The resemblance is more than passing

Lou Reed has been quite busy these days. When he's not collaborating with Metallica on a record, he's spending time putting together a graphic novel based around his "spiritual forefather" Edgar Allen Poe, called, appropriately, The Raven.

It's not Reed's first tangle with the author—in 2003, he released an album, also called The Raven, a Poe-themed project in which "Reed's poetically streetwise sensibility merged with Poe's dark chronicles of terror and despair." Now Reed's Poe-esque lyrics have been collected into a book and illustrated with paintings by New Yorker cartoonist Lorenzo Mattotti. And yes, the book looks just as creepy as you'd expect.

Reed will be reading from the book tonight in the Rare Book Room at Strand Bookstore—it's sadly sold out, but here's small consolation in the form of Willem Dafoe reading one of the poems:

Maybe Reed should think about donating some of the proceeds to fixing up the Poe House.