THE CROSSROADS
A LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR COMIC BOARD BOOK
STORY • LETTERING • DESIGN
TERRANCE GRACE
ART
SILVIO DB
This 24 page single issue is not your ordinary comic. It’s a board book —
You know, kind of like a children’s book. Only SCARIER.
Thick, lay-flat pages in landscape format — All in glorious black and white.
It is well known that Lovecraft was not very tolerant, to say the least. Yet his wife Sonia, was Jewish… And after she left for Cleveland, he settled into a flat in the middle of an immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn.
He was an obviously conflicted soul — And this internal conflict, I suspect, was what drove him to write of monsters and horror. In fact, his time in Brooklyn resulted in a dramatic shift in his professional standing. It was the beginning of his most prolific and well-known work.
He somehow found his voice through what I consider, his own form of self-exorcism. And this is what lies at the heart of my story.
What lies at the center of Lovecraft’s interior journey is mysterious prose that appears before him after his encounter with Yog-Sothoth. This was adapted from a totally unrelated poem I had written, years earlier. It did however form the seed from which The Crossroads was born.
Imagine if you will, an as yet, unheralded H.P. Lovecraft, wandering south, down Clinton Street towards Red Hook. He finds himself standing at water’s edge, face to face with Yog-Sothoth and his own internal abyss.
Another night terror… Or just a severe case of writer’s block? Down here at The Crossroads, it’s Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s Robert Johnson moment. And he’ll do just about anything to write the line that unlocks the last barrier to his soul.
• • •
The Anthology Edition
Silvio and I were invited to submit a short story to the Lovecraft Anthology: Cthulhu is Hard to Spell. The only requirement was that there had to be at least one God from the Cthulhu Mythos.
I was interested in the man himself and so decided to focus the story on a fictional letter that might have been written to his estranged wife, Sonia Greene.
The 24 page board book is substantially different from the six page version that appears in the anthology. The layout and design is completely different — much more room for this amazing art to breathe!
The anthology digital edition is now being offered as FREE ADD-ON to either the printed board book or the board book digital edition.
DOUBLE BONUS: Howard Dies in the End
Silvio and I returned with another short story for the 2nd Lovecraft Anthology edition: Cthulhu is Hard to Spell: The Terrible Twos. This mini-story acts as a wonderful bookend to The Crossroads…
At the moment of his death, Howard meets his nine year old self who ushers him into the infinite realm of Azathoth’s terror.
It is there that Howard discovers his fate as one of hundreds of other music/noise-playing Lovecrafts, forever pounding and shrieking through all of eternity.
I am pleased to include the digital edition of Howard Dies in the End with The Crossroads as a free bonus!
• • •
Cthulhu is Hard to Spell Anthology: Volumes 1 and 2
The Crossroads and Howard Dies in the End are also available in these two Lovecraft anthologies.
Cthulhu is Hard to Spell contains Thirty-four stories about the gods and monsters of Lovecraft. There are cute stories, funny stories, scary stories, retellings of famous Lovecraft stories, and much more.
Cthulhu is Hard to Spell: The Terrible Twos contains thirty-eight all-ages appropriate stories from 73 creators about the gods and monsters of the Lovecraft universe. Yes, there is horror, but there are also silly stories, funny stories, sci-fi stories, whimsical stories, and slice of life stories, with plenty of psychological and cosmic horror thrown into the mix, too.
