Hodgson's The House of the Borderland

Looking through Vertigo's website is always a bit of fun. A few weeks back, I went through a spending spree. Planetary and Air both ended up in my mailbox--as did Simon Revelstroke's adaptation of William Hope Hodgson's The House of the Borderland.

Richard Corben's artwork somehow does not fit a late Victorian horror novel. The thick lipped, roughly hewn characters, lack the aristocratic delicacy that would open them to the horrors beneath the house. The author of the manuscript seems better suited to Zulu battles in South Africa or trapping in the Rockies.

Revelstroke. sadly, captures the cumbersome, convoluted prose of Hodgson. The story's premise is an engaging one. But the confusion and ambiguity that leads to the crisis of consciousness, the blurring of realities, has less to do with a deft manipulation of readers than with wordiness.

Of course, I may be alone in this--the thing was nominated Best Graphic Novel of 2003 by The International Horror Guild. Go figure.

For me, the graphic novel is a neutral; the original novel would be a definite pass. If you are looking for obscure late Victorian gothic/fantasy writers, go with Algernon Blackwood's The Wendigo first.

Bayard