Neonomicon (2010-11)
Providence (2015-17)
THESE three Avatar comics - a publishing house renowned for its creative freedom (code for graphic sex and violence) - cover Alan Moore's main association with H. P. Lovecraft. Originally planned to appear in Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths, The Courtyard became a two part release in its own right. Written by Antony Johnston and illustrated by Jacen Burrows, it is based on a 1994 narrative by Moore which appeared in the Creation anthology The Starry Wisdom. Unorthodox FBI agent Aldo Sax investigates three seemingly unrelated ritual murders in the United States using anomaly theory, a method that correlates disparate data into a cohesive whole. His exploration leads him to Club Zothique and a drug called Aklo, peddled by veiled Johnny Carcosa. Sax is given a potent white powder and experiences spectral planes and primordial creatures. Understanding that Aklo is not a drug but the language Carcosa had spoken, the visions drive Sax to kill his neighbor using the same modus operandi as the cases he was examining.
Inspired by the ninth sonnet of Fungi from Yuggoth, Moore creates the long-faced Sax almost as a modern Lovecraft facsimile, and even in such a short story it is laced with inevitable fan service. Aklo has been used by many authors after its inception in Arthur Machen's 1899 The White People, a mystical language which has been used by Lovecraft himself (The Dunwich Horror, The Haunter of the Dark); Zothique is an imaged future continent in the works of Clark Ashton Smith; the action takes place in Red Hook, with the protagonist mimicking the blatant racism from HPL's The Horror at Red Hook; and to flag the sexualities to come, Carcosa offers to sell Aldo "a cock ring from Innsmouth."
Neonomicon (or "New Necronomicon") explores two of H. P. Lovecraft's most notable undercurrents, literally fleshing out his unnatural rituals and sexual shyness. Here FBI agent Brears gives a Deep One a handjob.
The story continues in the notorious four-issue Neonomicon, which Moore has described as "really fucking horrible." FBI agents Gordon Lamper and Merril Brears visit Sax at a psychiatric hospital. They are investigating a copycat killer, and want to question him about his motives, yet he only speaks unintelligible gibberish. Lamper and Brears track down Carcosa whose disturbing paraphernalia lead them to a specialty shop in Salem - Whisperers in Darkness - stockists of occult books and weird sex toys (which include dildo tentacles, Cthulhu gimp masks and an Elder Thing as an inflatable doll). Going undercover as husband and wife, Lamper and Brears attend an orgy hosted by the owners, members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon who regularly indulge in rituals to attract the sexual attention of a race of fishmen.
This grotesque melange continues with the agents exposed and Lamper murdered by the cultists. Brears is sexually assaulted by the Order then locked in a room with a Deep One, which rapes her continuously for several days. During this ordeal Brears has a vision of Carcosa, who reveals himself as an avatar of Great Old One Nyarlathotep. When the sea creature tastes a drop of Brears' urine, it determines that she is pregnant and helps her escape into the ocean. Brears returns to the city and contacts the FBI, who raid the specialty shop John Woo-style. Three months later Brears visits Sax and is able to understand his speech as Aklo, the language of the Deep Ones. Brears realises that the events in Lovecraft's fiction are actually premonitions of a future apocalypse, an event that will be heralded by the birth of her child, Cthulhu.
The prolonged interracial rape in Neonomicon owes little to Lovecraftian cosmic horror. It's more like the comic book equivalent of passing a car crash; you look, but you know you shouldn't.
In a 2010 interview with Wired.com, Moore labels Neonomicon "one of the most unpleasant things I have ever written," and forged against fallout from the WATCHMEN movie and an impending issue with HMRC. "Although I took it to pay off the tax bill," says Moore, "I’m always going to make sure I try and make it the best possible story I can. Because I was in a very misanthropic state, I probably wasn’t at my most cheery. So Neonomicon is very black, and I’m only using black to describe it because there isn’t a darker colour." Suppressed Lovecraft themes - from underlying racism to lack of female characters and carnal activity - are given a brutal makeover, feeling as if the reader is experiencing a snuff movie. Lamper is black and dies quickly, and Brears is a recovering sex addict; it's as if Merril's past has made it justifiable that her epiphany encompesses a building and uncontrollable despair.
