The Nightmare Factory [Paperback]

Ligotti has long been my favorite "horror writer." I was shocked to actually find this on the bookshelves of BOTH the big chain stores here in town. I hope this does well, because I would love to see another adaptation.

The only quibble I have with the whole package is the McKeever art for "Dr. Locrian's Asylum," but I've never been partial to his work. Still, that did not effect my enjoyment of the adaptation.

My favorite two Ligotti stories, "Dream of a Manniken" (the story that introduced me to Ligotti, I read in in an anthology and was instantly hooked and immediately bought the hardcover of "songs of a dead dreamer", and "Teatro Grotesco" are in this collection. Both are excellently adapted and rendered. "The Last Feast of Harlequin" is the first story in this collection, and the art is wonderful in it as well. Overall, the artists brought their A game, and the whole package is very atmospheric. AND Ligotti writes brand-new introductions to each story.

The price tag, $17.99, was a bit steep for my taste (I'm a full time student) but it's Ligotti-related, so I was bound and determined to buy it. FOX Atomic is supposedly watching the sales of this to see if maybe they might look into other Ligotti ventures. While I know it's a pipe dream, a Ligotti-scripted movie (there already is one, the wonderful "Crampton" co-written with Brandon Trenz, an expanded version of a script they wrote for the X Files years ago (and it would have made for the best episode of any of that show's last four seasons)) maybe in my lifetime???

If you like this, and Ligotti, I suggest also hunting down a copy of "In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land," which is a series of short short stories he wrote and which David Tibet of Current 93 composed suitably chilly music to listen to while reading it.

Thomas Ligotti is really one of the best-kept secrets in the horror field. He's almost a throwback to supernatural writers of days gone by who could scare you without having to resort to blood & guts. Besides that, Ligotti is a fellow Detroiter and I've recently found we attended the same college, Wayne State University. He must be a great guy! Fox Atomic Comics has released an original graphic novel based on several of Ligotti's short stories featuring art by some of the best in the business: Ben Templesmith, Ted Mckeever, Michael Gaydos, and Colleen Doran. Ligotti's stories are adapted by writers Stuart Moore and Joe Harris and Ligotti provides and introduction to each of the four stories in this volume.

"The Last Feast of Harlequin" is a Lovecraft-inspired story very much in the same vein as "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". Here we have another strange old small town with creepy and rather unfriendly inhabitants who harbor a dark lineage. An anthropologist, who serves as the story's narrator, comes to the town of Mirocaw for their annual winter festival. The man has a rather unsettling fetish with clowns and wants to participate in the festivities by dressing in his own clown costume. He finds himself shunned by the townspeople despite his best efforts to fit in with the festivities. He'll soon find he has a dark connection to the others dressed in their bizarre clown make-up. Best story of the book by far I thought. Lovecraft influenced but with Ligotti's own flair and possibly a central character even more off balance than those love ol' Lovecraft.

"Dream of a Mannikin" features the best art in the book, courtesy of 30 Days of Night artist, Ben Templesmith. Weird dreams of manikins haunt the sleep of a therapist and his patient that soon have you questioning their sanity and their very existence. Templesmith is a genius in the use of colors and shading to evoke feelings and create an air of terror.

"Dr. Locrian's Asylum" is almost as good as "The Last Feast of Harlequin" as the curse of an old, abandoned mental hospital is released on the residents of a town when they finally tear down the old building. Horrifying images soon begin to appear throughout the town in windows where there should be no people. McKeever's caricaturist style is well-suited to the story. You get the feeling right from the beginning that there is something just not right about the town and McKeever manages to capture that sensation in his artwork.

Only the last story, "Teatro Grottesco" left me a little flat. This is an extremely odd take about the appearance of something called the Teatro and those artists that seek it out, or are themselves, sought out by the Teatro. It was all a little too existential for me but the painted artwork by Michael Gaydos was superb.

The horror scene in comics keeps getting better and better all the time and if Fox Comics and continue to put out fantastic titles like "The Nightmare Factory" they will be a force to be reckoned with...

REVIEWED BY TIM JANSON

To me, Ligotti's "stories" have always revolved around ideas, moods and suggestiveness, with an evocative use of language. Not the best combination for graphic storytelling. Still, these adaptations are impressive, at least in their artwork and their audacity!

The narratives are certainly watered downed, naturally. One of the things that has always intrigued me about H. P. Lovecraft and similar writers is their use of suggestion. This allows the reader to fill in many of his/her own blanks, as many critics have observed. No two readers will read the same story the same way when filling in those blanks. I find Ligotti to be in that fine tradition, so I can't recommend this volume too highly. It is interesting to see how at least one or two persons filled in those blanks, however (the writer and illustrator).