The Last Day of H.P. Lovecraft by Romuald Giulivo; illustrated by Jakub Rebelka
Many thanks to BOOM! Studios and NetGalley for sharing an
advanced copy of the beguiling story of The Last Day of H.P. Lovecraft
by Romuald Giulivo with artwork by Jakub Rebelka. As a huge fan of Lovecraft’s
stories who has struggled with his disgusting and racist beliefs, I was
interested in this story from just the title alone. The imagery and artwork
throughout the book is haunting and bleak with some incredibly blood-soaked red
pages, while others are a kind of washed out brown, creating a morose and sullen
tone similar to Lovecraft’s work and general outlook on humanity. While the
story is rooted in Lovecraft’s own life, it also functions as almost like a Christmas
Carol story where Lovecraft is visited by ghosts of the past, present, and
future on the final day of his life, as he lays dying of cancer in a hospital. It was fascinating to see aspects of Lovecraft’s
life in this story as he is visited by his wife, Houdini (who he served as a
ghost-writer), and Randolph Carter, the character who was like Lovecraft’s
alter ego in his stories. Lovecraft is confronted with some of his egregious
behavior and an opportunity to recant and reject his racism and abject views of
humanity, yet he remains stubborn in his ways. We as readers are reminded of
the horrible views and ideas that Lovecraft held and left to question his place
in horror and literature in general. Was he really a misunderstood genius whose
inventive tales and horrible worlds were precursors of the moderns horrors we
face, or was he really just an awful and awkward person whose limitations and
oddities were representative of his racism and white supremacy? Giulivo’s
writing and Rebelka’s art make the case that Lovecraft was a horrible person
who happened to create horrible and frightening worlds and characters. At one
point in his near-death hallucinations, Lovecraft encounters a subway full of ghouls
who have tagged the car with graffiti that says “Cthulhu for President”, more
indication about the kinds of views that Lovecraft’s writing might represent. Lovecraft
seems unmoved and unconcerned about how his future influence will be viewed.
Immediately after this encounter, Lovecraft visits a future where he encounters
Stephen King, Alan Moore, and Neil Gaiman as a triumvirate of future writers
who promise to help revise his reputation. This part was a little unclear to
me, and I wasn’t exactly sure if Giulivo was suggesting that these writers
covered up Lovecraft’s horribleness and championed him despite his racism or
what. However, they advocate for Lovecraft to write his final life story, maybe
offering him another opportunity to change his ways before death.
I really enjoyed this comic, even though it is bleak and
tells the story of a horrible person, whose racism and hatred is often
overlooked. If anything, I think Giulivo’s research and writing into Lovecraft’s
life presents him in a harsher light, often focusing more on his shortcomings and
failings over his accomplishments. We also see how he died alone and rather
unknown, and it wasn’t until much later that Lovecraft’s reputation as an
inventive horror writer was known. The Last Day of H.P. Lovecraft uses a
classic trope to challenge our views of a horror writer who was also a horrible
person. It not only uses the facts of Lovecraft’s life to challenge our thinking
about his work, but it also uses stark, terrifying and cosmic imagery to dampen
the mood and create a tale of terror and dread, fitting into a Lovecraftian genre.
Highly recommended!
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