The Darkley Niche: Cthulhu Tales vol. 1: "Quality Time"

Introductions

"Run-of-the-mill" seems like a modestly accurate way to describe myself in terms of horror fandom. In certain respects I find that valuable, since ideally I can make an appeal to those like myself, to those who may be testing the waters, and hopefully to the hardcore horror fans as well. (And I sincerely encourage feedback, especially from the latter.) It wasn't until several years ago, the present time of this writing being December of '09 to give perspective, that the genre genuinely appealed to me and I owe all that to the film adaptation of Stephen King's 'IT'. After that, it was a slow and steady progression that grew into watching more Stephen King film adaptations, then into watching general horror films. In more recent years it's branched from solely films into different mediums, namely: comics (comic books, manga, graphic novels, webcomics, etc.), purely written literature, and different games.

But let's get to the point, shall we? The Darkley Niche is something I've constructed after the comic-in-progress that a friend and myself plan on self-publishing, an anthology of short horror stories much in the same vein as 'Tales from the Crypt' and similar titles. The series centers around a faceless persona we've affectionately dubbed Alan Darkley, the Niche's namesake, and a cast of storytellers whose tales fall within particular subgenres and sister genres of horror. This site is the drawing board, if you will, where everything posted is either a form of research or a roughing out of ideas. It's all relevant in some fashion. By exploring these different horror stories and their mediums a better understanding and influence of the genre, as well as inspiration, can be put into the comic. Even if you have no personal interest in the project, perhaps you can glean something from the reviews and the like. And if nothing else, the Niche will work to serve my own purposes.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Cthulhu Tales vol. 1: "Quality Time"

Recently I came across Cthulhu Tales vol. 1, a graphic novel published by BOOM! Studios containing an anthology of short, Lovecraft-inspired stories. There were three in particular that I liked, specifically "Quality Time", "The Art of Noises", and "Witch Hunter", which isn't to say that the others weren't interesting. Visit BOOM! Studios' site to read the collection in its entirety for free. To give you a taste, the Niche presents "Quality Time". Just the concept alone of a children's play performing "The King in Yellow" makes it deserving. (WARNING: some of the following imagery is slightly graphic)