Richard Corben will always get a pass from me, simply for his work in Heavy Metal magazine, and for his Bat Out Of Hell album cover for Meat Loaf.

However, this graphic novel needs no pass. I've never heard of the original author, William Hope Hodgson, but this has convinced me to check out his work. It's beautifully illustrated, and well written. Worth checking out. ( )

Richard Corben doing his thing and nailing it, once again. A surprisingly deep and accessible adaptation of this classic (so says Alan Moore) weird fiction novel. ( )

The first time I checked out the graphic novel adaptation of William Hope Hodgson's THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND, I was repulsed by what happened to the only female character. I checked it out again because I was reading the original and wanted to compare the two.

Parts of this graphic novel are definitely taken from the original. However, what repulsed me in Messrs. Corben and Revelstroke's version isn't. I really wish that they hadn't combined the two female characters in the novel into one woman and then given her such sadistic treatment.

That said, the framing sequence here is much more horrifying than in the book. I think it's quite the best part of the comic -- and that Mr. Hodgson's nameless recluse might prefer this fate.

If you hate women, you will love what happens to Mary. ( )

Myaterious ruins, mysterious manuscript, nameless bestial horrors from the deep.
Meh. ( )

This graphic novel version of Hodgson's novel takes many liberties with the original narrative. All of the characters are younger than in the original, the setting is some 40 years later, and the framing story of the two men who discover the crucial manuscript is changed and made more violent. The nameless recluse of the original is given a name, for some reason, and his dead beloved and his live sister are telescoped into a single character, with jarring effects. Additional sexual elements have been added, evidently to gratify Corben's desire to depict them (I won't gainsay the impulse). A visionary coda reveals a great arcanum absent from the original.

The story that results is in some ways more integrated and easier to follow than Hodgson's 1908 novel, but part of the charm of the original (to me) was its unwieldiness and unresolved enigmas. This version piles horror upon horror with a steady pace, and Corben's illustrations communicate that very well.

Alan Moore's introduction does not address the present adaptation, but rather the original story by Hodgson, and it is a good read of its own, though brief.