Presents horror legend HP Lovecraft's short prose piece "Nyarlathotep". This book presents Lovecraft's original poem in its entirety and also features a visual interpretation.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up—This is a monster story meant to chill readers; with a dozen new illustrations, the chill arrives faster. The horrible creature of the title is a Pharaohlike figure that draws the darkest impulses and urges from any creation and drains it of all sanity and life. Nyarlathotep releases monsters from within himself as well as those from without and pretty much destroys the narrator with a slow but insistent madness. Readers unfamiliar with Lovecraft's writing will have an easier time deciphering this nightmare through the graphic images, which give jarring color to the dreadful events. This is a powerful, fearful tale that will speak to sophisticated readers and to teens already drawn to Lovecraft, Poe, Stephen King, and their ilk.—Will Marston, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Chuck BB presents a series of illustrations to accompany the entirety of Lovecraft’s 1920 prose poem “Nyarlathotep,” which is considered a significant cornerstone to his Cthulhu mythos. The poem itself is a doomful swill of vague premonitions, chilling imagery, and abstract horror. It follows the arrival of an ancient Pharaoh-like figure named Nyarlathotep, who attracts crowds wherever he goes with demonstrations of supernatural power. The narrator attends one of his showings, but after laughing at Nyarlathotep he is sent into an indecipherable surreal panorama of terror and insanity and maybe the end of the world. BB’s artwork is appropriately all doom and jagged angles but colorfully manages to avoid the gloom in his vivid imaginings of Lovecraft’s often impenetrable prose, capturing evil without resorting to grotesquerie. Most readers new to Lovecraft won’t get much more than confusion and maybe a nightmare or two out of this, but if the shivers hit others just right they’ll be slavering for more after digesting this very short oddity from an early master of horror. Grades 8-12. --Ian Chipman
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Boom Studios has recently made quite a name for themselves in the field of Lovecraftian comics. The still ongoing Fall of Cthulhu is easily the best single story arc series in HPL comics, Necronomicon was a 4 issue series well worth finding for collectors and Cthulhu Tales is a respectable series of self contained stories. Nyarlathotep carries fascination for most Lovecraftians (in fact, I think Fall of Cthulhu: Nemesis is supposed to be about his origins). This book represents something of a new direction for Boom. It consists of the text of HPL's prose poem, Nyarlathotep, lavishly illstrated by Chuck BB. I must admit I am unfamiliar with Chuck BB's other work. Nyarlathotep is a very nice cloth bound hardcover with an intriguing painting on the slipcover. Page count is 32 but the text and illustrations run from 5-27. List price is $14.99 but Amazon discounts to $11.69. I did not compare the text of Nyarlathotep with any of Joshi's definitive editions.
While I have found the prose poem mesmerizing for many years, the reason to by this book is for the illustrations and production values. If you like the image on the slipcover, you will certainly enjoy the rest of the book. Counting the cover illustration, there are 11 full page, full color illustrations, each representing some passage from the text. While I may have wished for different passages to be illuminated I was very impressed with Chuck BB's skill. The muted color palate enhanced the peculiar mood conveyed by the text. Sample this if you can before you buy, but I certainly was impressed and will be dipping again into its pages periodically. I hope Boom Studios will give us more illustrated versions of HPL's originals.
While I have found the prose poem mesmerizing for many years, the reason to by this book is for the illustrations and production values. If you like the image on the slipcover, you will certainly enjoy the rest of the book. Counting the cover illustration, there are 11 full page, full color illustrations, each representing some passage from the text. While I may have wished for different passages to be illuminated I was very impressed with Chuck BB's skill. The muted color palate enhanced the peculiar mood conveyed by the text. Sample this if you can before you buy, but I certainly was impressed and will be dipping again into its pages periodically. I hope Boom Studios will give us more illustrated versions of HPL's originals.
Format:Hardcover
Because of the nature of his writing, H.P. Lovecraft is notoriously difficult to adapt to comics. Illustrator Chuck BB hit on a good solution by doing an illustrated version of one of Lovecraft's short tales, "Nyarlathotep."
One of the cornerstone prose poems of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, "Nyarlathotep" introduces the prophet of Azathoth, the insane and powerful God who sits at the end of the world. Nyarlathotep comes out of ancient Egypt (accounting for the -hotep part of his name), charismatic and commanding he holds public spectacles and speeches like a magician, but his prophecies begin to drive people mad. All through the poem, Nyarlathotep only hints at the horrors he discloses at these gatherings, until the last few pages tell the awful truth of his words. Nyarlathotep eventually showed up in other Lovecraft writings, as a major character in ""The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" and mentioned by name is several other tales.
Short and disjointed, the poem "Nyarlathotep" is not one of Lovecraft's greatest works. It was later re-worked for his long-form poem "The Fungi From Yuggoth." The poem and the name come from a dream Lovecraft had (and obviously based on Nikola Tesla), which accounts for its loose and flowing narrative. Somehow, this made it even a better candidate for adaptation to a work like this, where the expectations are not so high and the images so firmly set. The illustrator was allowed more interpretive leeway.
BB's illustrations are very graphical, with hard lines and colors incorporating design elements. He does a nice job with the mood of the work, focusing more on a psychological interpretation rather than outward horror. If I had to make a comparison to something, it would be like a comic book version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream."
Boom Studios did a great job with this release, and I love the idea of combining Lovecraft's original words with illustration. If there is a downside to "Nyarlathotep," it is that you don't get much bang for your buck. Lovecraft's poem was only 1,150 words long. I did a comparison, and the text is all there, but it still makes for a short book.
One of the cornerstone prose poems of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, "Nyarlathotep" introduces the prophet of Azathoth, the insane and powerful God who sits at the end of the world. Nyarlathotep comes out of ancient Egypt (accounting for the -hotep part of his name), charismatic and commanding he holds public spectacles and speeches like a magician, but his prophecies begin to drive people mad. All through the poem, Nyarlathotep only hints at the horrors he discloses at these gatherings, until the last few pages tell the awful truth of his words. Nyarlathotep eventually showed up in other Lovecraft writings, as a major character in ""The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" and mentioned by name is several other tales.
Short and disjointed, the poem "Nyarlathotep" is not one of Lovecraft's greatest works. It was later re-worked for his long-form poem "The Fungi From Yuggoth." The poem and the name come from a dream Lovecraft had (and obviously based on Nikola Tesla), which accounts for its loose and flowing narrative. Somehow, this made it even a better candidate for adaptation to a work like this, where the expectations are not so high and the images so firmly set. The illustrator was allowed more interpretive leeway.
BB's illustrations are very graphical, with hard lines and colors incorporating design elements. He does a nice job with the mood of the work, focusing more on a psychological interpretation rather than outward horror. If I had to make a comparison to something, it would be like a comic book version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream."
Boom Studios did a great job with this release, and I love the idea of combining Lovecraft's original words with illustration. If there is a downside to "Nyarlathotep," it is that you don't get much bang for your buck. Lovecraft's poem was only 1,150 words long. I did a comparison, and the text is all there, but it still makes for a short book.
Inside This Book
(learn more)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
