(review) Lovecraft is Missing!

Oddly enough, for all that the Lovecraft mythos have infiltrated geek culture, there aren't that many comics or webcomics that reference the Mythos directly. There certainly aren't very many comics that feature Lovecraft and other Mythos writers in a Mythos-based adventure.

First to get you started: A Cthulhu Chick Tract!

And another Cthulhu Chick Tract!


And finally, Lovecraft is Missing, the Webcomic.

And so to get things started, we have a story that starts off slowly, but with a charming absence of normality. A woman with a gun is let off in a very horrible slum neighborhood, and searches out a bookstore and its odd inhabitants, in order to purchase a  complete edition of...something. She also appears at the home of a vanished artist, the notorious Pickman, to buy a map, and later we see her working a special collections room, dealing with the fact that a book is missing an important section...and was last borrowed by one HP Lovecraft. Interspersed with her bibliophilic adventures, we also meet a two-fisted pulp author who is travelling to the east to meet his pen pal, Lovecraft, as well as some pulp magazine editors and writers.  We watch some creepy people who seem to know too much about what's going on. We even meet Lovecraft who well, disappears.

And that's about it for action, as this webcomic is new.   It's hard to tell where it's going at this point, other than we've already had glimpses of the mythos and hints of multiple conspiracies. But at this point I don't mind, because this comic does a good job of giving the feeling of menace lurking both in the shadows and behind the facade of ordinary life.  Beyond that the art is of a quality that's far higher than most webcomics, resembling a hardcopy comic done in a European style. Some of the backgrounds are wonderfully detailed, and no wonder- the artist took plenty of reference pictures in Boston.  Characterization so far is slim, the story jumps around a lot, and I'm hoping that soon we'll actually find out who our mysterious flapper book buyer is.  But since this seems to be more of a graphic novel than a standard webcomic, I'm willing to give the story a while to make its revelations known.  And frankly, at least for now the artwork makes the ride to whatever horrifying conclusion there will be a worthwhile

At this point,

(Gaming) the very definition of a railroaded game

While searching some old Usenet threads, I found this post I remembered from the from the old days, which gave an example of a game where the GM absolutely would not let the characters off the leash.  It's stuck in my mind as a textbook definition of a railroaded game.

Courtesy of Michael Richter and rec.games.frp.misc: No winning, no detours, no escape, not even through death.