Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Richard Corben
Artists: Richard Corben
Colourist: Richard Corben and Beth Corben Reed
Release date: May 6, 2015
Price: $3.99

If you ever wanted to see an original H.P. Lovecraft Chthulhu Mythos story by award-winning comic illustrator Richard Corben, then you are in luck.

Rat God, a five-issue mini-series, following 1920s Miskatonic University doctoral student Clark Elwood. Elwood is a stubborn, unabashed racist who falls in love with a Native American woman. After she disappears Elwood travels north to find her. What Elwood encounters in this woman’s hometown of Lame Dog is a secretive society, not dissimilar to the inhabitants of H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘Innsmouth. And like that town, there’s a shadow over this one too.

This series is Corben’s second take on Lovecraft, the first being Marvel Comic’s 2008 Haunt of Horror series in which Corben adapted Lovecraft’s short stories.

Reading one of Corben’s stories is akin to eating a bowl of thick oatmeal with molasses. A little goes a long way and is rich and filling, alternating between the sweet and rough.

Corben’s loose art style, as usual, packs a punch, and is balanced out by tight coloring, which one would expect from him. Corben has able assistance in that department from Beth Corben Reed. Their past collaborations have included Dark Horse’s Edgar Allan Poe’s The Premature Burial and an issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 10.

Here the result is designed to fit the mood of each scene, dark and foreboding in the town but when the environment shifts to a party thrown by Lame Dog’s most powerful figure the tonal colours of the artwork turn to yellows, oranges and browns, reminiscent of Native American art. Of course, this is Corben so, naturally enough, there will be blood and gore, and big teeth.

One issue left in the series, so it will be interesting to see how Corben wraps it all up. Particularly a story seemingly halfway through its narrative span. But by this time the reader should be so sucked into the Lovecraft/Corben vortex that knowing what happens next is a must have!

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker