Note: This review originally appeared on my blog. A few weeks ago as of when I write this in October I came to learn that the most popular tabletop RPG in Japan right now was neither DD nor a homegrown RPG like Sword World but Chaosiums Call of Cthulhu. Also I learned Dark Horse Comics had released a collection of adaptations of the works of H.P. Lovecraft by artist Gou Tanabe and had announced a planned release of Tanabes adaptation of At The Mountains of Madness. Thus it seemed appropriate to read the first of Tanabes adaptations and get a feel for his take on Lovecrafts work. The Hound Other Stories contains adaptations of 3 of Lovecrafts short stories The Temple The Hound and The Nameless City. The three pretty much cover most of the archetype of the Lovecraft story while not necessarily containing any of what Id consider any of the gotos of his work no The Call of Cthulhu or Pickmans Model but I think that works in the collections favor. It removes some of the preconceived notions of what a Lovecraft story should be and they eschew some of the more distasteful elements of Lovecraft personal views which come up in his other works. The Temple is a simple descent into madness a member of the crew of a German UBoat a World War I ship in the original story but moved up to a World War II ship in this adaptation possibly because theres just more reference for UBoats during this period picks up the head of a statue from the the body of the crew member of a ship they sank and the crew slowly descends into madness before the captain the sole survivor of the crew discovers the ship has drifted underwater to what he thinks is Atlantis and he sends up his logbook in an oxygenfilled bubble to tell the tale of his fate and the fate of his crew. The second story The Hound features two occult enthusiasts who have taken to robbing the graves of other deceased occultists for kicks only to end up being pursued by a horrific monster shaped like a winged hound. Note: not a Hound of Tintalos. The final story has an explorer journeying by himself to a long lost ruined city and discovering what wrought that citys ruin before barely escaping with his life. These two stories include references to the Necronomicon but they dont particularly invoke the Mythos in any other significant manner. Tanabes art really works well with these three stories. He does a fantastic job of emphasizing the claustrophobia of the submarine in The Temple and the titular Nameless City along with the oppressive shadows of The Hound. The art and the selectively sparse captions also help to mitigate some of Lovecrafts more excessively florid and purple prose. There is no excessive use of cyclopean or nonEuclidian here. Its also helped by the fact the threats within two of the three stories are not entirely physical. What destroys the crew of the UBoat in The Temple could just as easily be interpreted as purely psychological instead of having an occult tie. The lingering menace of The Nameless City was as more ethereal and carried on and manifesting through the wind while still having something of a physical presence. That said there are some weaknesses of Lovecrafts text that the Tanabe just cant avoid. For example the UBoat in The Temple is described as having a porthole which submarines just dont have for the obvious reasons and The Nameless City lacks the bite of his other stories. Still the art really works well in the books favor and Id definitely consider giving the book your time and again this particular collection eschews enough of the more problematic elements of Lovecrafts work that you can safely read it without having Lovecraft being a racist fuck slamming you in the face like a wet carp like some of his other stories do.