Book(s) of the Week

I must confess I don't normally think of Spaniards when I think of H. P. Lovecraft and given some of the less than flattering opinions of non-English ethnic groups that Lovecraft had expressed in both his fiction and in real life, it is probably just as well. Lovecraft's work is interesting for a lot of reasons but I tend to read his work despite his prejudices, not because of them.

Anyway, I was quite surprised to find three volumes of the Young Lovecraft comic strip collection at my local library because while a lot of people over the years have tried to get humor out of Lovecraft -- including yours truly -- not all of them have been as successful as Young Lovecraft's creators.

Spanish cartoonists Bartolo Torres and José Oliver, the creators of the comic strip Young Lovecraft, take a surprisingly simple approach to their subject: suppose all the fictional monsters that Lovecraft wrote about were real. What would happen next? It does not hurt that Torres and Oliver's version of Lovecraft bears little if any resemblance to its historical counterpart. Even if it did, I highly doubt that the real Lovecraft had a gal pal named Siouxsie, much less one who looks like the Siouxsie character in Young Lovecraft.

Not that matters. Torres and Oliver are not interested in creating the definitive version of Lovecraft's life. They are merely using it as a starting point for their own fiction. And much of it is quite funny.

Would the real Lovecraft have approved of it? Not likely.

But then I doubt Torres and Oliver worry very much about that.