The vast, indifferent cosmos has long been a source of both wonder and terror in speculative fiction. Two distinct works, separated by medium and decades, tap into this profound fear of the unknown with chilling effectiveness: C.M. Kosemen's All Tomorrows and the manga adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu. While one is a modern treatise on speculative evolution and the other a classic of literary horror reborn in graphic form, both are united by their exploration of cosmic horror—the idea that humanity is an insignificant speck in a universe filled with ancient, incomprehensible powers. This article delves into the shared themes of these masterpieces and why stories of existential dread continue to captivate us.
The Essence of Cosmic Horror: More Than Just Monsters
Cosmic horror, a genre pioneered by H.P. Lovecraft, isn't about jump scares or gore. Its true terror lies in a philosophical revelation: the universe is vast, ancient, and utterly indifferent to human existence. Our laws, morals, and very biology are meaningless on a cosmic scale. This theme is the bedrock upon which both All Tomorrows and Lovecraft's mythos are built. In All Tomorrows, humanity's descendants are reshaped over millions of years by the alien Qu into grotesque forms for their own inscrutable purposes. There is no grand moral lesson or heroic resistance; it is a story of passive, evolutionary suffering across eons. Similarly, in H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu (Manga), the protagonist's investigation leads not to victory, but to the shattering realization that ancient, god-like beings slumber just beyond our perception, and their awakening would spell our doom. The horror is in the knowledge, not the confrontation.
All Tomorrows: A Billion-Year Nightmare of Evolution
All Tomorrows presents a unique form of cosmic horror through the lens of deep time and biology. The Qu, the enigmatic alien race that modifies humanity, are not mustache-twirling villains. They are more akin to forces of nature or careless artists, treating humanity as raw clay. The horror stems from the sheer scale of their intervention—altering the course of evolution itself—and the complete lack of malice or reason we can understand. Humanity's various post-human forms, from the sedentary Sail People to the parasitic Symbiotes, are testament to a universe that can rewrite life on a whim. This connects deeply with Lovecraftian themes where characters are often faced with truths that break their sanity, as the familiar framework of reality dissolves. Reading All Tomorrows is to witness a lovecraftian horror scenario played out across geological epochs, where the monster is not a tentacled god, but the irreversible process of change imposed by a uncaring universe.
The Manga Medium: Visualizing the Unthinkable
This is where the graphic novel adaptation of Lovecraft's work becomes particularly powerful. Lovecraft's prose is famously dense and reliant on suggestion, often describing his horrors as "indescribable." A manga adaptation faces the daunting task of making the unimaginable visible. The cthulhu manga uses the visual language of comics—shadow, scale, and meticulous detail—to convey the awe and terror of Cthulhu's city of R'lyeh and its slumbering inhabitant. The static, panel-by-panel progression can build dread in a way prose sometimes cannot, forcing the reader to linger on a terrifying image. Similarly, All Tomorrows uses its detailed, biological illustrations to horrifying effect. The grotesque, yet logically derived, forms of the post-humans are rendered with scientific precision, making the cosmic horror tangible. Both works prove that horror comics and illustrated texts are exceptional mediums for exploring the aesthetic of the alien and the terrifying.
Shared Themes: Insignificance, Inheritance, and the Unknown
Beyond the overarching dread, these works share specific thematic threads:
- The Fragility of the Human Form: Both narratives dismantle human physicality. Lovecraft's characters often degenerate or mutate upon contact with the cosmic, while All Tomorrows showcases the human body as infinitely malleable by external forces.
- The Weight of History and Knowledge: In The Call of Cthulhu, forbidden texts and ancient cults hold dangerous truths. In All Tomorrows, the story itself is presented as a historical document pieced together by a far-future descendant, emphasizing how knowledge of a terrible past shapes identity.
- Ambiguous Endings: Neither story offers clean resolution. Cthulhu returns to sleep, but the threat remains. The post-humans in All Tomorrows build new civilizations, but the shadow of the Qu and their own transformed nature is their permanent inheritance. The horror lingers.
Why We Are Drawn to Cosmic Dread
In an age of anthropocentric storytelling, why are works like Kosemen's epic and Lovecraft's tales experiencing a resurgence? They serve as a necessary counter-narrative. In a universe theorized to contain dark energy and black holes, stories that remind us of our fragility and ignorance feel paradoxically authentic. They are a vaccination against hubris. Exploring these themes through a manga or a richly illustrated book like All Tomorrows makes the abstract terror accessible, allowing us to safely confront the void from the comfort of our reading chair.
Conclusion: Two Paths to the Same Abyss
All Tomorrows and the H.P. Lovecraft manga adaptation are landmark works that use different tools to mine the same deep vein of cosmic terror. One uses speculative biology and deep time to show how easily our essence can be erased; the other uses gothic atmosphere and iconographic myth to suggest monsters beyond our comprehension. Together, they demonstrate the enduring power and versatility of cosmic horror. For readers who finish one and crave more of that specific flavor of existential unease, the other is a natural next step. They are companion pieces in a library of dread, reminding us that in the face of the cosmos, all our tomorrows are uncertain, and some truths are best left in the shadows, or beautifully, terrifyingly rendered on the page.
