This is the first review of my book from Planet Lovecraft Magazine!
As a Lovecraft aficionado, I take an interest in all things HPL, and when I came across the website of Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom a while back, my curiosity was definitely piqued.
Let me make one thing clear – I consider myself a Lovecraft scholar, but I’m not a Lovecraft purist by any stretch of the imagination. As much as I love The Old Gent’s weird tales, I love even more a contemporary writer that can understand Lovecraft’s intent and then weave their own storylines within the Mythos.
With Arcana’s “Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom”, Bruce Brown has given us a little of both… he spins a yarn that falls half in the “real” world – that is, Lovecraft’s childhood – and half in The Frozen Kingdom, an alternate dimension that brings to mind Randolph Carter’s Dreamlands.
In fact, one of the strengths of HLatFK is that, if you’re an HPL fan, everything feels a little familiar. Brown is obviously a fan himself, and so you feel comfortable letting him steer you through his version of Lovecraft Country. And as he tells his story, we meet characters and creatures and discover clues that will obviously lead young Howard to the writer he becomes and the stories he’s best known for.
The art, by Renzo Podesta, is nothing short of gorgeous, each frame so stuffed with natural motion that it looks like you’re looking at a series of animated cels, colored in muted sepias for Howard’s everyday, real world, and icy blue-greens in the world of the Frozen Kingdom. In fact, more than once I thought to myself, “I want to see this movie!”
Will everyone love this? Probably not. There’s a broad and sometimes jarring child-like humor that runs contrary to the dark images, but I embraced it for what it was – the obvious joy of a writer getting caught up in his characters, and Podesta counters by channeling Bill Watterson (creator of Calvin and Hobbes) at his best with young Howard and his Cthulhian pet, Spot.
Where so many recent companies have jumped on the Lovecraft bandwagon and turned the Old Ones into just a bunch of creatures to punch, shoot, or blow up, it’s nice to see someone with a genuine love – and knowledge – of the source material step up and show ‘em how it’s done.
Ia!
K.L. Young
Editor, Art Director, Lavatory Cleaner
Planet Lovecraft Magazine
