Cthulhu Tales Vol. 2: Whispers of Madness [Paperback]

Steve Niles (Author), Michael Alan Nelson (Author), Tom Peyer (Author), William Messner-Loebs (Author), Christine Boylan (Author), Mark Waid (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2008

Cthulhu has called and Steve (30 DAYS OF NIGHT) Niles has answered. Niles joined by Michael Alan (FALL OF CTHULHU) Nelson, Tom (TEK JANSEN) Peyer, Mark (KINGDOM COME) Waid, and Mark (GROUNDED) Sable kick off the new anthology you demanded. Yes Cthulhu Tales is BACK. Featuring more great Lovecraftian Cthulhu stories from more great writers and artists that you know and love. Heed the call! A fun, wild, inventive and often-scary anthology horror series, CTHULHU TALES takes the familiar literary tradition of the Lovecraft-influenced short story and introduces it to comics.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

H.P. Lovecraft's tales of alien Elder Gods and their looming threat have entered the lexicon of horror and been adapted, referenced or ripped off countless times in the more than 80 years since they first saw print, often to diminishing returns. Fortunately this collection has its head and heart in the right place, understanding what makes Lovecraft's oeuvre work and maintaining its creepiness. The quality of the art varies wildly, but all of the writers are strong, including work by Mark Waid, William Messner-Loebs and Steve Niles. Some of the stories actually manage to infuse humor into the mix, and the results are engaging, especially How to Get Ahead in the Occult by scripter Christine Boylan and The Cruise of Cthulhu by Todd Lepre, both featuring art by Cheethat's reminiscent of classic Swamp Thing work by Steve Bissette and John Totleben. Though it doesn't achieve those lofty heights, the material found here is quite good and should leave the reader craving more. (Dec.)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: BOOM! Studios; Original edition (December 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934506516
• ISBN-13: 978-1934506516
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,439,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Alan Nelson was born in Portage, Indiana and grew up in a small farming community before moving to Los Angeles in 2002. He is the winner of the 2004 New Times 55 Fiction contest for his short-short "The Conspirators" and was awarded the 2011 Glyph Comics Award for Best Female Character for the character Selena from his series "28 Days Later." Michael is the author of the critically acclaimed comic series "Hexed," "Dingo," and "Fall of Cthulhu." He lives in Los Angeles.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Travesty to the Name Lovecraft, February 23, 2010

By 

E. David Swan (South Euclid, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cthulhu Tales Vol. 2: Whispers of Madness (Paperback)

I went into this book expecting to see illustrated versions of Lovecrafts classic horror stories but instead found completely original stories apparently inspired by Lovecraft. Actually it would be more correct to say that they are leaching off of Lovecraft. What made H.P. Lovecrafts stories so amazing was his ability to merge science, horror and arcane into a completely new genre. He was a master of building suspense and most of the stories contained twist or shocking endings. By contrast these stories are completely obvious with nary a swerve. They are not scary and the science doesn't have nearly the depth that Lovecraft was able to achieve. Unlike Lovecraft who wrote using a very formal first person perspective most of these stories are written in the third person so they just don't feel very Lovecraftian. There was an oldness to Lovecrafts stories given that they were written in the 1920's but these take place in modern times which again hurts rather then helps the tales. The art is very bland and the dialogue is low rent. As an homage to Lovecraft it fails because Lovecraft fans are the ones who will probably hate it the most.

The book has Mark Waid's name attached as editor and he writes one story but he's really slumming it here. In fact I have to wonder about the publisher BOOM! Studio's in general. My guess is they didn't use actual Lovecraft stories because the stories are copyrighted but the mythos is not. The books just reek of making a buck off of Lovecrafts name. The title of the book, `Whispers of Madness', seems like a mash up of the stories "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Whisperer in Darkness" which seems specifically designed to confuse fans into thinking these are actual Lovecraft stories. At the end of the book were some advertisements for other BOOM! books including X ILES which uses a title font the looks eerily similar to a certain science/horror/thriller that ran on Fox in the 90's. The comic write up makes it sound like a rip-off of X-Files and Lost. My recommendation is to avoid BOOM! comics (I mean for God's sake how can you take a published series that includes an exclamation point in it's name). The only good thing is that I didn't actually pay for this book. Oh, and the binding of the book is weak. Avoid.