"Adventuring was more a hobby. We're writers, really."

[captain_ziggy]

Hey, remember that one time H.P. Lovecraft and Charles Fort teamed up with Nikola Tesla's robot son to defeat an eldritch horror from beyond the stars?



No? Well, we have to fix that then.

5 pages and 1 panel from the first issue of Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time after the jump



So, to start our story, Robo's stuck studying at home while Tesla's away on business when he gets some unexpected guests. Realizing that they won't go away if he just ignores them, he answers the door.

Did I mention Lovecraft was racist? Because he's racist.

Reeeeaally racist.

Anyways, Fort and Lovecraft need to see Tesla right the fuck away and won't take no for an answer. This wouldn't be a problem if he wasn't halfway across the world and not expected to return for another three weeks, so the world is doomed and will likely end within the hour.

Wait, how do these two know Tesla anyways? Fort has the answer to that:


Long story short: Fort, Tesla and Lovecraft's dad (who was America's top secret occult investigator) all teamed up and used Tesla's death ray to zap an extradimensional alien out of existence - only they kinda fudged the physics on it, so they didn't actually kill it.
So where did it go?

Want to find out what happens next? Well, go get the comic then. It deserves money.


And for those on dial up (or who want larger scans), behold!

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/7818/atomicroboandtheshadowf.jpg
http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/7818/atomicroboandtheshadowf.jpg
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/7818/atomicroboandtheshadowf.jpg
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7818/atomicroboandtheshadowf.jpg
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/7818/atomicroboandtheshadowf.jpg

Comments

[golden_orange]

But I'm not just criticising him for being a racist, I'm criticising him because in this particular case he allows his racism to fundamentally affect the quality of his work (for me, anyway). Yes, lots of artists, writers, poets, politicians and scientists of the time may have held or even expressed views similar to Lovecraft's at the time, but like captain_ziggy says, they didn't all write stories in which someone's racial identity is supposed to be a shocking and horrifying plot-twist (even if something similar was a common fictional trope). You make a good and valid point about not applying modern standards to past situations, but that's not a 'get-out-of-criticism-free' card; I may indeed be applying a post-2000 mindset to a past work, but it's the only one I've got, and according to it "Medusa's Coil" is rendered completely absurd in a way I can't get past. So in that sense, yes, I fully believe that he deserves being pulled down on that score.

Though if we are going to approaching Lovecraft from the standards of the time, however (and you're right, it's not entirely fair to not consider the contemporary standards of the day) it's perhaps worth noting that according to various sources I've read even by the standards of his time many of Lovecraft's views on race were quite extreme.

[proteus_lives]

You're right it's not a get out it free card.

And HPL isn't and shouldn't be immune to criticism. But after reading about the man, it's not just his views on race that were extreme, it's view of the entire world.

HPL is a weird case because I'm in awe of him and pity him at the same time. The entire world was his "Other" to be feared.

[espanolbot]

I did read somewhere that the reason why so many of his stories involve half-human hybrids (half-fish creature, half-monkey, half-eldritch beastie) was due to his phobia of mixed race people.