🐙 Bryan Katz is a character created by author and artist Dean Wirth. He made his first appearance in the 2020 short story "The Dewey Mine Attack", published in Lovecraftiana Vol 5, Issue 1.
History[]
Katz decided to wander his home country of the United States, believing that somewhere along the way he would find his goal in life. Overindulging in alcohol one evening he was robbed: this necessitated taking a back-breaking job working in Oregon's Dewey Mine.
Katz took well to the job, but soon came to realise that something was not right with the strange bands of shadow which appeared to roam the mountainside periodically. One night, he and his friends, again under the influence of rotgut, shot at the bands: the retaliation was instant and overwhelming, the creatures which lived inside these shadow-bands emerging and slaughtering the entire 100-strong workforce. Only Katz and two others managed to escape, making it to a nearby river and heading downstream.
Washing up on a deserted island off the West coast, the three were pursued by the entities which claimed the lives of two of the men, only Katz managing to evade them. He eventually made his way to civilisation, where he was suspected of perpetrating the atrocity and incarcerated in a the Oregon Hospital for the Insane, remaining there from 1886 - 1898.
Upon his release, Katz headed to Los Angeles, where he made something of a name for himself in the nascent silent movie industry. However, the advent of "talkies" and his lack of an acceptable speaking voice put an end to this, and he was forced to take employment as a janitor in a tough inner-city school.
During this time, Katz made the acquaintance of a woman named Mina Luddox, whose husband, while serving aboard the USS Connecticut of the coast of Maryland in 1919, had been killed by the same creatures encountered by Katz in Oregon. The pair attempted to alert the world to the dangers these beings posed, but were met with nothing but derision. Following an interview with reporter Randy Oswald in 1945, Katz was urged by Mina to let the entire matter rest. Whether he took this advice remains unknown.
Appearances[]
- "The Dewey Mine Attack" (2020)
- "The Riddle of Jeremy Roman" (2020)
- "The Randy Oswald Story" (2020)