Cthulhu Cat Review
A high school boy rescues a cat (abandoned on the street in a cardboard box) and brings it home. Sure, the creature is green and seems to have tentacles where its mouth and whiskers should be but it meows like a cat. Sort of. “Meo Iä Iä!” Now he has two cats: Ur, who is a ‘regular cat’, and Cthulhu who is ‘a little strange’. Of course, Cthulhu’s owner does what any high schooler would do with their cute pet: he shares photos on social media – and soon the responses start to appear. They’re not the usual appreciative comments, though; they say things like, ‘The world is madness ha!’ and ‘Humanity shall tremble!’. Not long afterward, two green alien-like visitors arrive, claiming to be from a cat magazine. When they start prostrating themselves before Cthulhu, something is definitely far from right… and from then onward, more strange cats (or cat-like creatures) come to the house.
Cthulhu (in cat form) exhibits all kinds of normal feline behaviour – only with a difference. When Cthulhu scratches the wall, ‘mysterious symbols were carved into the wall… like unreadable hieroglyphs that burrowed into your subconscious…’ Then a priest arrives with his cat Nyarlathotep and the house becomes the gathering place for the Cthulhu cult. The influence of these Great Old Ones seems to have become even greater now that they are in cat form. Can life ever go back to normal again?
Dark Horse Manga describe Cthulhu Cat as ‘a one-shot, full-color gag manga collection that is a charming tribute both to Lovecraft’s stories and Lovecraft the cat lover’ and that just about sums it up, although ‘charming’ is probably used ironically. Mangaka Pandania is well known now for cat-themed 4-koma titles, such as Evil Secret Society of Cats, Monster Cats and Yokai Cats so, given horror author H. P. Lovecraft’s love of cats, it was only a matter of time before the tentacle-filled world of Cthulhu and all its abominations were given the same treatment. The shtick here is, of course, that all the unspeakable terrors envisaged by H.P. Lovecraft in works of classic horror such as The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Call of Cthulhu are shown here in a very different – and feline – form. Pandania’s instantly recognizable art-style lends itself ideally to the depiction of Lovecraft-inspired kitties and the dark, sinister palette of colours chosen for this collection sets it apart from Pandania’s other cat-themed parodies. Dark Horse Manga have used good quality paper which enhances the dark colour scheme (although I find the smell given off by the inks used for this full-colour edition to be rather distinctive… unless that is another ploy of the Great Old Ones?).
The volume benefits from a splendid translation by Zack Davisson who has considerable form when it comes to books about yokai and manga versions of H.P. Lovecraft (Kaibyo: The Supernatural Cats of Japan, H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Over Innsmouth). The manga is lettered by Steve Dutro who also worked on The Shadow Over Innsmouth and MPD-Psycho.
Quirky and ‘different’, this collection is one to gift the cat-loving Lovecraft fan in your life.
“Meo Iä Iä!”
Our review copy from Dark Horse Manga was supplied by Turnaround Publisher Services.
