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Return to Arkham CC Comic Book

Posted by Zonk on from the based-on-the-game-doncha-know dept.

ChristopherA writes "There's a new Cthulhu Mythos comic out called "Return to Arkham". It's set in 1933, and includes beautiful, moody black & white art depicting H.P. Lovecraft's town of Arkham. In support of Lovecraft's belief in stories developed by Divers Hands, this comic has been released with a Creative Commons license, allowing anyone to create and release their own versions of the comic. This new comic is the second that online game company Skotos has released in a recent months, part of a new trend of turning games into stories. It's available for free at Skotos' website in a variety of formats."

31 comments

  1. Lovecraft was great. by sgant · · Score: 1

    I still get a little spooked by some of his stories. I like it when so much is left up to the imagination.

    Also, there has yet to be a good serious movie made around the Cthulhu mythos yet. Sorry, none of the Stuart Gordon crap counts. They're played more for laughs than anything else...and Lovecraft was anything but laughs.

    I also get a kick out of all the fringe people that believe a bunch of this stuff...like the existence of a real Necronomicon. Give me a break. The stories are spooky and cool...but they're just stories.

    Probably see a few posts saying how wrong I am.

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    "Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
    1. Re:Lovecraft was great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Check out John Carpenter's "In The Mouth of Madness" - it's pretty much a Lovecraft story in all but name. Very cool :-)

    2. Re:Lovecraft was great. by $rtbl_this · · Score: 1

      Also, there has yet to be a good serious movie made around the Cthulhu mythos yet.

      Maybe you'll discount it as a movie, as it was made for Canadian TV, but the best Lovecraft adaptation I've seen by far is Out of Mind. It's not based on any single one of his stories, but blends elements of a few of them along with excerpts from his letters. In my opinion, it's the closest thing to the spirit of Lovecraft's stories that I've seen on film.

      If you want to give it a shot, it's available on DVD along with a few shorts as the third volume of the H. P. Lovecraft Collection.

      --
      "Are you being weird, or sarcastic?" said Emma. I said I didn't know because I get the two feelings mixed up.
    3. Re:Lovecraft was great. by Harry+Coin · · Score: 1

      Lovecraft is hard to do right on film. Much of the mood of his stories comes from his use of archaic and unusual words in his descriptions (e.g. squamous, cyclopean), and his love of ancient myths and legends. It's hard to have a comprarable effect on the big screen where little can be left to the imagination.

      My favorite film adaptation of one of his stories is Dagon. Despite the title, it's based on the story The Shadow Over Innsmouth, except it is set in a Spanish fishing village instead of New England. Other than that change, it does the best job I've seen of capturing the feel of one of his stories, and it manages to be truly horrifying in parts. Highly recommended.

      A lesser movie that's still a pretty good adaptation of one of his movies is The Curse. It's an (uncredited) version of HPL's story The Color Out of Space, and it stars perrenial favorite Wil Wheaton.

      I also want to second the recommendation of In the Mouth of Madness. Excellent stuff. While not based on one of his stories, it gets closer in feel than most existing movie adaptations.

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      That's pre 7-11 thinking....
    4. Re:Lovecraft was great. by Chyeld · · Score: 1

      How do you convert stories which rely on and base most of their power from your own imagination to come up with the scariest most horriable things possible, to a medium which bases most of it's power and relies mostly on leaving nothing to the imagination?

      Some things are just better when read by flashlight under the covers of your bed instead of being projected on a silver screen.

    5. Re:Lovecraft was great. by lupinstel · · Score: 0

      I know you wanted to see "good" Lovecraft films, but if you just want to see "ok" Lovecraft films you can look for "The Shunned Room" which is a recent Italian production shot in english. It incorporates multiple stories into the movie including The Music of Erich Zann, and the Shunned House. You can also look for "The Unnameable 1&2". These are from the 80's and kinda weak, but it is lovecraft based. Also The H.P. Lovecraft Collection DVD's are somewhat recently released and I haven't seen them, but they seem to be very true to Lovecrafts style and have gotten good reviews.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.
    6. Re:Lovecraft was great. by sgant · · Score: 1

      Oh I agree...though to some extent, I think "The Blair Witch Project" came close to leaving much up to the imagination. While many people outright hated this movie, I thought that it captured the "feel" of a Lovecraftian theme.

      And actually, I think they could capture the mood and feel of a Lovecraft story. IF they did it right. But things of this nature never get done right as the money men in Hollywood will want to put the latest computer effects on the screen.

      An example of this would be "The Haunting". The original movie, shot in black and white back in the early 60's, didn't have special effects. It had to rely on mood, atmosphere, imagination. The scene when the "thing" was pounding on the bedroom door...then moving down the hall...still gives me shivers. The remake from just a few years ago was a horrible flop that had to have state-of-the-art computer special effects to justify the millions and millions of dollars they wasted. It was terrible.

      Why couldn't they shoot a Lovecraft story...like "At the Mountains of Madness" or "The Call of Cthulhu" as a period piece. Set in the 1930s. Why does everything have to be updated? Oh well, maybe some day.

      --

      "Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
    7. Re:Lovecraft was great. by mink · · Score: 1

      Cast a deadly spell was rather Lovcraftian, but it was also darkly humorous.

      --
      Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
  2. How the heck do you pronounce Cthulhu?? by OneDeeTenTee · · Score: 1

    Doesn't anyone know?

    --
    Stop the world; I need to get off.
    1. Re:How the heck do you pronounce Cthulhu?? by Nasarius · · Score: 1

      The common way is kuh-THOO-loo. Lovecraft himself told different things to different people about its pronunciation. See here.

