Thursday, January 23, 2014

You Got Lovecraft in My Shadow!...

Apparently I'm the target audience for this comic. Pulp heroes. Lovecraftean horror. Ron Marz.  Two great concepts brought together by a veteran writer who has proven he knows how to construct a story.  Count me in!

(The great thing about Cthulhu Mythos stuff is that it was a sort of "open source fiction" before its time. Lovecraft was generous in allowing fellow writers to contribute tales and concepts to his horror concept; in the decades since his death, scores of other writers have continued to expand the Mythos--and while the stories aren't always great, I'm always interested in the experiment.)

From Dynamite Entertainment in April:

 The Shadow series gets a special one-shot in April of 2014. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is written by Ron Marz (Green Lantern) and artist Matthew Dow Smith. Crafting a Shadow story like no other and placing the pulp avenger in H.P. Lovecraft's famous setting for a truly inspired one-shot, this oversized issue will be available in April from Dynamite Entertainment via both comic stores and digital platforms.

In The Shadow Over Innsmouth, the fog-shrouded town of Innsmouth holds deep secrets. There are legends of inhuman creatures raised from the depths, of supernatural rites and elder gods from beyond. When Lamont Cranston and Margo Lane find themselves trapped in Innsmouth, terrible truths will surface... truths only the Shadow can know.

"Certainly the title alone made this a natural story to tell, but more than that, both the Shadow and Lovecraft's mythos are products of the same era," says writer Ron Marz. "They both have pulp roots, so despite the Shadow's crime orientation and Lovecraft's overt horror, there's a similarity in mood. I tried to put together the Shadow and the Innsmouth legend in a way that remains true to both of them. And obviously I couldn't ask for a better artist collaborator that my buddy Matthew Dow Smith. If anybody in comics knows shadows, it's Matthew."

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