In contrast, the twelve-issue Providence is a dry, historical thesis. Exhaustively researched - as you would expect - Providence is similar to From Hell when Sir William Gull examines London architecture; but that was only a chapter, here it is over eleven issues. Author Robert Black tours New England and the outsiders of society, befriending Lovecraft who is inspired by Black's travels to write prophetic stories. In the final issue we reconnect with Brears, who gives birth to a baby Cthulhu as the Earth becomes a fiction based dreamstate. One looks at Moore's trilogy wondering if he has devalued Lovecraft for his own dramatic gain, similar to Gull's Masonic whim. The core of the Cthulhu mythos is that interdimensional entities look at humanity as not even a footnote; yet Moore has argued that there is a different relationship between humans and Cthulhu, as the Great Old One is a caricature of our form, rather than the more abstract deities. In the end, to quote Dr Pretorius in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, "to a new world of gods and monsters!".
Avatar mainstay Jacen Burrows drew all three tales. His clear line and almost cartoonish style is greatly influenced by Hergé and Mike Baron; this is the limited Century cover to Providence #11 (November 2016).
Moore has a long and problematic history of sexual violence in his comics. Notable examples include Silk Spectre in Watchmen, the attempted rape of Kid Marvelman, and The Joker's treatment of Barbara Gordon in Batman The Killing Joke. Rape did occur fleetinging with Lovecraft but off page, in The Curse of Yig and The Horror at Red Hook; and in contrast to Neonomicon, Deep Ones in The Shadow over Innsmouth appear to prefer willing human partners. Providence riffs on The Thing on the Doorstep for its own rape scene of choice, a particularly warped body swap involving a possessed Black and a thirteen-year-old girl. Moore used a similar trait for Swamp Thing when Abby had sex with her husband Matt Cable, who was controlled by her uncle Anton Arcane.
In contrast, the twelve-issue Providence is a dry, historical thesis. Exhaustively researched - as you would expect - Providence is similar to From Hell when Sir William Gull examines London architecture; but that was only a chapter, here it is over eleven issues. Author Robert Black tours New England and the outsiders of society, befriending Lovecraft who is inspired by Black's travels to write prophetic stories. In the final issue we reconnect with Brears, who gives birth to a baby Cthulhu as the Earth becomes a fiction based dreamstate. One looks at Moore's trilogy wondering if he has devalued Lovecraft for his own dramatic gain, similar to Gull's Masonic whim. The core of the Cthulhu mythos is that interdimensional entities look at humanity as not even a footnote; yet Moore has argued that there is a different relationship between humans and Cthulhu, as the Great Old One is a caricature of our form, rather than the more abstract deities. In the end, to quote Dr Pretorius in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, "to a new world of gods and monsters!".
Avatar mainstay Jacen Burrows drew all three tales. His clear line and almost cartoonish style is greatly influenced by Hergé and Mike Baron; this is the limited Century cover to Providence #11 (November 2016).Moore has a long and problematic history of sexual violence in his comics. Notable examples include Silk Spectre in Watchmen, the attempted rape of Kid Marvelman, and The Joker's treatment of Barbara Gordon in Batman The Killing Joke. Rape did occur fleetinging with Lovecraft but off page, in The Curse of Yig and The Horror at Red Hook; and in contrast to Neonomicon, Deep Ones in The Shadow over Innsmouth appear to prefer willing human partners. Providence riffs on The Thing on the Doorstep for its own rape scene of choice, a particularly warped body swap involving a possessed Black and a thirteen-year-old girl. Moore used a similar trait for Swamp Thing when Abby had sex with her husband Matt Cable, who was controlled by her uncle Anton Arcane.