Review by C.J. Bunce
With the exception of Edgar Allan Poe himself, it’s difficult to find an author of horror with the aura of H.P. Lovecraft. If you look to his written works of fiction, you’ll find tales that will appeal to fans of Robert Louis Stevenson–only with more darkness. If you look to the man himself, you’ll find something even darker. For those who can separate the art from the artist, animator Norm Kontu has created an introduction to Lovecraft stories, good for teens on up.
A Call to Cthulhu, now available here at Amazon, is a play on Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu. It’s a poem presented in a shiny hardcover storybook that both pokes at Lovecraft while also sharing a fun introduction to his monster and fantasy world of ideas.
In this book, the call to Cthulhu is exactly as it sounds–a telephone call. More to the point, it’s a prank phone call from someone who is not a fan of Lovecraft, chastising Cthulhu in Lovecraft’s stead. The caller does it in the style of Dr. Seuss to an extent (boo for the misspelling of Seuss on the back cover, however). Yet while dismissing Cthulhu and the surrounding stories, readers won’t avoid being intrigued by the dark adventures highlighted in the caller’s diatribe.
When readers get to the end, Kontu provides a key to the stories by Lovecraft borrowed from in the poem and artwork. The BBC, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks, and Cartoon Network animator provides the right style for this little book (it’s 48 pages), each page evoking the monsters and chills of Lovecraft’s stories.
Wisely, Kontu also provides a brief biography of Lovecraft, not letting him off the hook for his racist writings. The legacy of Lovecraft’s creations live on in the horror stories of the biggest and most successful horror writers today. Kontu leaves it up to the reader to decide what balance to give the creator versus the creation.
If you have a young person you think might like the Lovecraft tales, A Call to Cthulhu is a great springboard into the stories, allowing a reader to select which to try first based on the art and brief references provided. A Call to Cthulhu is available now here at Amazon.
