The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
by INJ Culbard
adapted from the novella by HP Lovecraft
1943, adapted 2014
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is a graphic novel adaptation of an HP Lovecraft book by the same name. It's much more of a fantasy adventure than a horror story, and since Lovecraft mostly wrote short stories, I think it's one of his few book-length projects. I read INJ Culbard's adaptation of The King in Yellow last year. I think this one is also pretty successful.
The book opens with early 20th century Bostonian Randolph Carter dreaming of a beautiful golden city, and wondering if it's possible to reach it. He has lunch with an artist friend (they both expect to see a third friend who doesn't arrive,) who tells him of his own similar dream and how to pray to the gods of sleep for admission to the Dreamlands.
Carter prays while falling asleep, an unknown presence sees him, and he awakes, seemingly, at the entrance to the Dreamlands. They warn him that his city might not be in these dreams, but farther out in some other, unearthly dreams, and that crossing from one to the other is dangerous. There's also some caution about the relationship between the gods of Earth and the stronger, older gods of outer space. This idea gets repeated a few times over the course of the book, sometimes with Earth's gods protecting us from the outer gods, sometimes with the outer gods protecting Earth's gods from even stranger, more dangerous things from even farther out.
What follows is an adventure story where Carter crosses the Dreamlands in stages. At each step along the way, he finds human (and sometimes cat!) allies, and is opposed by otherworldly creatures that look, at most, only vaguely human. Each step involves traveling to a new city with strange monumental architecture, and where the otherworldly opposition often takes the form of foreign traders who arrive on weird ships and are only welcome because of the high quality of the goods they carry. It's not hard to see Lovecraft's orientalism and xenophobia at play here.
Also at every step of the way, people tell Carter he's making a mistake, he should turn back, he'll likely fail and will be destroyed by what he finds if he succeeds. Among the allies he finds are his two artist friends from Earth. The one who didn't show up has died and turned into a ghoul; the other found his own golden city and now rules it as a king. He says that the city is made of his childhood sense of awe and wonder, and that he'd give up his kinghood to feel those original emotions again.
Eventually, Carter finds the strange landmarks that point the way, and the ominous, godlike guardians who can point him toward his final destination. The last guardian points to what appears to be a trap, a destination that would damn him. Carter realizes that instead of going forward, he needs to go back, and wakes up in Boston with a newfound appreciation for the city, and a nostalgia for his childhood. It fits with the theme of everyone warning Carter to turn back, but also feels like a remarkably conservative ending - though again, perhaps not a surprise coming from Lovecraft. His usual unhappy endings always result from someone ignoring that kind of advice.
Culbard's art works well here. It's not super detailed, but has a sense of movement and action. I like his use of colors, both to indicate time of day, but also to convey a sense of movement as Carter hops from location to location on his trek.
The book opens with early 20th century Bostonian Randolph Carter dreaming of a beautiful golden city, and wondering if it's possible to reach it. He has lunch with an artist friend (they both expect to see a third friend who doesn't arrive,) who tells him of his own similar dream and how to pray to the gods of sleep for admission to the Dreamlands.
Carter prays while falling asleep, an unknown presence sees him, and he awakes, seemingly, at the entrance to the Dreamlands. They warn him that his city might not be in these dreams, but farther out in some other, unearthly dreams, and that crossing from one to the other is dangerous. There's also some caution about the relationship between the gods of Earth and the stronger, older gods of outer space. This idea gets repeated a few times over the course of the book, sometimes with Earth's gods protecting us from the outer gods, sometimes with the outer gods protecting Earth's gods from even stranger, more dangerous things from even farther out.
What follows is an adventure story where Carter crosses the Dreamlands in stages. At each step along the way, he finds human (and sometimes cat!) allies, and is opposed by otherworldly creatures that look, at most, only vaguely human. Each step involves traveling to a new city with strange monumental architecture, and where the otherworldly opposition often takes the form of foreign traders who arrive on weird ships and are only welcome because of the high quality of the goods they carry. It's not hard to see Lovecraft's orientalism and xenophobia at play here.
Also at every step of the way, people tell Carter he's making a mistake, he should turn back, he'll likely fail and will be destroyed by what he finds if he succeeds. Among the allies he finds are his two artist friends from Earth. The one who didn't show up has died and turned into a ghoul; the other found his own golden city and now rules it as a king. He says that the city is made of his childhood sense of awe and wonder, and that he'd give up his kinghood to feel those original emotions again.
Eventually, Carter finds the strange landmarks that point the way, and the ominous, godlike guardians who can point him toward his final destination. The last guardian points to what appears to be a trap, a destination that would damn him. Carter realizes that instead of going forward, he needs to go back, and wakes up in Boston with a newfound appreciation for the city, and a nostalgia for his childhood. It fits with the theme of everyone warning Carter to turn back, but also feels like a remarkably conservative ending - though again, perhaps not a surprise coming from Lovecraft. His usual unhappy endings always result from someone ignoring that kind of advice.
Culbard's art works well here. It's not super detailed, but has a sense of movement and action. I like his use of colors, both to indicate time of day, but also to convey a sense of movement as Carter hops from location to location on his trek.
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