Interview: The FBI's Last Woman Standing vs. Hoover and Lovecraft in 'Miskatonic'
Nov 09, 2020
Interview by Troy-Jeffrey Allen
It's time to take back the narrative. That definitely seems to be the prevailing attitude when it comes to the works of cosmic-horror scribe H.P. Lovecraft. This year has already seen the writer's troubling views on race reapprorpiated via the HBO show Lovecraft Country. Now, writer Mark Sable (Godkillers, Graveyard of Empires) is zeroing his Lovecraftian crime-drama on another marginalized cluster of potential readers: women. Sable's story, Miskatonic, puts a female protagonist at the forefront. On her dogged heels isn't just horrific cosmic monstrosities, but also the very federal organization she respresents -- the FBI.
Keep reading.
PREVIEWSworld: How did Miskatonic come about as a project?
Mark Sable: I’ve always wanted to tell a Lovecraftian horror story. The trick was figuring out how to make that story original and relevant. One that embraced H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror but dealt with the misogynic, racism and xenophobia in his writing.
It clicked for me when I read about J. Edgar Hoover’s Palmer Raids, the pre-cursor to America’s first Red Scare. In 1919, anarchists tried to blow up Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and other prominent U.S. officials and businessmen. In 1920 the government overreacted, and rounded up 10,000 Americans, detaining about a third of them and deporting hundreds.
This was run by J. Edgar Hoover, part of the then fledging Bureau of Investigation. During that same era, he tried to modernize the bureau. Unfortunately, that also involved purging the Bureau of it’s few female agents – by the end of the 20’s they’d all be gone and another wouldn’t be hired until after his death in the 1970s. All this took place at the same time as Lovecraft’s stories were set.
I saw a lot of parallels between Hoover and Lovecraft in terms of their views, I wondered what would happen if one of the last female FBI agents was sent to investigate a series of bombings that seemed to be a part of the Red Scare, but in reality were part of a Lovecraftian conspiracy. Miskatonic answers that questions.
PREVIEWSworld: What makes Miskatonic Valley so dangerous?
The Miskatonic Valley is the original “Lovecraft Country”, the location of most of his most prominent stories. That means it’s filled with cultists capable of dark magic, half-human abominations, the monstrous offspring of extraplanar entities and mad scientists looking to resurrect the dead (whether they want to return or not).
And that’s just the supernatural. Miskatonic asks whether those supernatural threats are more dangerous than a director of the proto-FBI looking to pin the crimes of these monstrous entities on anyone he deems “subversive”.
PREVIEWSworld: Tell us about Miranda Keller. Why do we follow her through this story, specifically?
Lovecraft’s stories feature no female protagonists, and barely any women period. Miskatonic is an attempt to reverse that.
Miranda is one of the last remaining women in the Bureau of Investigation, and under pressure to stop this new series of bombings in the Miskatonic Valley to keep her job. She’s brilliant and just as capable of doing her job as any of her male counterparts, many of whom were corrupt. But she’s also not above doing the dirty job of gathering dirt for Hoover’s secret blackmail files (which would turn out to be one of the largest collections of pornography by the time of his death).
Miranda is also a skeptic, and she’s got a kind of X-Files relationship with Tom Malone, the ex-NYPD protagonist of H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Horror at Red Hook”. The Mulder to her Scully, he’s a believer, traumatized by his prior encounters with the supernatural.
Unlike Mulder, Malone would prefer to bury the truth by blaming it on Hoover’s perceived enemies. He believing mankind can’t handle it. Miranda would like to uncover it, even if it means risking Hoover’s wrath…and her sanity itself.
PREVIEWSworld: How much of this is based on real life events?
Anything not supernatural is firmly rooted in historical events. The bombings, J. Edgar hoover more concerned about radicals than bootleggers during prohibition, the deportations of immigrants and the removal of women from the organization that would become the FBI…it all happened at the same time Lovecraft was writing his story. One of the last women FBI agents was not only fired, but committed to an insane asylum…the fate of many of Lovecraft protagonist.
What I think makes Miskatonic relevant is that not only is all of this largely overlooked, but it can be argued that history is repeating itself. Terrorism, authoritarian government overreactions, crackdowns on immigration and those with opposing political views…all of that is still happening today.
PREVIEWSworld: What was it like working with artist Giorgio Pontrelli? What's the creative process like between you two?
Giorgio is a phenomenal artist and collaborator. His linework is deceptively simple. With just a few brush strokes he can create compelling action sequences, truly disturbing images of horror and subtle emotional cues. He’s in great company with Pippa Bowland whose colors ground the crime aspects of Miskatonic while imbuing the comic with Lovecraft’s sense of otherworldly horror. You could say she’s the “Colour(ist) out of Space). Letterer Thomas Mauer does a great job capturing the period and also meeting the challenge of coming up with fictional forbidden languages. And Jeremy Haun and Nick Filardi created killer images as part of a murderer’s row of cover talent including Tony Harris, Tyler Crook and Peach Momoko.
Giorgio is in Italy, Pippa is in the U.K., Thomas is in Germany and I’m in the U.S., and that could have proved difficult, especially in this pandemic year. I had to find a balance between giving all of them a tremendous amount of historical reference and getting out of their way so they had the space make the comic their own visually. I didn’t want this to look like any other Lovecraftian comic.
Luckily, we had Aftershock editor Christina Harrington not only coordinating all this but contributing her own unique point of view. Thanks to all of them it’s easily been one of the most creatively rewarding experiences.
PREVIEWSworld: Looking forward, what can readers expect from Miskatonic?
Pulp crime, intensifying political intrigue and horrors from time and space. Each issue shows the events of some of Lovecraft’s best stories from a completely different point of view, as well as telling Miskatonic’s own overarching, original story.
PREVIEWSworld: In terms of audience, who is Miskatonic for?
Fans of H.P. Lovecraft and horror in general, fans of historical crime fiction like James’ Ellroy, readers looking for a strong but flawed female protagonist and looking for a dark lens into our nation’s past and present, and anyone looking for a unique creator-owned comic where anything can happen.
Miskatonic #1 (SEP201021) is available to pre-order now. It will hit your local comic shop on November 11, 2020.
These horrors reach a breaking point when the brilliant, hard-nosed investigator Miranda Keller is sent to stop the bombings. To J. Edgar Hoover, there can be no other explanation than those responsible for similar actions during the Red Scare of the 1920s...but when Miranda digs too deep, she uncovers an unimaginable occult conspiracy, one that may cost Miranda her job - and her sanity.
From writer Mark Sable (GODKILLERS, Graveyard of Empires) and artist Giorgio Pontrelli (Dylan Dog), MISKATONIC is a mix of historical crime fiction and Lovecraftian-horror that dives deep into the American nightmare.
Troy-Jeffrey Allen is the producer and co-host of PREVIEWSworld Weekly. His comic book works include BAMN, Fight of the Century, the Harvey Award-nominated District Comics, and the Ringo Awards-nominated Magic Bullet.
