H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) has become an icon in world culture, and his work has been immensely influential in popular culture. It is therefore fitting that the central incidents of his life be depicted in graphic novel form.
Sam Gafford and Jason C. Eckhardt have done the job with flair and poignancy. They portray Lovecraft’s childhood, dominated by an overprotective mother; his early ventures into amateur journalism; his marriage to Sonia Greene and his move to New York; his ecstatic return to his native Providence, R.I., where he wrote the great stories for which he is now remembered.
Gafford and Eckhardt present memorable images of the great literary creations—the extraterrestrial monster Cthulhu, the forbidden Necronomicon, the shoggoths that haunt Antarctica—that have made him a worldwide celebrity. Along the way, we are given portraits of Lovecraft’s closest colleagues—August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and others.
Some Notes on a Nonentity uses the graphic novel as the perfect medium for exhibiting the life and times of H. P. Lovecraft in a compact and easily accessible form.
