Celeste cartoonist I.N.J. Culbard is adapting The King in Yellow, the 1895 short-story collection by Robert W. Chambers that received renewed attention this year because of the HBO crime drama True Detective.

Culbard revealed the cover for the 144-page graphic novel, set to be released in May by U.K. publisher SelfMadeHero.

Chambers' collection of 10 supernatural tales takes its title from a fictional forbidden play mentioned in four stories that drives anyone who reads it to despair or madness. H.P. Lovecraft was influenced by The King in Yellow, and borrowed some of its elements for his own work.

Since then numerous authors and artists, from Raymond Chandler to Stephen King to Blue Oyster Cult, have  referenced the book; Nic Pizzolatto peppered True Detective with allusions to the Yellow King, the King in Yellow and Carcosa, spawning several viewer theories about the identity of the drama's killer.

Culbard (Brass Sun, The New Deadwardians) has become a fixture of SelfMadeHero, where he adapted Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Shadow Out of Time and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and collaborated with Ian Edginton on Sherlock Holmes and A Princess of Mars.

(via Digital Spy)