Tharg's Terror Tales Presents Necronauts & Love Like Blood [Paperback]

Recently, Rebellion/2000AD made a decisive move to increase its presence in the American comics market by delivering weekly copies of its 2000AD to comic shops instead of four-issue monthly packages, as well as distributing its sister title, Judge Dredd Megazine, in chain retailers such as Barnes & Noble. Although some 2000AD compilation titles such as the Mega-City Masters series, the multi-volume Judge Dredd Complete Case Files, or the Lenny Zero Collection appeared sporadically in larger, urban Barnes & Noble stores, readers can now diversify their consumption even more with The Complete Alan Moore Future Shocks and Tharg's Terror Tales Presents Necronauts & A Love Like Blood.

While the majority of 2000AD titles targeting American readers have focused upon highly recognizable talents who have worked for Marvel and DC such as Moore, Andy Diggle and Jock, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Brian Bolland, and Dave Gibbons to name but a few, Tharg's Terror Tales signals the second publication spotlighting artist Frazer Irving, an honor not afforded any other 2000AD writer or illustrator (Storming Heaven: The Frazer Irving Collection was published in 2007). Not only does Tharg's Terror Tales collect Irving's first full-length black and white strip for 2000AD--Necronauts--but also his first professional color work with A Love Like Blood. Rounding out the volume are shorter five-page strips of Irving's early efforts alongside Sunday newspaper-format comics originally published in Metal Hammer magazine.

For audiences familiar with Irving's honed and polished digital style from only his recent work with John Rozum on the critically acclaimed yet unfortunately short-lived Xombi, his four-issue run on Morrison's Batman and Robin, or perhaps even his days on Klarion the Witch Boy, Necronauts and A Love Like Blood will come as a tremendous shock. Gone are the Wacom Cintiq and computer pixels. Instead, with Necronauts, readers have raw Frazer Irving pencils and sable brush inkwork. Penned by Gordon Rennie, the horror tale revolves around the unholy team of Harry Houdini, HP Lovecraft, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Charles Fort, the latter whom Irving would revisit in Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained from Dark Horse Comics. Uniting against an otherworldly force unleashed by Houdini's efforts to defy death, the paranormal group battles demons, both living and deceased, as well as treachery from within its own ranks. Artistically, Irving's pencil and inkwork here represent a bridge from early college experiments and a conscious move to emulate a high-contrast, Charles Dana Gibson-style mixed with gothic woodcut, Zip-a-tone effects, and scratchy and grainy lineart to achieve an atmosphere of insidious gloom and terror. This approach guided much of Irving's black and white illustrations for 2000AD and was refined in subsequent stories such as Judge Death.

Although Irving had worked before with a colorist, A Love Like Blood signifies his first solo coloring efforts employing digital tools in Photoshop. While the narrative of pretty vampires versus werewolves has become commonplace with film franchises such as Underworld and Twilight, this 2000-2001 work predates them as writer John Smith weaves a romantic tale of horror between a male vampire and female werewolf. Visually, Irving's color work is rough and somewhat distracting in places as he wrestles with a diverse palette of hues to correspond with his utilization of fractured and angled panel layouts. Signature magentas and turquoises appear and are much better conveyed when Irving dials it back with the Reefer Madness and Mars Needs Mates strips. Both strips represented a shift in his artistic process and approach, and the results are apparent on the page.

Additional Irving strips are included in Tharg's Terror Tales along with a sketchbook of black and white and color drawings. Sadly, not all of the original special, behind the scenes features included with the now out-of-print Necronauts are reprinted in this edition. Yet, as a supplement to the Storming Heaven Collection (which also includes A Love Like Blood), this volume is a welcome chronicle of Irving's award-winning 2000AD years that built his reputation in the industry and led to collaborations with authors such as Morrison, Joe Casey, David Hine, Kieron Gillen, Matt Fraction, Ray Fawkes, Phil Hester, and a variety of others. Engaging tales with a glimpse at rare Irving art, Tharg's Terror Tales is a significant move into the American graphic novel market.

Reviewed by Nathan Wilson

When it comes to "Tharg's Terror Tales," the old saying of "Don't judge a book by its cover" comes into play. Because the absolute worst thing about this comic is the cover. It doesn't hint at the horror awesomeness that lies inside. Like a team-up of Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, and Charles Fort.

"Tharg's Terror Tales" is essentially British publisher 2000 AD's version of the classic anthology horror comics like Creepy and Eerie. 2000 AD is best known for post-apocalyptic comics like Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog. Because of that, and because of the quasi-Sci Fi scene on the cover, I was expecting some sort of futuristic comedy horror set in roughly the same universe. I was wrong.

The eponymous Tharg the Mighty is only the alien horror host, and the stories in side are pure weird fiction joy. There is a little tongue-in-cheekiness, but that is all in the true-to-style asides by the horror host. The comic is split into two stories; "Necronauts" and "A Love Like Blood", and a few back up bonus stories.

"Necronauts" teams up Houdini, Doyle, Lovecraft, and Fort. While that seems like pure genre fan fiction, Houdini actually did personally know both Doyle and Lovecraft. Only the Charles Fort connection is tenuous. And instead of some hokey team-up, writer Gordon Rennie plays it straight and fits the encounter into their real lives to make it plausible. Houdini stays too long in one of his escapes and bridges the gap to the world of death, where he finds something horrible. Doyle, in one of his séances, learns of the threat to Houdini, and together they gather Fort and Lovecraft to do battle with the monsters. Houdini plans to go again into the void, and Lovecraft will serve as his guide through the Dreaming realms he knows so well.

The story is just insanely cool. As a fan of Doyle and Lovecraft and a former subscriber to Fortean Times, this story was just a treat.

"A Love Like Blood" is such a clichéd story I didn't think anyone could write it again and keep me interested. But they managed to spin the Romeo and Juliet as Vampire/Werewolf loves trope with enough new twists that I was fascinated. The young couple on the run was my favorite park of the story, as hatred of their love was enough to unite the thousand-year feud between the vampire and werewolf clans. I have to say the ending was a bit weak, but otherwise this was a real solid yarn.

As a bonus, there are a few short stories at the end that are riffs on old 50s cautionary tales like Reefer Madness, or the terrors of the hippy and metal sub-cultures. But now the reefer madness causes cannibalism, and Woodstock is loud enough to wake the dead--literally. These stories ranged from a few pages to a few panels, but all of them were clever and good for a laugh.

Although there are a few writers, the entire comic is drawn by Frazer Irving. His thick-lined ink drawings are the perfect accompaniment to the stories, and his art works well in both black-and-white and color. He does both the horror and the comedy, the romance and the gore, with equal aplomb. I wasn't familiar with his art before although I see he has done some issues of Grant Morrison's Batman & Robin series. In the back of "Tharg's Terror Tales" there is a short sketchbook including some drawings of Edgar Allen Poe.

A continuation to the "Necronauts" perhaps? If so, I am there.