Otaku USA Magazine revealed on Tuesday that Dark Horse Comics has licensed Gou Tanabe’s manga adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space.
The manga is set to ship on July 1. Zack Davisson, who previously translated Dark Horse’s English editions of Tanabe’s adaptations of Lovecraft’s works, will return as the translator for this release.
Dark Horse Comics provided the following description of the manga:
A surveyor inspecting a site for a proposed reservoir arrives in a desolate valley in rural Massachusetts, a place infamous even among the superstitious residents of Arkham. Tales of the “strange days” in the area remain shrouded in fear and mystery.
In the valley, the surveyor discovers a five-acre expanse of lifeless, gray ash—where a farm once thrived. Windless and barren, the area harbors a chilling tale told by a lone aged survivor. In 1882, something descended from the sky—a visitor.
As scientists gathered to study the meteorite, they found it to be a material unknown to Earth, one that vanished under examination. What followed was an insidious transformation of the land, warping plants, animals, and even humans in the grip of a cosmic, unnatural light.
The manga originally ran in Kadokawa’s Comic Beam magazine from July to October 2015.
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space
Gou Tanabe has a long history of adapting H.P. Lovecraft’s works into manga. In November 2023, he launched Short Stories about Dreamlands, a manga inspired by Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle stories, which concluded in April 2024.
Tanabe followed that series with Lovecraft no Genei (The Lovecraft’s Phantom) in Comic Beam in June 2024, wrapping it up in December 2024.
These works are part of a larger collection of Tanabe’s adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories. Dark Horse Comics began publishing Tanabe’s works in 2017, starting with The Hound and Other Stories, which included “The Hound,” “The Temple,” and “The Nameless City.”
In June 2019, Dark Horse began releasing Tanabe’s At the Mountains of Madness, which was nominated for Best Comic at the 46th Angoulême International Comics Festival that same year.
Dark Horse has also published omnibus editions of Tanabe’s adaptations, including The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Call of Cthulhu, the latter released in July 2024. Additionally, Tanabe has adapted other Lovecraft classics such as The Haunter of the Dark, The Outsider, The Dunwich Horror, and The Shadow Out of Time.
Fans of Lovecraftian horror and manga will undoubtedly be eager to go into Tanabe’s latest adaptation, continuing his tradition of bringing Lovecraft’s cosmic horrors to life in vivid detail.
