After tacking a H.P. Lovecraft graphic novel, Aurora Award–winning creator Norm Konyu now journeys into the macabre mind of horror legend Edgar Allan Poe in his latest comic.
Edgar Allan Poe is perhaps the most ubiquitous name in the world of horror. His works have terrified millions, and they continue to inspire horror writers today. Whether you are a lifelong scholar of the macabre or a newcomer to the world of Poe, Aurora Award–winning creator Norm Konyu (A Call to Cthulhu, The Space Between the Trees) is ready to take you on a journey through Poe’s twisted mind, exploring his legendary stories like never before.
Norm Konyu’s new graphic novel Edgar Allan Poe: A Tale of Mystery and Intervention hits shelves on October 6, 2026 from Titan Comics. Ahead of its release, we recently caught up with Konyu himself to discuss all things Poe. Check out our interview down below!
For this comic, you don’t directly adapt Poe’s works. You take readers on a grand tour through Poe’s mind and literary history. What led you to this approach?
I wanted to create an introduction to Poe, nothing too specific, a sort of taster, if you will. For those who know Poe’s work, I hope it’s like meeting an old (perhaps troubled) friend you haven’t seen in ages. For those who don’t know his work, I hope it piques their interest enough to explore his work story by story on the written page.
After spending so much time walking through Poe’s mind for this comic, what is the one thing about Edgar Allan Poe that you think people still misunderstand today? Did you see him from a new perspective?
I think we all see him as simply a morbid, somewhat twisted little man, not far off my caricature of him in the book, but when you get to know more about his personal life, you can see the roots of the morbidity and grief that drive his stories- the difficult childhood, the undistinguished military career, the deaths of all the woman in his life, and with that, you can start seeing the man hiding in there.
You previously worked on A Call to Cthulhu. How did your approach to Poe’s horror differ from your approach to Lovecraft’s cosmic horror?
To be honest, it wasn’t that much different. Yes, Poe’s tales are more psychologically horrifying than HP Lovecraft’s ancient dark Gods and cosmic monsters, but it still came down to distilling each tale into a single representative image.
In both cases, sometimes that representative image came quickly, and sometimes it was a real struggle to get it down to that single snapshot. Both authors were prolific, so there were plenty of stories to pick and choose from- if there was one that didn’t excite me, I could just omit it!
Many artists utilise greys and blacks for Poe, capturing that gothic aesthetic. You use a richer, brighter palette. How do you use colour to convey gothic?
I don’t think Gothic is just shades of grey. I think that expectation comes from the limitations of printing during the Gothic writing period, with books illustrated with etchings. The stories often contain fantastic costumes of great colours, stained glass, and, of course, plenty of blood. Look at more modern “gothic” horror movies like Coppola’s Dracula or del Toro’s Crimson Peak. There’s plenty of colour to be found!
So, to be honest, I never consciously thought of colour not being in a Gothic illustration. I’m not detracting from artists that only use a black and white palette for a Gothic rendering- just look at Wrightson’s Frankenstein- it’s gorgeous!
You include a postscript to unpack the references. At what point in the creative process did you realize the book needed this?
I think I realised that from the very beginning- even somebody like myself who has read his work may not remember some of the lesser known tales, and for those that don’t know his stories at all, it will take my impressionistic approach of single illustrations and flesh them out, to make some sense of the madness!
Which Poe story is your personal favorite? Where does he rank in your personal ‘hall of fame’ of horror writers?
I will probably have to be boring and predictable and choose The TellTale Heart. It’s such a classic tale, possibly the ultimate tale of guilt. As for a ‘Hall of Fame’, he’s a profound influence on all my favourites – Lovecraft, HG Wells, Verne (though not really a horror writer), HP Lovecraft, all the way up to today and Stephen King.
But I’ll not be as uncouth as to rank them- each fits into their own time and style. Plus I don’t want to offend any of them!
If you could go back and meet Poe yourself, what would be one question you ask him?
Boy. That’s a tough one. I think I’d be more like the Evans character in the book, and try to get him to pull himself out from under the weight he was obviously carrying, which was driving him to drink and an eventual premature death. Purely for selfish reasons, of course, so he could write some more tales for us!
Now that you’ve explored the minds of Lovecraft and Poe, are there any other horror writers that you’re interested in writing about?
It would be great to make it a trilogy, wouldn’t it? (But no more than that- just look what happened with Star Wars) I’ll have to think on that one- who else might be worthy to sit there alongside those two Gothic horror masters? We shall see…
‘Edgar Allan Poe: A Tale of Mystery and Intervention’ debuts October 6, 2026 from Titan Comics.
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