Manga debuted on April 1
Image via Kadocomi
© Gou Tanabe, Kadokawa
Manga creator Gou Tanabe launched a manga adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (Charles Ward no Kikai na Jiken) horror novella in Kadokawa’s KadoComi website (under the Comic Beam label) on April 1.
The original story follows Marinus Bicknell Willett, the doctor for the noted Ward family of Rhode Island, investigating the case of the supposed madness of the young Charles Dexter Ward. His investigation leads to a grim discovery of the Ward family’s mysterious and horrific past, and Charles Ward’s involvement in it hundreds of years later.
The semimonthly manga series is part of a series of adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft’s works by Tanabe. Dark Horse Comics published his manga of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories in August 2017, which includes “The Hound,” “The Temple,” and “The Nameless City.” Dark Horse Comics began releasing Tanabe’s At The Mountains Of Madness manga in June 2019. The series was nominated for Best Comic by the 46th Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2019.
Dark Horse has also released a single omnibus volume of Tanabe’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth manga, and has also released Tanabe’s The Call of Cthulhu manga, the latter of which won the Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel award at the Bram Stoker Awards in June 2025. Dark Horse more recently released Tanabe’s The Colour Out of Space last July, and released The Shadow Out of Time on December 16. Dark Horse will release The Dunwich Horror manga on September 29.
Tanabe also released manga based on Lovecraft’s The Haunter of the Dark and The Outsider.
Tanabe launched the Short Stories about Dreamlands manga based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle stories in November 2023, and ended the series in April 2024. Tanabe launched the Lovecraft no Genei (The Lovecraft’s Phantom) manga in Comic Beam in June 2024, and ended it in December 2024.
Sources: Comic Beam X/Twitter account, Kadocomi
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.
