GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY Monty Drawn
released 27 OCTOber Publisher self Made Hero
Writers leah Moore, John reppion Artists aneke, Kit buss, Fouad Mezher, alisdair Wood
MR James’s tales of supernatural terror, with their ambiguity and focus on peculiar, arresting images, have inspired many great visualisations, and that tradition continues with a volume of new comic strip versions. Just in time for the Christmas market.
Leah Moore and John Reppion keep their adaptations very spare – this book relates four stories, each with a different artist, in just 56 pages – but the tone and mood are carefully preserved.
Alisdair Wood shows hardly anything in a fine retelling of “The Ash-tree”, but the vile spider-like creatures are a great touch. The first manifestation of the creature in “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book” is superbly handled by Aneke (though the second doesn’t quite live up to it), and the children of “Lost Hearts” are gruesomely rendered by Kit Buss. The best tale is “The Mezzotint”: Fouad Mezher’s thick, dark lines take one of James’s oddest stories, in which the horror is at one remove, and make it creepily vivid.
This being volume one it’s safe to assume more adaptations are planned. Here’s hoping they do the lot. Eddie Robson
A movie of “Casting The Runes” directed by Joe Dante was announced in 2013, but all’s gone quiet since.