Miskatonic’s Magical Misery Tour continues with a trip to Arkham in AfterShock Comics’ Miskatonic #2. Written by Mark Sable, penciled by Giorgio Pontrelli, colored by Pippa Bowland and lettered by Thomas Mauer, Miskatonic #2 finds our intrepid investigators on the run from the Dagon cultists, aiming toward deeper, darker corners of Lovecraft Country. We open on squid-worshipping already in progress…
Will Nevin: It’s the second issue, but in many ways, it’s more of the first: a few creepy creatures, a feds-n-bad-guys story and some Lovecraftian references that are going right over this dumb dumb’s head. But enough about me. Justin, what did you think of it?
Justin Partridge: OH BOY, did I love this one. Not only do we get some choice additions to our leads, but we get a metric TON more Lovecraft shoutouts this time around, further supporting my theory that Miskatonic is looking to be the “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” of the cosmic horror pulp scene, and I am ALL. A. BOUT. IT.
But you are not wrong! This follow-up issue is largely just more shoe leather around our leads and the cosmically horrifying place setting they have found themselves in, but I am still very much having a blast with it (while also understanding that a LOT of this is probably very inside baseball to people). All the same, I am VERY excited to parse it all with you, Will.
WN: Let’s get to it, hoss.
Into the Muck and Tentacles
WN: I want to start with something maybe not terribly germaine — although maybe it’s the only reason we’re here — but since we’ve got a lovely squiddy on this month’s cover and the last issue included it, what’s your official position on monster fucking and/or monsters fucking?
JP: Listen. I am never going to lie to you or the readers.
WN: Honesty is important in any relationship, Justin.
JP: But I am 100% pro-monster fucking. Having owned multiple copies and covers of Avatar Press’ truly awful Neonomicon, I don’t really have the most moral position by which to judge ANYBODY their proclivities, but just as a general rule, if the monster is hot, I’m gonna wanna holler at them for sure. And it’s weird you even bring it up, because Lovecraft’s whole idea around sex was so warped and stunted in his own life, it would be hilarious to see what he would think of the genre’s … let’s say skew toward Hot People-on-Monster action that certain works take. His marzipan-looking head would probably collapse in on itself like a badly made candle.
But that aside, the logo DOES look tremendous. I’ve actually been loving AfterShock’s whole trade dress of this series a lot. The minimalist credits page after the usually older school looking cover (which have been largely portrait works so far) have been really striking and give this series a neat visual appeal apart from the rest of their line. (But hey, squiddie, shout out if you wanna get some … i dunno, kelp or plankton? I don’t really think Old Ones do coffee…)
WN: If you guys got hitched, where would you register? Just curious.
JP: Crate and Barrel, obviously.
That stuff fits the Lovecraftian vibe, for sure. Lotta brass and reclaimed wood. But I would absolutely also use it as a chance to finally get Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows’ Providence. I’ve been searching for that thing for literal years at this point. I have The Courtyard and Neonom (which is embarrassing despite The Courtyard actually being good), but I NEED Providence. Even just in single issues.
Comics Cavalcade, holler at yer boys!
WN: Now that we’ve got that settled, here’s a quiz: I’m going to toss out some specific Lovecraft references that I didn’t get that I want you to explain because you’re more fun than Google. And try to contain your boundless depths, it’s a lightning round. Got it?
JP: Oh, I absolutely love this. And there REALLY is a ton here that I was planning on tackling anyway, but I love a quiz. Hit me, Will.
WN: First one: Mother Hydra/Father Dagon.
JP: If the Deep Ones (Mythos Creatures confined to the depths of the sea) had “patron saints,” they would be Mother Hydra and Father Dagon.
First mentioned in The Shadow over Innsmouth, Mother Hydra is said to be the “ruler” of all the Deep Ones. So powerful and massive is she, certain more abstractly reading scholars believe her to be a possible outcast from the Great Old Ones (the main “pantheon” of Mythos creatures who slumber in deep space), struck down to Earth’s ocean for being too ambitious and powerful for the largely indifferent cosmic deities, and ruling her section of ocean alongside Great Cthulhu (who lies sleeping in the sunken city of R’lyeh, seen briefly in this issue).
In taking the consort of Father Dagon, she and her new mate spawned a whole new subsection of Mythos creatures, what we now know as Deep Ones (or “frogmen,” like we talked about last column) which then spread her dominion further onto the shores of Innsmouth and further still inland.
WN: Next: Walpurgis.
JP: THIS is actually a fun bit of history that pulps love to play around with.
Walpurgis, or Walpurgistnacht (Saint Walpurgis Night from the German), is the eve of the feast day of Saint Walpurga, who was an 8th century abbess in Francia (or Frankish Empire). Celebrated on April 30 into the first of May, the feast celebrates the canonization of Walpurga and the movement of her reliquaries to Eichstatt in Bavaria in 870AD.
This is a big deal in Central and Northern Europe and is often brought up in Lovecraft stories as one of the many nights “the stars are right” for a summoning ritual or some other daemonic incursion. Also, fun note: The Church of Satan recognizes it as a holiday, one of the most “unholy” beyond one’s own birthday, symbolizing the “fruition of the spring equinox” (which is also, unshockingly enough, FROM Lovecraft himself).
WN: Ahhh, now the textual reference makes sense. It’s a specific time and not a place (which is what I thought). Kinda like some festival when the leaves turn but for monster fuckers. Nice.
On to Nabatean.
JP: ANOTHER fun touch of actual history from Sable!
The Nabatean were a tribe of Bedouin Arabs who mainly inhabited the northern regions of Arabia and southern Levant (what we now know as the edges of Israel, Jordan and Palestine). Their biggest claim to fame are the ruins of Petra, which were thought to be their “capital” settlement.
The Nabatean are vaguely touched on throughout Lovecraft’s later works as he ascribed their wondrous rockwork to mostly aliens and other Mythos creatures, proposing that this tribe was one of the Great Old Ones’ first contacts on this earthly plane who then granted them “secret, profane knowledge” which in turn allowed them the skills and understanding of Great Old One magicks. An understanding which then produced the infamous Abdul Al-Alhazred (or the sweatily nicknamed “Mad Arab”), author of the dread Necronomicon and most powerful Mythos magickian on the planet, said to have held council with none other than the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep, themselves (the Middle Eastern-based, and arguably most popular Great Old One second only to Great Cthulhu).
WN: Finally, whatever class schism there is between Arkham, Innsmouth and Dunwich and the extent to which it’s racist because I know there’s racism here.
JP: OH ABSOLUTELY, the also infamous rift that rollicks between all the towns in “Lovecraft Country.”
As you already picked up on, Arkham is very much the New York of this little Stephen King-esque burg (King’s Maine itself heavily influenced by the “Arkham Valley” admitted from the lips of Sai King himself), so naturally all the towns around it harbor deep resentment toward its “educated and affluent” cityfolk. We have our first mention of Dunwich and even an appearance by its most famous resident, Wilbur Whateley, the titular “Dunwich Horror,” who gives a face to this resentment, pleading to and then shouting down Dr. Henry Armitage (YET ANOTHER well-known protagonist from the Mythos canon prose) after he is denied entry to the Forbidden Section of the Miskatonic University Library.
Again, this stuff slightly loses its luster because I am having to explain it, BUT for people who are all in on this stuff, it’s WILDLY fascinating to see it all just being flatly laid out like this and dealt with a winking but tense sincerity. I said it before, but the closest comparison I could make is League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, yet another loving but clear-eyed examination of a very specific section of literature.
And there is even more stuff we HAVEN’T touched on! We get a Herbert West cameo, the further reveal of what Tom went through in Red Hook, mentions of “non-euclidean space” and a straight up winking mention of the “rats in the walls.” Hell, even the title of this issue, “The Doom That Came to Arkham,” is a play on the story title “The Doom That Came to Sarnath,” one of the stories of the “Dream-Quest” cycle that detailed the conquering of a once mighty kingdom of The Dreamlands by the claws of the Great Old Ones.
WN: The stuff there in that last graf? I had no idea those were even references. I am King Stupid of this book.
JP: It’s that kinda attention to detail (and matter-of-fact introduction into the narrative) that makes it really sing for me.
A Procedural from Beyond
JP: BUT, like you said, even without all the major trappings and callbacks to HPL, Miskatonic is still delivering a pretty taut and historically engaging murder mystery.
Obviously it gets an extra bit of OOMPFT if you are a big Lovecraft nerd, but I’m happy to hear that you are still enjoying this for the most part even without all that context. Like you said, just on the surface level, without all the Mythos stuff, the text is still pretty engaging. You have two pretty personable lead characters, a lot more explicit exposition about Hoover’s FBI (which I’m glad Sable is leaning into), as well as more and more historical context around the anarchist riots of the time and the feeling of unease around the encroaching threat of “foreign influence” (another major staple of the subgenre, but deployed here as satirical comment).
