Fall of Cthulhu Vol. 3: The Gray Man [Paperback]

Michael Nelson (Author), Mateus Santolouco (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2008

Arkham's Sheriff Raymond Dirk hunts for a killer called the Gray Man! Teaming the mysterious young woman Lucifer, the Sheriff and his unlikely ally search for the elusive Gray Man, and find themselves the hunted rather than the hunters. Can they stop the Gray Man in time or will the Cthulhu cultists have their way? Will the final showdown between the Gray Man and Lucifer over the fate of mankind consume us all? And what horrible price has the Sheriff paid to tip the balance in our favor? Humanity hangs in the balance in this third volume of the critically acclaimed ongoing series! Collecting issues 11-14.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

For the third, single-arc collection of the best-ever Lovecraftian comic, Nelson taps yet another artist, who adopts the embossed-looking figuration Jean Dzialowski employed in volume 1, The Fugue (2008), and carries it over into the garishly surreal Dreamlands, to which Arkham, Massachusetts, sheriff Raymond Dirk must repair en route to stopping a wave of spectacular murders. Killing the perp, a mysterious gray man, isn’t an option because he’s not really corporeal. Though Dirk looks slightly like a wander-in from King of the Hill, this gruesome tale otherwise suggests a very good episode of X-Files creator Chris Carter’s other great TV series, Millennium, though Dirk lacks Frank Black’s gift. --Ray Olson

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: BOOM! Studios; Original edition (December 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934506508
• ISBN-13: 978-1934506509
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,159,740 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

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Knife guys finish last, August 21, 2009

By 

Michael J. Tresca "Talien" (Fairfield, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fall of Cthulhu Vol. 3: The Gray Man (Paperback)

The Grey Man is the third volume in the epic story arc that is Boom Studios' Fall of Cthulhu comic series. I discovered Fall of Cthulhu when I was just launching my Delta Green campaign and was hungry for any fiction dealing with the Cthulhu mythos in a modern context. Fall of Cthulhu is all that and more.

The Gray Man continues the story of the odd knife that caused so much havoc in the earlier parts of the series. Our new protagonist is Raymond Dirk, Arkham's sheriff, who is accustomed to strange goings-on. His life is radically changed once he crosses paths with a Brazilian thief named Luci Jenifer Inacio Das Neves (Lucifer for short). A student of Professor Walter McKinley, Lucifer returns to Arkham only to discover he committed suicide.

McKinley had Lucifer steal a cursed knife from an antique collector in Fortaleza in an attempt to keep it away from Cthulhu cultists. It turns out the knife belonged to a very special person: The Gray Man, patron saint of sacrifice. Lucifer and The Gray Man are in a race to get to the knife first.

Dirk is a likable lead character, a man who keeps his cool no matter how strange things get. Lucifer, on the other hand, looms larger than life: she is a master thief and adept sorcerer, capable of concealing herself from the Gray Man and entering the Dreamlands at will.

Speaking of the Dreamlands, The Harlot is back in this series. Although her dialogue is wry as always, the Dreamlands artwork is not up to the same creepy standards of Andrew Ritchie, who oozes weirdness with every frame he draws.

Throughout the storyline, a little girl in a yellow dress makes random appearances. Her origins are somewhat explained in the final volume of Fall of Cthulhu, but the nature of separate installments means that readers new to the series will invariably be confused. My guess is she's an incarnation of Hastur (and his avatar, the King in Yellow).

Gnruk also makes an appearance, but he is not nearly as horribly realized as his debut earlier in the series. A conflict between The Gray Man and Gnruk looks a bit like the two are waltzing together.

At the conclusion, Mickey Rennier, a Cthulhu cultist with a green Mohawk, provides a bit of a deus ex machine to wrap it all up. Rennier feels oddly out of place in a comic that seems so grounded; punk villains went out of style in the eighties.

Lucifer is clearly a favorite character; her abilities as a thief aren't really demonstrated in this comic - her claim to fame is basically grabbing a knife and jumping out a window while failing to avoid The Gray Man AND Gnruk - but it's clear she's being set up for greater things, specifically the comic series Hexed.

The conclusion has a great twist and ends on a surprisingly poignant and bittersweet note. Unlike some of the other volumes in the Fall of Cthulhu, this story largely stands on its own. Overall, this is an excellent entry in the Lovecraft tradition that manages to bring the horror of the Mythos down to a personal level.

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite Cthulhu series, October 31, 2010

By 

F. Carter "Rides Water" (Akron, Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fall of Cthulhu Vol. 3: The Gray Man (Paperback)

Ok, the material does not reflect Lovecraft's writing style. Boo-hoo. These are graphic representations of someone else's interpretations of the concepts. And they are damn good ones.

I rate this series in the top 3 of Cthulhu relatecomics I have read. I bought these are the condensed books. I am not someone who likes to buy individual comics.

I found the artwork and story line compelling and within my expectations of a 15-year mythos fan. The story and characters developed well throughout the books. Nothing felt static or two-dimensional, except the pages themselves. I loved the Harlot in this series and how she was used by the writers in some unexpected ways.

These printings are on durable stock and I will enjoy rereading them over the years.