      --
      LOAD "SIG",8,1
    2. Re:How the heck do you pronounce Cthulhu?? by Formosus · · Score: 1

      I remember it being something along the lines of "Khloo-lhoo" in the classic, guttural Klingon style.

    3. Re:How the heck do you pronounce Cthulhu?? by MrCopilot · · Score: 1
      How the heck do you pronounce Cthulhu??

      Just like it is spelled, obviously.

      --
      OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
  3. Slashdotted? by febuiles · · Score: 1

    Images are gigantic (around 5 mins for cover over 256kbps) or you already started bringing it down?

    1. Re:Slashdotted? by ShannonA · · Score: 1

      The cover is bigger because it's color. The rest should load faster.

      But, yeah, partially a slashdot effect. I've moved somethings around to spread out the load.

      Shannon

  4. Sithoolehoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's how I see it.
    It sticks in your head, doesn't it? >:D

  5. timely. by fireduck · · Score: 1

    Fantasy Flight Games just released a revised version of the Cthulhu board game, Arkham Horror. It's gotten high praise for its theme and immersion in the mythos (and mixed praise for difficulty, with some thinking its too easy).

    1. Re:timely. by ChristopherA · · Score: 1
      Actually, that is somewhat deliberate. Skotos ressurected the original Arkham Horror board game, cleaned it up, and licensed it to Fantasy Flight Games, who made further improvements. It was hoped that both would be released around the same time.

      The new version has quite a few favorable reviews at Board Game Geek".

    2. Re:timely. by VisualStim · · Score: 1

      A buddy of mine recently reviewed the Arkham Horror boardgame on his new podcast at Pulp Gamer. It's a podcast focused on paper gaming, both discussions and reviews. Overall, they gave it a pretty positive review.

  6. Copyright Issues? by cei · · Score: 1

    Since there seems to be some dispute as to how much of Lovecraft's work has lapsed into public domain, should there be any concern over potential accusations of derivative work? How well would a CC hold up allowing for further expansion if the source CC work is on shaky legal ground?

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    This sig intentionally left justified.
    1. Re:Copyright Issues? by ChristopherA · · Score: 1
      Skotos takes the position that whomever may or may not control the rights to Lovecraft's actual stories, derivative stories have always been widely accepted, with notable authors like Ramsey Campbell, Robert E. Howard, and Stephen King being just a few of those who have built upon Lovecraft's ideas over the years.

      Lovecraft actually actively encouraged such derivation, believing that by "wide citation" he could give his works an "air of verisimilitude". Even this year's move "Batman Returns" refers to Arkham Sanitarium, a setting of many Lovecraft stories.

      So can you create a comic derived from a specific Lovecraft story that is in dispute, such as "Call of Cthulhu"? That you'd have read the evidence on both sides and decide for yourself. However, can you create a comic that has R'ley as a setting and has cultists trying to raise Cthulhu? That is clearly acceptable.

    2. Re:Copyright Issues? by cei · · Score: 1

      Well, Howard was a contemporary of Lovecraft and likely had permission, if not encouragement from the man himself. It appears that much of Campbell's work is published by Arkham House, and if they're the copyright holders, it makes sense that they'd grant him permission as well. I don't have a copy of any of Chaosium's game books, but it seems to me that a look at the language on their copyright page might be a good indicator of current status on things like this. (ie, if it's a battle that needed to be fought, they've already made the fight themselves, testing the waters for those that follow, as it were...) I don't know if Batman's use of Arkham Asylum predates Frank Miller at all, or how far back that reference actually goes. But beyond the name, it might be easy to argue there's no real tie between Lovecraft's property and that of D.C. Comics.

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      This sig intentionally left justified.
    3. Re:Copyright Issues? by joshsisk · · Score: 1

      Even this year's move "Batman Returns" refers to Arkham Sanitarium, a setting of many Lovecraft stories.

      It's "Batman Begins", Batman Returns came out in the early 90s... and it's "Arkham Asylum" in the Batman comics AND movies... It is a place that has figured in the comics for decades.

  7. Mirrors? by The+Evil+Couch · · Score: 1

    I'd love to post a mirror, but it's gonna be awhile before I can finish grabbing the PDF version. I both bless Slashdot for showing me such great stuff and curse it for holding it out of reach.

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    The World's Worst Webcomic!
  8. Games? by MilenCent · · Score: 1

    While there is a prominent Lovecraftian roleplaying game, that doesn't seem, to me, like enough reason to put this non-game comic in the Games section....

    1. Re:Games? by Zediker · · Score: 0

      didnt lizards of the toast... errr wizards of the coast make one recenlty (in past 2-3yrs). Good pictures to it, never did get to play it. The person who bought it purchased it as a collectors item.

      --
      I love to slaughter the english language.
    2. Re:Games? by joshsisk · · Score: 1

      "This new comic is the second that online game company Skotos has released in a recent months, part of a new trend of turning games into stories."

    3. Re:Games? by MilenCent · · Score: 1

      D'oh! My bad.

  9. Arkham? by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 1

    Is that where the name 'Arkham Asylum' (from the Batman comics) came from?

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    Technoli
  10. Page 20 is missing. Weak. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I repeat, page 20 is missing. Weak.

  11. Advertisement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I love how easy it is for people to manipulate Slashdot into posting advertisements for them. This story was submitted by Christopher Allen, for instance, the CEO of Skotos.

  12. Re:Page 20 is missing. Weak. by ChristopherA · · Score: 1

    I've checked this twice, both page 20 http://www.lovecraftcountry.com/comic/return/index .php?thisPage=20&view=comicbook and panel 20 http://www.lovecraftcountry.com/comic/return/index .php?thisPage=20 seem to be fine.