Biff Bam Pop! has a long-standing tradition during the month of October.
In line with the changing of the clocks, cooling air, shorter days and longer nights and culminating with the annual celebration of Halloween, the writers that make up this website spend thirty-one days highlighting all things great and spooky and beloved.
What better way to start those terror-filled festivities than by showcasing a new comic book featuring one of the greatest writers of cosmic horror fiction?
It’s a timely fear during this particular month, I’ll have you know. This is especially true if you have a habit of looking up towards the heavens while simultaneously doomscrolling the interwebs.
If you’ve been paying any attention to science or science fiction these past few months, you’ll know that interstellar “comet” 3I/ATLAS is currently hurtling its way through the depths of black void and now in our solar system. It’s the third such object that has captivated wide-eyes astronomers and conspiracy theorists since Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019.
This most recent deep-space visitor is the largest in size with a diameter of at least 3.1 miles, currently approaching Jupiter and soon sling-shotting past Mars and Venus while conveniently hiding from our direct line of sight by sliding behind the sun. 3I/ATLAS has confounded scientists with some even considering it an alien craft and, if you’re on the social channels, there’s plenty of “evidence” to suggest it is, fueling a first contact conspiracy years in the making (see: Project Blue Beam).
Then again maybe these heavenly bodies are harbingers of something even larger, even more earth shattering – literally – on its way: the mystery Planet X or Nibiru, swinging round from its 3,600 year orbit in a cataclysmic collision with Earth.
There are any number of cosmic horror pop culture references one can site.
Tru to that lens, I’m not saying 3I/ATLAS is a real-life Color Out Of Space or the true herald of the Cthulu Mythos, but we are living in strange times and strange times call for strange reading. And we get that enthralling cosmic terror with today’s timely release of The Last Day of H.P. Lovecraft #1.
The Last Day Of H.P. Lovecraft #1
Written by: Romuald Giulivo
Illustrated by: Jakub Rebelka
Published by: Boom! Studios
The Last Day of H.P. Lovecraft is the English-language translation of the acclaimed French graphic novel. Deftly written by Romuald Giulivo and lavishly illustrated and designed by Jakub Rebelka via North American publisher, Boom! Studios, the miniseries is a horror story that features famed cosmic horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft, as the main protagonist.
The cosmic terror begins with the knowledge that this is the author’s last day on Earth.
Lying in a hospital bed, his body ravaged by cancer and his mind delirious from morphine, Lovecraft is visited by a strange man (whom avid readers of Lovecraft’s fiction would certainly recognize), full of secrets – or perhaps many truthful illuminations.
That meeting sets Lovecraft, and the story, in motion – a tale that meanders through literature as much as life, fact as much as fiction and the human desire for permanence in a cosmic dance of disintegration.
Beyond Giulivo’s well-researched and compelling narrative, Rebelka’s impressionistic art style, full of dripping symbolism and emotional turmoil is the draw here. His off-kilter panel constructions, detailed landscapes and colour palette all paint a picture of impending doom from the hand of unstoppable machinations. Akin to the Lovecraft mythos, The Last Day of H.P. Lovecraft shows us that man does not steer the ship of reality. Something much more nefarious does, something ready to reveal itself, at last, as the red velvet curtain of existence begins to draw away and showcase the cosmic horrors that dwell around and throughout all of us.
Make the run to your local comic book shop today and pick up the first chapter of the English language release of The Last Day of H.P. Lovecraft.
It’s perfect reading for the spooky October season, lovers of Lovecraft’s fiction and for any inner nihilist or horror truth-seeker among us.
To get an even better feel for the miniseries, you can watch the trailer for The Last Day of H.P. Lovecraftdirectly below.
