Edgar Allan Poe – A Tale of Mystery and Intervention: A Funny and Fitting Tribute to Great Horror

Humor isn’t what immediately comes to mind when thinking about Edgar Allan Poe or his various works. Horror, of course. Perhaps thriller. But definitely not humor. Creator Norm Konyu begs to differ, though, as he combines humor with the macabre storyteller in Edgar Allan Poe: A Tale of Mystery and Intervention.

A Tale of Mystery and Intervention begins with a typical sequential art comic book format. Poe is seated at a particularly macabre table in the Melancholia Club in Baltimore when Thomas Evans, a theatrical producer and his friend, approaches him. Poe is eager to share his latest idea: a musical based on the wives of Henry VIII. When warned that a story with two beheaded wives isn’t promising, Poe replies that in his version, they all get beheaded. This brief scene, part of a framing device for the book, immediately sets a tone of off-beat humor that endures through the final page. The comic book format opening also helps ground A Tale of Mystery and Intervention in that style despite what most of the book is.

Konyu’s art possesses minimalist qualities, especially in this framing story. Features both on characters and backgrounds are more a function of the barriers between colors than any outlined borders. In the case of Thomas and Poe, it’s this kind of color usage that is responsible for all the emotional undertones. In some ways it’s unfortunate that A Tale of Mystery and Intervention isn’t entirely in a sequential art format because they are very engaging.

The Poe/Thomas framing story is depicted primarily in shades blue and purple. Konyu puts Poe in a darkened corner in the club resulting in a contrasting color scheme for the two characters. Thomas is always seen against a lighter background than Poe. The color selection adds a nice undertone to each character, especially Thomas who spends the bulk of the book “speaking”, before the sequential storytelling gives way to poetry.

Most of A Tale of Mystery and Intervention is a poem set to art. The clever verses allude to a wide range of Edgar Allan Poe’s works. Konyu manages to preserve the off beat humorous tone he establishes in the opening scene despite writing about Poe’s macabre stories. It’s a fun juxtaposition, especially if the reader is already familiar with the stories Konyu has selected. “The Cask of Amontillado,” for instance, is anything but light hearted. Nevertheless, the way that Konyu comes at the story threatens to elicit a smile.

Each Poe entry gets a two page spread with the verses set against a striking image representing the story or poem in question. This is where a lot of the joy in A Tale of Mystery and Intervention lies. The art ranges from comparatively simple, such as the images for “The Raven” and “The Black Cat,” to richly detailed and complex like that for “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Coloring is far and away the most striking element when first seeing the two page spreads. Konyu’s choices create a lot of contrast in the images, especially the look of foreground elements against backgrounds. The watercolor type effect and rough brushstroke appearance of many of the backgrounds adds a kind of art book quality to the story.

A Tale of Mystery and Intervention concludes with a fun postscript that unpacks all of the references Konyu makes in the book as well as a brief musing on Poe’s legacy.