I went by the comic book store to pick up the new trade of Painkiller Jane, but for some annoying reason they didn't have it yet. So I bought Cthulhu Tales: The Rising instead -- it's a collection of short stories on the Cthulhu theme from indie outfit Boom! Studios. It's also the first part an ongoing Cthulhu Tales series.
Unfortunately, dear readers, the comic book did not live up to its tenticular potential. There were a few good-enough segments like "I Hear the Call," by James Anthony Kuhoric, and "Seed of Cthulhu" by Christopher E. Long. Both were pulpy and melodramatic, with seeds pelting the characters from space and madmen tuning into the Deep Ones' psychic frequencies. But the irritating tale "The Pull of Insanity" by Hans Radionoff was complete tripe (and not the good kind of tripe whose ancestors built terrible, non-Euclidean cities). In it, a guy buys a copy of *Cthulhu Tales: The Rising *-- ooohhh, so pomo self-referential! -- and it sprouts centipedes who drive him mad and inspire him to go on a comic book store shootout rampage. Spare us the in-groupy comic book references and smugness, please. Especially when coupled with uninspired writing and boring characters.
There is, however, one incredible standout in this otherwise mediocre hommage to the great Lovecraft. The story "Are You There, Cthulhu? It's Me, Margaret," by Henry Alonso Myers, is a pitch-perfect satire of a teenage girl struggling with her Cthulian nature, complete with sly references to self-cutting and "mean girls." This segment is so good -- funny and creepy -- that I don't regret forking over the $6.99 I shelled out for the book. If the guys at Boom! had any brains (and I'm not sure they do), they'd give Myers a chance to do an entire book about teen girls who are a little reluctant about embracing their tentacles.
Cthulhu Tales: The Rising [via Boom! Studios]
