THE KING IN YELLOW [SPLASHES OF DARKNESS]

23/11/2021

SPLASHES OF DARKNESS THE KING IN YELLOW comic book review

Fans of Culbard’s earlier work will certainly get a kick out of The King in Yellow, but I suspect it will not be quite as satisfying to those who place narrative above sensation. To be fair that is more likely to be down to the source material than his sterling adaptation. It may leave you scratching your head as to just what the effing hell happened, but that is, in many respects, the very essence of the Weird.

Comic-books are a medium, not a genre; they can tell any story and suit any palate. You want horror? I've got bottles of the stuff. Welcome to 'Splashes of Darkness.'

The pitch:

The King in Yellow was a short-story collection by Robert W. Chambers which mingled literary stories of love and heartbreak in bohemian Paris with weird tales filled with insanity and despair. They were linked by a fictional play so powerful it had never been performed; said to drive anyone unfortunate enough to read it utterly mad. Like H.P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, the book is both incredibly rare, yet seems to turn up all over the place, infecting innocent lives and heralding the arrival of the titular supernatural entity. Thankfully I.N.J. Culbard makes the choice to leave the more prosaic stuff to one side, bringing us lush adaptations of The Repairer of Reputations, The Mask, The Yellow Sign, and In the Court of the Dragon –some of the finest examples of weird fiction to be found.

The taste:
Greetings, and welcome to Lost Barcosa. (Yes, I know – terrible pun, but we’ve got new owners; they thought it was a real hoot.) If your only knowledge of the Yellow King comes from S1 of True Detective, you might think you’re in for a tall glass of noirish folk-horror, but the stories presented here have a very different flavour. The base notes are more Cask of Amontillado than Lonestar beer, blended with the cosmic indifference and mind-shattering ‘truths’ of HPL’s oeuvre, chased with a splash of Ashton Smith’s absinthe. It may look cold and rigid, but there’s a wild swirl running through it, apt to make one see the world in a new light.

Thoughts on the comic:

The term ‘weird fiction’ has been applied (and misapplied) to a multitude of works over the years. Some weave qualities of the inexplicable through their own original creations to produce that peculiar blend of imbalance and hysteria, whilst others do their best to draw attention to classic source materials via adaptation. These are sometimes (though not always) successful in their own right, but they keep the flame of inspiration alive regardless. In recent years the artist I.N.J. Culbard has produced some wonderful graphic-novelisations based on the works of Lovecraft, Wilde, and Conan Doyle through Self Made Hero (along with original works like the brilliant Deadbeats, which I reviewed back in July.)

If you have seen his comics before you will immediately recognise Culbard’s artistic style. It has a European feel with clear, clean line-work and a limited palette of colour, used in blocks—save for flesh, which tends to have a couple of tones to help bring it to life. There’s a pleasing eye for the human form, running the full gamut of body types, hair and facial hair, though they are slightly cartoonish in design and strangely lacking in pupils. Nevertheless, the darkness of the plots and the weight of the characters’ emotions are more than ably portrayed. The world quickly sucks you in and the city – with its grand decadence and sordid corners – becomes all too tangible, though only appearing in brief and sketchy glimpses throughout.

Interestingly, this adaptation feels much more ‘of a piece’ than the patchwork text of the original (available for free at Project Gutenberg), thanks to the combination of this visual element and the tighter story selection.

The Repairer of Reputations is the strongest piece – a startling and uncanny story that leaves the reader questioning just about everything they just read. In it, we are introduced us to Hildred; a taut and haughty man with a renowned cousin, a copy of The King in Yellow, a perceived destiny, and an unrequited love. There are strong hints throughout that this takes place in an alternative timeline to our own, evoking an historical piece in some ways, with overtones of a dystopian future. The ‘Repairer’ is a peculiar character who manipulates lives, but does he deal in true facts or merely encourage delusions for his own warped ends?

The Mask introduces several new characters: an artsy set with a somewhat incestuous relationship. The sculptor, Boris, has possession of The King in Yellow now, and a liquid that can turn living tissue into marble. His artistic obsession grows, and with it his own doom. The Yellow Sign is perhaps the most famous of Chambers’ stories – and is a truly nightmarish vignette. Jack Scott is a painter, falling in love with his model, Tessie. She dreams of him in a coffin, carried away by a dough-faced man. She finds a brooch of unusual design and gives it to him. Soon dreams cross over to reality and the doughy man stands under their window gazing in, demanding to know about the Yellow Sign.

The final piece is slighter in narrative but even more surreal. Jack flees towards his final destiny, pursued by the sinister forces of the tattered King in Yellow. It is worth noting that the character in Chambers’ version of In the Court of the Dragon remains unnamed. Culbard uses Scott here to bring unity to the piece—going so far as to weave him into The Repairer of Reputations in (what I believe to be) a wholly invented scene, and bringing Hildred into the Court of the Dragon. This ploy works wonderfully. The weirder a tale is, the more important it is for elements of normality, of familiarity to stand in firm counterpoint. Jack provides us with that anchor of sanity, of external contemplation and as such, his toppling into madness becomes our own. The final image of the book is both glorious and devastating to behold.

If you are new to Self Made Hero’s literary adaptations, I might recommend starting with something a little easier to grasp: The Picture of Dorian Gray, perhaps, or Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. Their Lovecraft anthologies are another great place to take your first tentative dip. Fans of Culbard’s earlier work will certainly get a kick out of The King in Yellow, but I suspect it will not be quite as satisfying to those who place narrative above sensation. To be fair that is more likely to be down to the source material than his sterling adaptation. It may leave you scratching your head as to just what the effing hell happened, but that is, in many respects, the very essence of the Weird.

Sit back, pick up the book and enjoy it for what it is. You can go nuts later.
Rating: 4/5

This review was originally written for Geek Syndicate, but it has been updated and expanded for Ginger Nuts of Horror.