The Shadow Over Innsmouth (Illustrated) – Books and Literature

The Shadow Over Innsmouth (illustrated), by HP Lovecraft and Tomás Jr.

If there is something that has always attracted me to HP Lovecraft’s work, it is his ability to suggest and at the same time show. Starting a story with all the elements of a gothic tale and then releasing tentacular monsters from the strange zoo that was his mind. Whisper to you first hints of a world of gloomy shapes and then shout to you that that unknowable place is among us, around, above, below and beyond the stars. The writer from Providence was very good at making you feel insignificant in your own universe and that, what do you want me to tell you, is quite scary. The shadow over Innsmouth It is a great example of how Lovecraft played with the atavistic fears of human beings by feeding them with his own mythology.

The story takes as its starting point a strange intervention that the United States government carries out in a port town in Massachusetts. Investigations, arrests, raids and deliberate blowing up of some areas of the town are some of the actions carried out by the authorities. The mystery is served. This is where the narrator begins his story, since this operation was carried out after the complaint he made, after what he saw in the little fishing village of Innsmouth. With this beginning, Lovecraft dynamites one of the elements of suspense: knowing if the protagonist will survive his adventure. But as we read, as we enter Innsmouth with the narrator, for what in principle was a simple visit by a simple tourist, we discover that in this story survival is not at odds with being afraid, with feeling that although At the end the narrator experiences something screwed up that is about to happen to him. And the little town brings them. A once prosperous and now decrepit place. A place full of strange legends told by drunks and sects that worship beings that thrive in the depths of the seas. A place you enter but never, in one way or another, leave.

And now it’s time to talk about what makes this edition of The shadow over Innsmouthpublished by Minotauro in his unique illustrated minotaur collection: his illustrations. The illustrator chosen to bring Lovecraft’s story to life is Tomás Jr. A native of Salamanca, in addition to being a professor of Fine Arts and a writer, he is a unique illustrator due to his style and how he carries out part of his work. His illustrations, clearly reminiscent of medieval engravings, are always fascinating, creepy, twisted and at the same time beautiful. Some illustrations that have become several tarots (the Lord of the Rings tarot, the Inside the Labyrinth tarot, the Dark Crystal tarot and the del Toro tarot, inspired by the worlds created by Guillermo del Toro), and that has dressed some books (trilogy of The necromancer o The crossed eyes of the sun) illustrations that, on many occasions, Tomás Jr. transforms into engravings using the woodcut technique, thus turning them into objects of worship.

In this illustrated edition of The shadow over Innsmouth Thomas Jr. turns an important part of Lovecraft’s myths into terrifying and vigorous illustrations that give off an aura of mystery. Paintings that give a bad vibe but that you can’t stop looking at. Creepy drawings with a layout and composition that transform an altarpiece scene that you would find in a church that worships some strange and monstrous sea god. Obed Marsh and his crew’s contact with the deep or the horde of monsters emerging from the sea to chase the narrator are good examples. Tomás Jr.’s illustrations never advance events and harmonize perfectly with what Lovecraft tells. Finally, I will emphasize the amazing edition. A large, titanic edition that allows you to see every detail, no matter how insignificant it may be. With some illustrations on the endpapers where the putrid becomes majestic. And with a being on the cover that looks in an overwhelming way and that invites the most unwary, those who enjoy a good horror story, to take a look inside its pages.