Colour Out of Space Updated
Believe it or not, I’m not a huge horror fan. Sure I like the occasional tale told to terrorize tikes, but most of the horror comics I’ve seen over the last 15 years seem to revel in the gore and violence associated with Halloween and Friday the 13th, but kicked up a notch for shock value alone. I discovered the brilliance of H.P. Lovecraft about 8 years ago and have been hooked on his tales ever since.
When Boom! Studios unveiled its Cthulhu line I snagged as many issues of the various titles as I could, but by far my favorite series has been Cthulhu Tales. These stories are told in the same vein as Lovecraft, full of suspense and terror, and as one might expect, present stories based on the original tales.
I was never a fan of The Colour Out of Space tale as it seemed Lovecraft was more interested in telling the tale of the mentally ill who had become deranged by the presence of an alien entity at the bottom of a well. Oddly enough, it is one of Lovecraft’s stories I’ve either read or heard in audio book form the most and one that I have developed a greater respect for each time I cross paths with Lovecraft’s favorite story.
The premise behind The Elite follows the original story very closely; a surveyor is inspecting the country side for a water pipe, he stumbles upon something strange, and an archeologist is sent in to investigate. Several weeks pass and no one has heard from her, so FBI Agent Kenneth Pruitt is sent in to investigate. He does find the missing archeologist, but it seems the gooey mass that has been sitting at the site of the meteor crash all those years ago has had time to absorb everything about humans. And by everything, I mean EVERYTHING from memories lost and forgotten, to the make up of our DNA. The alien has also discovered and interesting connection between Agent Pruitt and the Gardner family that lived on the farm when everything went crazy the first time.
Like many of the stories in Cthulhu Tales, each has an interesting Twilight Zone twist that sends a shiver down your spine, and the first tale delivers with that revelation and Pruitt’s ultimate decision.
The second tale, Theater of the Empty Eye, is a more sci-fi horror story than a terror horror story. It is the discovery of wormholes, or Empty Eyes as they are called, that leads the tale in a very strange direction. Scientists being scientists are often more concerned with discovery than the implications, and seem dead set on finding out what is on the other side of those doorways in space.
Even though probes have been sent through the wormholes, the first human subject through the holes discovers something that is not of this dimension. And scientists being scientists, when the astronaut returns to Earth and purposely crashes the ship in the middle of nowhere, the scientists go to investigate – with very bad results.
What I have really liked about the last three issues of this series is there is very little gore for shock value, making the reader’s mind fill in the blanks to making this a true horror anthology. Once again, I’m impressed with what Boom! Studios is doing with the Lovecraft mythos, and am giving Cthulhu Tales #8 4 out of 5 Stars.
Boom! Studios, my favorite tale is The Thing on the Doorstep, with The Mountains of Madness and the Call of Cthulhu rounding out the top three.  Any chance you might want to tell more follow up tales of these?
35/35
