I beheld a horror comic so indescribably horrifying that my mind began to unravel . . . but in a good way.

Cthulhu stories are so vast in number and influence that it’s considered an official sub-genre of horror fiction. Its creeping sense of dread, elaborate cosmology, and well-established rhythm and structure have crawled inside the minds of some of the best writers in both the comic and prose novel mediums.

In a sense, Cthulhu is kind of like The Aristocrats for horror, SF, and fantasy writers. It’s a right of passage for your profession. Stephen King went homage with “The Mist.” So did J. Michael Strazynski with Babylon 5: Thirdspace, as did John Carpenter with In the Mouth of Madness.

Warren Ellis had Lovecraft make a direct appearance in Planetary, and Grant Morrison dedicated a whole chunk of The Invisibles to Cthulhu mythos--and if that wasn’t Cthulhu in the Hellboy movie, I don’t know my ancient slumbering evils.

My point is that the tentacled one is a pretty popular cat, and it was only a matter of time before the stars aligned in the proper configuration, a crack in reality formed, and the eldritch horror came crawling directly back into comics bringing madness, death, and darkness . . . or at least some good stories.

Boom! Studios takes the lead in the first of two different Cthulhu projects hitting stores this year, and they have go-to comic horror guy Steve Niles leading the charge. The structure of the book is three short stories with the only unifying element being that they exist in the Cthulhu universe, or at least one that is Cthulhu-esque in theme and tone.

The first story, “Eyes of Madness” is written by Steve Niles and is classic Lovecraft to its gory bone. A man narrates his encounter with forces greater and more terrifying than he could have ever imagined, and how that encounter has irrevocably changed him. A mysterious blind man enters into a small town and proceeds to murder a group of children that he claims are the spawn of evil. The narrator, the local priest, hears the man’s confession and is given the ability to see what the blind man sees.

The story ends just as expected with madness encroaching and the promise of even more grisly bloodshed. Niles manages to evoke the tone of a classic Cthulhu story and still infuse it with a bit of his own particular sensibility. Chee’s art is well done, but doesn’t quite get the atmosphere right--though the priest’s first vision of the demons is impressively nightmarish in a pop art way.

The second story, “The Farm,” goes for a more modern approach. There is no narrator, but the theme of human innocence evaporating in the face of sheer evil is still present. Three kids sneak onto a farm and uncover a dead body. They then discover that it’s a snack for a shoggoth-like monster.

This story is the weakest of the three, but if Boom! runs this book like it did with Zombie Tales (serializing a story in installments across multiple issues), then there is the promise of “The Farm” developing into a better story. Sunder Raj’s art does well in evoking a mood of dread. The shoggoth creature, though strangely lacking color, is disturbing. It fits well into a Lovecraftian story--a slimy, gibbering horror that can sap a man’s sanity.

The last story, “Exactly the Right Word,” is the best of the lot--a micro-burst of a story (clocking in at three pages) that delivers a high concept punch. If you’ve ever played witness to, or been part of, the odd rituals of sports fanatics then this story will make your skin crawl.

It turns out that if you combine all the weird superstitions--such as wearing the same underwear for each game, lighting a candle for your favorite pitcher, painting your body with the team colors, and so forth--you just might unleash an ancient one from its slumber. This story is clever in concept and brilliant in execution, and it brought to mind the best episodes of the old Hellraiser comic series.

Along with being a smart Cthulhu tale, it really casts those sports fanatic guys in a different light. Chee also handles the art duties on this story and he succeeds in creating the creepy atmosphere that I felt was missing in his first story.

Cthulhu Tales is a welcome addition to the horror comic field--delivering smart, creepy stories for people who have had their fill of zombie books or who have the “Cthulhu 2008, Why Settle for a Lesser Evil” bumper sticker on their cars.

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