I must say that I have never read the short story by Lovecraft about the Cthulhu, and this is probably one of the reason why enjoyed so much reading this manga version of it, since I didn't know anything about the story.

I would like to start from a quote which is present in one of the first pages:
(Found among the papers of the late Francis Wayland Thurston of Boston)

---

"Of such great powers of beings there may be conceivably a survival ...
a survival of a hugely remote period when...
consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in shapes in forms long
since withdrawn before the tide of advancing humanity...
forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a flying memory
and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all sorts and kinds"

---

I will try to sum up at leas the beginning, so that if you are interested you can read it (either the original version for Lovecraft or this manga version from Tanabe).

The story starts with a man that is going back home while giving the impression as he is followed by someone.

"I know about the titanic being...
...who lies hidden on our planet...
...and which transcends all imagination.

After this brief and creepy introduction, we go back to the past and we are in 1926, in Providence, in the state of Rhode Island, with the man that we saw at the beginning (whose name is Thurston) which is attending it's uncle funeral. His uncle was George G. Angel, a famous and well known archeologist of his time.

While going through his stuff, Thurston finds a closed box, which contains a strange clay tablet with figures in low relief.

and some notes that are referring to a certain: Cthulhu cult.

Reading through them, the nephew discovers how George was visited one day by a young sculptor (H.A. Wilcox) who claims to have carved the tablet while dreaming of a very creepy city where he heard a voice coming from underground that was not a voice, and that rumbled in his head:

"Cthulhu Fhtang"

The cult of Cthulhu

"There towered huge blocks of stone and monoliths so high that they almost touched the sky...
...The walls were full of engravings depicting strange hieroglyphics..

The sculptor continued visiting the professor for a certain period, describing to the him this strange dreams that he had about this city, and this sensation of uneasiness that was consuming him.

After a while the condition of Wilcox started to aggravate and he was hospitalized. Strangely enough, when he recovered he had lost any recollection of his dreams and what he saw, leaving the Prof. George really worried and confused.

So he starts to dig even deeper on the case, and he is able to recollect different evidences from other persons which in one way or another were involved in this strange cult.

"In his home in R'Lyeh, the dead Cthulhu...
...waits while dreaming

Since I don't want to spoiler anything I will stop here, and in the following I will only show you some really amazing drawings taken from the manga, so that you are even more intrigued 😉.

"The elders have come on Earth way before the birth of humans.
After having erected R'Lyeh, the splendid and magnificent city of stone... they have extended their dominion over our planet.

This last panel (the one below) in particular is probably my favorite, the drawing is really amazing and it transmits the fear and sense of unease that is present through all the opera.

I hope that you enjoyed this presentation of "The Call of Cthulhu".
I really loved going through it, and if you are a fan of the works of Lovecraft, I am sure that you will love it.