This comic has been kicking about in my collection for a very long time now. I picked it up mainly for the name "Lovecraft" in the title, but also for Mike Vosburg's art, which is just lovely. Sadly, the comic has nothing to do with that old Providence writer whose work I like so much, but it is a neat little tale of the occult in a Hollywood that is more 40s than the 90s it's meant to be set in.
The story is kind of straightforward - B-movie actress is given a part that is actually a ruse to set her up to be sacrificed to a demon. In fact, it sounds like exactly the kind of B-movies that Lori herself would star in, which only goes to enhance the feeling of the tale. When I say it's a straightforward story, that's not to say it's not done well. When I teach Shakespeare, I always tell my students that his genius was never in telling the original stories, but retelling old ones in new and interesting ways.
Lori Lovecraft does something similar, and, now that I think of it, does something similar to what Joss Whedon wanted to do with
Buffy. Lori technically should be meeting a bloody end, if the story were to follow the plot of one of the exploitation movies she stars in. Instead, though, at the end of the story she absconds with the
Necronomicon (damn, that book gets around), and decides to study it and magic. It's quite the turn from the typical "buxom bimbo is killed, after having her clothes torn off, by demons" schtick from 80s slasher movies, but that's what makes the story, at least by its end, more refreshing than those sorts of over-used plots. Instead of a tale all by itself, the story really serves as a good origin story for a character who, by the end, has become much more interesting than she was to begin with.
There's a few more stories of Lori in the collection, and it seems Mr. Vosburg has continued producing them bit by bit over the years. I've added the stuff I'm missing to the list. Maybe the Calgary Expo will help me out...
To be continued.
