No one in the small town of Dunwich knew who young Wilbur Whateley’s father was—or that the hideous outcast boy was the most dangerous sorcerer alive! First published in 1929 in the legendary pulp magazine Weird Tales, this deluxe hardcover manga adaptation of The Dunwich Horror is the complete story in one volume!The horror was born before dawn on February 2, 1913—the feast of Candlemas, although the people of Dunwich call that ancient festival by a different name. Of unknown father, Wilbur Whateley was not christened—yet he descended still from a one-proud Puritan family that left Salem in 1692 to found Dunwich, Massachusetts. And the descent of the Whateleys and their old town has been deep indeed—its now crumbling houses overlooked by bare hills topped by stone circles, where unhallowed rituals were held before the first settlers ever came.Yet it was none other than ten year old Wilbur Whateley that led Dr. Henry Armitage, head librarian at Miskatonic University, to drive the dusty, rutted roads out to Dunwich, and meet the child prodigy who had been corresponding with him on the most abstruse and disturbing lore. Dr. Armitage could hardly believe the sight of the priceless hoard of occult books rotting away in the Whateley farmhouse—nor that of the dark, goatish Wilbur, for whom those books had been his only education.But young Wilbur Whateley is not content with his homeschooling—to complete his studies, he needs something Miskatonic possesses, the Latin edition of the Necronomicon. And if they’re too snooty to lend their precious copy out to a country boy like him, Wilbur has other means to try to get it. The lad is no mere academic dilletante; he studies these things for a reason. Wilbur Whateley was born into this world with a great and horrific purpose—to open a doorway for those not of this world to return to Earth!Special Features:Wraparound cover art by Gou Tanabe on silver foil paper with color overprintingGilded edgesSewn binding Ribbon bookmarkTip-in title page in metallic gold inkTwelve pages in color“I love H.P. Lovecraft…It would be great to adapt him as a serialized manga, but I actually saw Gou Tanabe create a great adaption of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories. Afterwards, I ended up not doing it because I thought I wouldn’t be as good as Gou’s version.”—Junji Ito (Uzumaki, Black Paradox)
Contributors: (W) Gou Tanabe (A) Gou Tanabe (CT) Zack Davisson
Gou Tanabe was born in 1975 in Tokyo. As a child, he became a fan of yokai (supernatural creatures from Japanese tradition) when his father bought him Shigeru Mizuki’s classic manga GeGeGe no Kitaro, and by junior high he was already designing his own demons in sketchbooks. An encounter with the work of creature modeler Yasushi Nirasawa in Hobby Japan magazine started Tanabe’s interest in horror movies and the special effects behind them as well.Tanabe began his professional manga career with a short stint working as an assistant, but made his solo debut in 2003 with Sunakichi, published in Comic Beam magazine; the story won the magazine’s New Faces Award, and Tanabe would soon become associated with Comic Beam, which began to regularly feature his Lovecraft manga staring in 2007 with an adaptation of the short story “The Outsider.”In addition to receiving nominations for three Eisner Awards, two Harvey Awards, and one American Manga Award to date, Gou Tanabe has received critical acclaim in France, winning the prestigious Best Series award in 2020 at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, as well as in his native Japan with a Jury Selection Award at the 2018 Japan Media Arts Festival.