Let's Kickstart This! Dagon By H.P. Lovecraft and Ben Templesmith
By Nolan P. Smith
Who doesn’t enjoy a good story by H.P. Lovecraft? Well, how about a comic book based on one of his works, with art by Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night)? Well then, Dagon is for you… and me.
What’s Dagon? Here’s the info straight from the Kickstarter page:
DAGON is a short story written by H.P. Lovecraft in July 1917 and one of his earliest published works. The story is the testament of a tortured, morphine-addicted man who plans to commit suicide over an incident that occurred early on in World War I when he was a merchant marine officer. It’s an amazingly powerful and visceral story whose concepts and creatures directly connect to Lovecraft’s later and far more famous Cthulhu works.
DAGON will be adapted and drawn by Ben Templesmith, New York Times best selling comic book artist who is Co-Creator of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT with Steve Niles and FELL with Warren Ellis, as well as Creator of WORMWOOD: GENTLEMAN CORPSE, THE SQUIDDER, and WELCOME TO HOXFORD. This story has preoccupied and haunted Ben since he first read it 20 plus years ago, a time before he’d published any of his own work or knew that he ever would.
DAGON will be a limited run 8.5×12″ 48 page (BOOK NOW UPGRADED TO 72 PAGES) hardcover graphic novel. We’re also offering a slipcased “OBELISK” edition of DAGON that we think is going to be awesome! The OBELISK edition includes:
- an exclusive book cover
- an exclusive slipcase cover
- embossed, numbered, and signed bookplate
This year marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of H.P. Lovecraft. He has been a huge influence on so many writers and artists, including Ben. DAGON was the first H.P. Lovecraft story that Ben ever read, and it has been his dream to be able to adapt DAGON in a graphic novel format, to be given a large amount of space to control pacing and truly convey the mood and depth within the tale while having complete design and production control of the book in creating a real experience. It finally feels like the right time to try and do this.
The Kickstarter campaign has already far exceeded the goal, but its not too late to jump on board with this! I pledged to the last Kickstarter campaign by Templesmith, which was The Squidder. Beautiful book, awesome extras and a high quality T-Shirt… well worth it, and I know this one will be as well. Check out the Kickstarter campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/templesmith/dagon-by-hp-lovecraft-and-ben-templesmith/.