The first adaptation in the form of a graphic novel of the lovecraftian story 'The Inhabitant of the Lake' by Ramsey Campbell. A young artist escapes the crowded city to create in the peace and quiet of his new home in a remote, abandoned area. Drawn to the solitude and atmosphere of the thick woods and large, dark lake, he has no idea that far from being alone, he in fact has many, many new neighbours. Strange beings stare across at his home from behind the shadowed tree line, and he can’t shake the sense that something in the lake is watching him. When Cartwright’s dreams turn dark and vivid, he discovers a set of arcane books titled ‘The Revelations of Gla’aki’ and realises at last how much danger he faces. The presence in the lake is an ancient one of cosmic terror, and its servants—beset with the ‘green decay’—are beckoning him to join them as Gla’aki, the three-eyed being crashed to earth from outer space, rises again from the depths of the ebon lake. From Ramsey Campbell's Introduction: "I wrote “The Inhabitant of the Lake” in 1962, when I was sixteen years old. It was my first attempt to create a Lovecraftian deity—that’s to say, an alien entity taken for a god by its human worshippers. He has become central to the Brichester mythos, my small contribution to the Lovecraft tradition. He started life as Glaaki, but a later revelation made it clear that the correct spelling is Gla’aki, needlessly simplified by the Victorian editor Percy Smallbeam to make it easier for human speech. In almost sixty years Gla’aki’s influence in the world has grown beyond anything I could have imagined as a teenager. He has lent his name to Facebook profiles and Twitter ones too, and has been the subject of songs and games, and depicted by painters and sculptors. An entire anthology, The Children of Gla’aki, was assembled in tribute to him, and I feel touched and humbled by all this. I recently revived him in a novella (The Last Revelation of Gla’aki) and tried to do him the justice I didn’t have in me as a teenager. Now the excellent Alessandro Manzetti and Stefano Cardoselli have adapted my tale into a graphic novel, with splendidly expressionistic art by the latter gentleman, and I’m inspired all over again. You can’t keep a good monster down."
Authors
Alessandro Manzetti (Rome, Italy) is a Three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, editor, scriptwriter and essayst of horror fiction and dark poetry whose work has been published extensively (more than 40 books) in Italian and English, including novels, short and long fiction, poetry, essays, graphic novels and collections. English publications include his novels Shanti - The Sadist Heaven (2019) and Naraka - The Ultimate Human Breeding (2018), the novella The Keeper of Chernobyl (2019), the collections The Radioactive Bride (2020), The Garden of Delight (2017), The Monster, the Bad and the Ugly (2016, with Paolo Di Orazio), and The Massacre of the Mermaids (2015), the poetry collections Dancing with Maria's Ghost (2021), Whitechapel Rhapsody (2020), The Place of Broken Things (2019, with Linda D. Addison), War (2018, with Marge Simon), No Mercy (2017), Sacrificial Nights (2016, with Bruce Boston) Eden Underground (2015), Venus Intervention (2014, with Corrine de Winter), and the graphic novels Calcutta Horror (2019), Her Life Matters (2020) and The Inhabitant of the Lake (2021), and the Guide '150 Exquisite Horror Books' (2021) He edited the anthologies The Beauty of Death (2016), The Beauty of Death Vol. 2 - Death by Water (2017, with Jodi Renee Lester) and Monsters of Any Kind (2018, with Daniele Bonfanti) His stories and poems have appeared in Italian, USA, UK, Australian, Polish and Russian magazines, such as Weird Tales Magazine, Dark Moon Digest, Splatterpunk Zine, Disturbed Digest, Space and Time, The Horror Zine, Illumen, Devolution Z, Hinnom, Recompose, Polu Texni, Nothing's Sacred, Okolica Strachu, and anthologies such as Splatterpunk Forever, The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 13, Classic Monsters Unleashed, Best Hardcore Horror of the Year Vol. 2, 4, 5, 6, The Big Book of Blasphemy, Midnight Under the Big Top, Bones III, Rhysling Anthology (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. 3 and 4, The Beauty of Death Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, World of Light and Darkness, One of Us, Professor Charlatan Bardot's Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World, Tales of the Lost Vol. 3, Hope: Poems of Hope and Resilience From the Pandemic, Sorrow and many others He edited the anthologies The Beauty of Death (2016), The Beauty of Death Vol. 2 - Death by Water (2017, with Jodi Renee Lester) and Monsters of Any Kind (2018, with Daniele Bonfanti) Awards and Nominations: • Bram Stoker Awards 2021 winner • Bram Stoker Awards 2019 winner • Bram Stoker Awards 2015 winner • SFPA Elgin Awards 2019 winner • Bram Stoker Awards 2019 three-time nominee • Bram Stoker Awards 2018 nominee • Bram Stoker Awards 2017 two-time nominee • Bram Stoker Awards 2016 two-time nominee • Bram Stoker Awards 2014 nominee • Splatterpunk Awards 2019 nominee • Splatterpunk Awards 2018 nominee • Rhysling Awards 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 nominee • Elgin Awards 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 nominee • This is Horror Awards 2017 nominee • HWA Specialty Press Awards 2017 winner (as CEO of Independent Legions Press) Furthermore, he received honorable mentions (for stories and poems) in Ellen Datlow's 'The Best Horror of the Year' Vol. 7-8-9-10-12-13 He is the CEO & Founder of Independent Legions Publishing, editor of 'Molotov Magazine' (in Italian), HWA Active member and a former HWA Board of Trustees member. In 2021 he served the Science Fiction Poetry Association as the Rhysling Award Chair. He lives in Trieste, Italy website: www.battiago.com
