Minky Woodcock returns in Cynthia Von Buhler’s Hard Case Crime / Titan Comics series with Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulhu. After her encounters with Nikola Tesla and Harry Houdini in The Girl Who Handcuffed Houdini and The Girl Who Electrified Tesla, Minky embarks on a new investigation. Drawing inspiration from a true WWII maritime operation, chilling occult rituals, formidable adversaries, and a tantalizing sea creature, this third installment chronicles Minky’s fateful meeting with the iconic horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, the mastermind behind the infamous Cthulhu mythos.
I was thinking about doing a book on Ian Fleming with Minky as an influence for the James Bond books. Nick Landau of Titan Comics recommended looking into H.P. Lovecraft and Aleister Crowley as source material, and I discovered that Crowley knew Fleming — they worked together during WWII. We don’t know if Crowley and Lovecraft ever met, but the monsters in their books are eerily similar; and Lovecraft did work with Houdini. I found real-life connections among all of them and wove together a plot with my fictional detective, Minky Woodcock.
I read every Lovecraft story I could get my hands on, including At The Mountains of Madness, The Call of Cthulhu, and History of the Necronomicon, as well as Lovecraft’s letters and a draft for The Cancer of Superstition, which he was ghost-writing for Houdini at the time of the magician’s death. I was particularly interested in Lovecraft’s dreams. As a narcoleptic, I have lived with constant vivid, realistic nightmares and paralysis my whole life. I wonder if Lovecraft might also have been narcoleptic.
– Cynthia Von Buhler
Sensational artist, author, and playwright Cynthia Von Buhler melds her glorious illustrations with the eldritch elements of H.P. Lovecraft and Aleister Crowley, and we have a sneak peek featuring five covers and some interior pages from the first issue.
INTERIOR PAGES:
Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulu #1 (of 4) is on sale this October 16, 2024.
