Tharg's Terror Tales Presents... Necronauts and A Love Like Blood

[Emperor]

Publication details:
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Thargs-Terror-Tales-Presents-Necronauts-and-Love/Gordon-Rennie/9781907992513

Some reviews:

For audiences familiar with Irving's honed and polished digital style from only his recent work with John Rozum on the critically acclaimed yet unfortunately short-lived Xombi, his four-issue run on Morrison's Batman and Robin, or perhaps even his days on Klarion the Witch Boy, Necronauts and A Love Like Blood will come as a tremendous shock. Gone are the Wacom Cintiq and computer pixels. Instead, with Necronauts, readers have raw Frazer Irving pencils and sable brush inkwork. Penned by Gordon Rennie, the horror tale revolves around the unholy team of Harry Houdini, HP Lovecraft, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Charles Fort, the latter whom Irving would revisit in Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained from Dark Horse Comics. Uniting against an otherworldly force unleashed by Houdini's efforts to defy death, the paranormal group battles demons, both living and deceased, as well as treachery from within its own ranks. Artistically, Irving's pencil and inkwork here represent a bridge from early college experiments and a conscious move to emulate a high-contrast, Charles Dana Gibson-style mixed with gothic woodcut, Zip-a-tone effects, and scratchy and grainy lineart to achieve an atmosphere of insidious gloom and terror. This approach guided much of Irving's black and white illustrations for 2000AD and was refined in subsequent stories such as Judge Death.

Although Irving had worked before with a colorist, A Love Like Blood signifies his first solo coloring efforts employing digital tools in Photoshop. While the narrative of pretty vampires versus werewolves has become commonplace with film franchises such as Underworld and Twilight, this 2000-2001 work predates them as writer John Smith weaves a romantic tale of horror between a male vampire and female werewolf. Visually, Irving's color work is rough and somewhat distracting in places as he wrestles with a diverse palette of hues to correspond with his utilization of fractured and angled panel layouts. Signature magentas and turquoises appear and are much better conveyed when Irving dials it back with the Reefer Madness and Mars Needs Mates strips. Both strips represented a shift in his artistic process and approach, and the results are apparent on the page.

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as a supplement to the Storming Heaven Collection (which also includes A Love Like Blood), this volume is a welcome chronicle of Irving's award-winning 2000AD years that built his reputation in the industry and led to collaborations with authors such as Morrison, Joe Casey, David Hine, Kieron Gillen, Matt Fraction, Ray Fawkes, Phil Hester, and a variety of others. Engaging tales with a glimpse at rare Irving art, Tharg's Terror Tales is a significant move into the American graphic novel market.

http://graphicnovelreporter.com/content/thargs-terror-tales-review

Necronauts teams up Houdini, Doyle, Lovecraft, and Fort. While that seems like pure genre fan fiction, Houdini actually did personally know both Doyle and Lovecraft. Only the Charles Fort connection is tenuous. And instead of some hokey team-up, writer Gordon Rennie plays it straight and fits the encounter into their real lives to make it plausible. Houdini stays too long in one of his escapes and bridges the gap to the world of death, where he finds something horrible. Doyle, in one of his séances, learns of the threat to Houdini, and together they gather Fort and Lovecraft to do battle with the monsters. Houdini plans to go again into the void, and Lovecraft will serve as his guide through the Dreaming realms he knows so well.

The story is just insanely cool. As a fan of Doyle and Lovecraft and a former subscriber to Fortean Times, this story was just a treat.

A Love Like Blood is such a clichéd story I didn't think anyone could write it again and keep me interested. But John Smith managed to spin the Romeo and Juliet as Vampire/Werewolf loves trope with enough new twists that I was fascinated. The young couple on the run was my favorite park of the story, as hatred of their love was enough to unite the thousand-year feud between the vampire and werewolf clans. I have to say the ending was a bit weak, but otherwise this was a real solid yarn.

As a bonus, there are a few short stories at the end that are riffs on old '50s cautionary tales like Reefer Madness, or the terrors of the hippie and metal sub-cultures. But now the reefer madness causes cannibalism, and Woodstock is loud enough to wake the dead -- literally. These stories ranged from a few pages to a few panels, but all of them were clever and good for a laugh.

And what is this?

In the back of Tharg's Terror Tales there is a short sketchbook including some drawings of Edgar Allen Poe.

A continuation to the Necronauts perhaps? If so, I am there.

Now there is an idea, although perhaps not with Poe, he has rather been done to death as a fictional character.

http://www.comicsbulletin.com/main/reviews/thargs-terror-tales-presents-necronauts-love-blood

An earlier one:

Necronauts is a fast-paced horror adventure tale wherein Gordon Rennie (Caballistics, Inc., Glimmer Rats, Missionary Man, Necronauts, Storming Heaven,...) casts the Victorian celebrities in rather smart roles; typecasting them but also adding to their characters. Houdini is as brash as ever but feels himself faced with the ultimate elopement... death. Charles Fort is cast into a Dirty Harry role. Conan Doyle a Pinkerton-ish action hero and Lovecraft an impressionable man trying to triumph over his own weaknesses. The reader isn't given too much time to over think the proceedings - Rennie keeps the script tight stacking threat upon threat in the name of ever present, nameless horrors.

Frazer Irving has plenty of opportunities to showcase his distinctive art style with the abstract horrors provided. Illustrated in black and white, Irving experiments with cross hatching, geometric patterns, gradients and subtle computer effects to get the most out of a threat that is basically abstruse and inconspicuous. Coupled with his character designs which are all spot on and dynamic, it makes Necronauts an excellent read.

The second long story arc in the book before we move on to the standard 5-page Terror Tales is A Love Like Blood.

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More straightforward than we are used to reading from the always thrilling John Smith (Devlin Waugh, Firekind, Holocaust 12, Indigo Prime, Pussyfoot 5, Revere, Slaughterbowl and Tyranny Rex), this story substitutes the Capulets for werewolves and the Montagues for vampires. By adding to the excessive horror and focusing on a timeless feud, Smith still manages to get the most out of the story though. Both clans are mired in myth and history with the vampire clan, especially, outing themselves as an ancient monstrosity; to quote the demon vampire king Sarkasso "2000 Years ago I licked the blood from the foot of the Christ and so began the Sangreal bloodline." The forbidden lovers trying to outrun a doomed fate provides a good character arc and Smith pulls it all together in the final pages. Irving appropriately drowns the pages in blood, revelling in the visceral horror. His colour work excels with high contrast shadow work adapting the hues to the the mood of the scene.

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Tharg's Terror Tales Presents Necronauts & A Love Like Blood submerges you in outstanding horrific moments of unmitigated evil with the best of Tharg's immoral tales. Frazer Irving once again re-establishes his position as a superstar artist while Gordon Rennie and John Smith display twisted narratives to read by the fireplace, tucked under a blanket with all the lights dimmed. Just make sure you left that shotgun at your good side with the cartridges loaded.

http://www.brokenfrontier.com/lowdown/p/detail/tharg-is-back-with-spine-tingling-tales-of-terror