The Lovecraftian madness of Blinko’s “Primal Screamer”

book-over-primal-screamerThe recent reprinting of Rudimentary Peni frontman Nick Blinko‘s 1995 novel, Primal Screamer collects all disparate versions of the work into one volume. In other words, PM Press has provided the definitive version of this short work, including more of Blinko’s extraordinarily disturbing artwork.

Primal Screamer could do with a bit more artwork than it already has, even in this edition, at least in the early sections. Blinko does a good job of building tension, and quite adroitly builds the inevitable descent into madness by Dr. Dweller into the narrative: “Executed in black and white as Nat’s art is, I swear I could see colours in it. Weird colours. The strange house and mad garden must have affected my judgment.” However, the plot moves rather slowly, and it could benefit from art to illustrate the twisted nature of Nat’s mind.
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