Herald: Lovecraft and Tesla is an absurdly fun adventure which straddles the fence between complete lunacy and absolute brilliance, while never failing to tell a great character driven story.

The people are what make this issue special. Each person takes a normal human trait and stretches it to its most extreme. The story opens with Houdini floating in Elsewhere, as Amelia Earhart casually fights off monsters below. Due to his pride, he believes the entire trip to be part of a dream because, the only true magic is what he performs on stage. Following that, we return to Mark Twain’s manner as he, Lovecraft, and Tesla, continue to battle a large book Golem. The entire scene is hilarious, as Lovecraft again is never broken from his calm demeanor, refusing to believe anything is out of the ordinary aside from a moment where he boisterously claims, “huh, weird”. Mark Twain’s role in the battle is to trade insults with the beast in the hopes of using his genius to destroy it. Lovecraft and Tesla’s bizarre relationship is a treat as Tesla truly becomes the conduit for the reader to see all of the outlandish personalities. He is the only one who takes a moment to ever question what is going on and attempt to try to find some logic in the world. The tale ends following a young failed German artist named Adolf, as he begins to find his way in the world. This sets the book up for a larger narrative as the stories become closer and closer to intertwining. Even with characters this outlandish, writer John Reilly does a great job giving them a sense of depth. Whether it is Tesla’s hunt for his love, or Twain’s yet unknown motives, each characters avoids being a flat one dimensional person and feels truly complex.

The art by Tom Rodgers and Dexter Weeks does a fantastic job accentuating both the calmer moments, such as in Vienna, to the surreal moments, like entirety of Elseworld. Each location feels appropriate within the world that Reilly has created. The characters all look unique and the facial work is spot on considering how many emotions are being felt from multiple characters within the same panel. There is a nice attention to detail as well. In one particular shot of the book Golem, many of the spines of the books he is made out of have been filled in with popular novel titles from the time period, as well as samples of pages across the creature’s face.

Overall, this comic is a joy to read and has done a phenomenal job of creating characters that are so charmingly ridiculous, that anything they do seems worthy of reading. And with the larger narrative ever growing there will be no shortage of adventures for Lovecraft and Tesla to find themselves lost in.

Story: John Reilly Art: Tom Rodgers, Dexter Weeks
Story: 9 Art: 8.5 Overall: 8.75 recommendation: Buy

Action Lab Entertainment provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review