Obviously mileage is going to vary on this, but you saying you are into it gives me hope that some of the larger, non-Lovecraft fans and general readers might respond to it (despite some pacing issues). What do you think, Will?
WN: I am a huge mark for alt-history books and love stuff like Rough Riders, one of the OG AfterShock titles, so it originally appealed to me from that perspective. (Also, I’m drafting you to talk about next summer’s Dark Horse OGN in which Japan tried to win World War II with dinosaurs.) Having an expert like you to fill in the gaps is nice, and while I think they would have been served by doing more of that in back matter, I can make do. I do, however, think they could have more carefully considered their market: Who is this book for? I’m still not entirely sure.
Pacing, Pacing, Pacing
WN: Part of my fascination with this book — even as I clearly don’t get the Lovecraft stuff going on here — is that I know (or at least I think I know) that this thing should work on two levels: the surface Roaring ‘20s, FBI-vs-monsters, supernatural murder mystery and the deeper Lovecraftian commentary on all the ways that guy was fucked up because, as you said last time, he “never touched a boob.” To me, this should be the goal of most meta storytelling in professional wrestling; it’s gotta work on those two levels. The current Roman Reigns storyline, for example, is that he’s the “head of the table,” that he provides for his family, and that’s come with enough strain to break him. On a deeper level, you can read that to be his obligation to perform as the company’s top babyface, which was a flop that could lead to the same resentment his character is feeling.
Anyway, to get this back to the comic, I can be happy if it works on the surface level as a fun, spoopy action yarn with more than a normal share of fish fuckin’. But there are still some real fundamental problems in the story structure and pacing. For example, there was a page turn that was set up to be super cute that I only found to be distracting. But the big one — and maybe you can explain this to me in a way that makes sense — is that we’re at a house party, right? And then there’s an explosion that disrupts said house party. But it turns out the explosion was back on the university campus? This story simply doesn’t flow in spots, and it’s the kinda thing that makes me want to put it down.
JP: No, this is absolutely a valid concern and one that should get picked at here just as a failure of the comic’s geography.
We talked a bit last time about how the opening replicated the semi-episodic and juttering feel of the old pulps, and that seems to be continuing here. Lovecraft, not being the best at scene transitions or just straight up likely forgetting where the various stories left off, would employ all sorts of hard, rough cuts, cycling between characters and settings within page lengths. You really see it in Herbert West, Reanimator, wherein every chapter was a huge time jump from the chapter before, pinging from the states to the Western front of World War I within minutes.
It doesn’t REALLY translate all that great to comics, and gives the action this issue a sort of disconnected, almost feverish feeling. The explosion I think was just a failure of the set dressing. I think we are supposed to assume that the “party hall” we find ourselves in is actually ON the Miskatonic campus, which wouldn’t be too much of a stretch, but it would have been nice to see that clearly established here.
WN: That’s an explanation I can live with. Thank you — for that and for everything else.
Mi-Go Mailbag
- Some fun places to start with “modern cosmic horror” should you be so inclined: Benson and Moorhead’s The Endless (streaming on Netflix), Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation (also on Netflix), Richard Stanley’s bonkers adaptation of The Color Out of Space (streaming on Shudder) and the recent Call of Cthulhu video game based on the long-running tabletop RPG.
- Scant mentions of the “Forbidden Section” of the Miskatonic library here, which will no doubt pop back up later. This is also a big deal shoutout as this locked section of MU is said to be the final resting place of the dreaded Necronomicon alongside other “blasphemous” texts collected by Dr. Armitage.
- Background work leaves a little something to be desired in this issue.
- We’ve had Dunwich, Arkham and Innsmouth mentioned, so all we need is a namedrop of Providence, and we have the “Places Lovecraft Lived/Made Up” four of a kind.
- I totally forgot that “The Horror at Red Hook” also had a rat-guy in it who eats kids, which we see flashbacks of here. Scholars (namely the hack S.T. Joshi) have decided this represents the “loss of innocence” Howie was experiencing around the middle part of his life as he learned his aunts were not his aunts and were, in fact, lesbian lovers. Lovecraft was a fuckin’ weird dude, y’all.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
Justin Partridge has loved comics all his life. He hasn't quite gotten them to love him back just yet. But that hasn't stopped him from trying as he has been writing about them now for a little over a decade. With bylines at Newsarama, Shelfdust, PanelXPanel, and more, Justin has been doing the work and putting in the time! Comics have yet to return his calls. Usually he can be found on Twitter screaming about Doctor Who.
