, I like the idea of Lovecraft and his weird world more than the stories themselves, even when retold by a talented manga artist like Gou Tanabe. At least this version of the story has great visuals to liven up the abundant, always dreary, exposition that make Lovecraft’s stories an acquired taste. Maybe more patient horror readers will get the most out of his work but, for more casual readers, expect to be put to sleep more often than not if you pick this one, or any Lovecraft story, up.