Lovecraft - Brave New World

This comic is meant as a tribute to an old friend.

I’ve been reading Lovecraft since I was thirteen, and the detail and the descriptions of the creatures Lovecraft created in his fiction never ceased to amaze me. Promised myself I’d try to draw some of the creatures long ago. Now, 31 years, I believe my drawing won’t get much better without directed training, and I think the time has come to fulfill my promise.

Some of the pages are meant to discomfort the reader, some are meant to make him laugh. But, in whole, it is also a very personal view of the lovecraftian universe, and, thus, bound to be unpleasant for some. I adapted the author’s mythology to try to include as many references in the story as I could. My intention with this comic was to write a lovecraftian story, according to the author’s recipe to a horror story as shown in Supernatural Horror in Literature, an essay written by Lovecraft himself. Also, there’s some pretty heavy and subliminal stuff in those pages.

For instance, the “professor” of this comic has a conservative, extreme-right (politically speaking) position and verbal discourse. That’s why he seems to treat the take-over (the world) as some sort of enterprise. This is not necessarily my political view. But it’s inserted in the story to provoke the reader, whatever his political convictions may be. The humor bits are sometimes totally incoherent, and at all the blackest humor bits possible. That should generate at least a little discomfort. All the authors and theorics quoted inside may well have been known to the reader at some point or another. That would bring recognition and a position, eighter sympatethic or not. This was also planned here.

There are no backgrounds in the school’s ambience; all the scenes are soaked in black. This is due to a well-known trade of the horror business: the scariest things are those that are not known. We always fear the unknown. And that’s the reason why the students will remain unseen through the full story.

So... all these little things that are hard to notice when you are on a hurry but may make a difference when you take a longer time to read the stuff. I took some time to plan this story. I wanted to make you unconfortable. I wanted you to remember the story.
Hope I achieved it. Hope you liked it. (And - as Stephen King finishes his remarkable prison story in Different Seasons) I Hope.

Resume

This story’s ambience is a near future, in a world taken by the bizarre cults shown in Lovecraft’s works, though that is only shown through the narrative. The entire action, if one may call it that, takes place in what seems to be a classroom, with a teacher explaining students that are never shown in the panels how the world came to change.

It’s all due to a dude named Locke, who mixed strange mathematics with hallucinogens and ended up travelling to another place, where creatures were expecting for aeons the occasional traveler. When Locke comes back, mad as a Chihuahua who’s recently discovered it’s tail, he brings something within him. Performing some rituals this thing is allowed to develop, and the old ones are brought back to life, causing ancient cults to become active again, and disturbing old powers.

Then we’re taken for a tour in the story of the Old Ones, and many other lovecraftian creatures. The teaches then praises the world, and incites the class to start a ritual with him. All this narrative above described is presented with the darkest possible humor, and it ends with the “teacher” showing the reader that he wasn’t quite what he looked like.

Length of Story

The story itself is 22 pages long, all already drawn and inked. As the story was not intended to be colored, there’s just a couple grey shadows, the rest is black and white. There are two extra pages for the references inserted inside the story and one page as an introduction to the comic, all fully illustrated. Also, a “cover” with title and author’s name, also B/W.

Story – 22 pages
References – 2 pages
Introduction – 1 page -- 26 pages total, but 4 of them are optional.
“Cover” – 1 page

List of needed collaborators

As the comic is pretty much ready, all it would need, once the submission is accepted and the pages translated, is someone to take a look at the letters. Since it’s author is not an english native speaker, there are bound to be mistakes. Apart from that, nothing, the author even has contact with a colorist, in case the editor require colors.

Sample Pages: