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Title | The Courtyard
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Author | Alan Moore
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Illustrator | Jacen Burrows
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Publisher | Avatar Press - 2009
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First Printing | Avatar Press - 2003
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Title | Neonomicon
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Author | Alan Moore
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Illustrator | Jacen Burrows
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Publisher | Avatar Press - 2011
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First Printing | Avatar Press - 2011
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Title | Providence Act 1
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Author | Alan Moore
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Illustrator | Jacen Burrows
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Publisher | Avatar Press - 2016
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First Printing | Avatar Press - 2016
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Title | Providence Act 2
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Author | Alan Moore
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Illustrator | Jacen Burrows
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Publisher | Panini - 2016
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First Printing | Avatar Press - 2016
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Title | Providence 3
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Author | Alan Moore
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Illustrator | Jacen Burrows
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Publisher | Panini - 2017
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First Printing | Avatar Press - 2017
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Category | Graphic Novel
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Warnings | Nudity, Suicide
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Main Characters | Robert Black
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Main Elements | Lovecraftian
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Website | ---
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 The Courtyard
The most celebrated writer in the comic book industry, Alan Moore, teams up with the most demanded new artist Jacen Burrows, to unleash this timeless tale of Lovecraftian psychological horror. FBI man Aldo Sax has an amazing service record with the FBI. His legendary skills at piercing together the most baffling of cases has gotten him assigned to what may be his most confusing case yet. Several murders, no, more like lethal dismemberments, from the most unlikely of suspects just don't add up. And what few leads there are, all point to The Courtyard. This special collected edition of the series features an introduction by Garth Ennis.
Neonomicon
Alan Moore, the best-selling graphic novelist of all time, delivers an original, chilling tale of Lovecraftian horror!
Comic book legend Alan Moore (WATCHMEN, FROM HELL) and brilliant artist Jacen Burrows deliver a chilling tale of Lovecraftian horror! Brears and Lamper, two young and cocky FBI agents, investigate a fresh series of ritual murders somehow tied to the final undercover assignment of Aldo Sax—the once golden boy of the Bureau, now a convicted killer and inmate of a maximum security prison. From their interrogation of Sax (where he spoke exclusively in inhuman tongues) to a related drug raid on a seedy rock club rife with arcane symbols and otherworldly lyrics, they suspect that they are on the trail of something awful… but nothing can prepare them for the creeping insanity and unspeakable terrors they will face in the small harbor town of Innsmouth.
NEONOMICON collects Alan Moore’s 2010 comic book series for the first time in its entirety—including his original story, THE COURTYARD, which chronicled Aldo Sax’s tragic encounter with the (somewhat) mortal agents of the Old Ones!
Providence Act 1
In his most carefully considered work in decades, Alan Moore deconstructs all of HP Lovecraft's concepts, reinventing the entirety of his work inside a painstakingly researched framework of American history. Both sequel and prequel to Neonomicon, Providence begins in 1919 and blends the mythical vision of HPL flawlessly into the cauldron of racial and sexual intolerance that defined that era on the East Coast of America. Every line from artist Jacen Burrows is perfectly honed to complete this immersive experience.
Collecting Providence issues #1-4.
Providence Act 2
The second arc of Providence is unveiled in this special hardcover-only edition. Robert Black came looking for a story but what he found is a world of misery and woe. He's becoming a broken man, only beginning to accept the horrors of the Lovecraftian world are real and hiding in plain sight. Alan Moore's quintessential horror series has set the standard for a terrifying reinvention of the works of H.P. Lovecraft. It is being universally hailed as one of Moore's most realized works in which the master scribe has controlled every iota of the story, art, and presentation. The result has been a masterpiece like no other and a true must-have addition to his essential works in the field. We present a collected Providence Act 2 Hard Cover edition that contains Providence issues #5-8, and all the back matter, in this one-time printing of this edition.
Providence Act 3
This is the final soul-crushing arc of Providence, and nothing will be the same! Alan Moore’s quintessential horror series has set the standard for a terrifying reinvention of the works of H.P. Lovecraft. It is being universally hailed as one of Moore’s most realized works in which the master scribe has controlled every iota of the story, art, and presentation. The result has been a masterpiece like no other and a true must-have addition to his essential works in the field. We present a collected Providence Act 3 Hardcover edition that contains Providence issues #9-12, and all the back matter, in this one-time printing of this edition.
Moore weaves the tales of Lovecraft, Chambers and Poe (and maybe more, Bierce gets a shout out) into an alternate reality where all these worlds of cosmic horror are an integral whole. However don't go into this graphic novel trilogy if you are not VERY familiar with those stories because otherwise it won't make any sense, nothing is explained, the reader is supposed to know all that the protagonist is blissfully oblivious about, to be horrified how he walks naively in and around things of eldritch horror.
So what do you need to read before starting this trilogy? Well, the whole first issue is heavily influced by Robert Chambers The King in Yellow, not just because the play is briefly mentioned, but because it appears to take place in the world of The Repairer of Reputations (that story is wonderfully complex and twisted, highly recommend it, and then look up the Tor.com discussion of it to try to make sense of it). I think without that prerequisite, the first issue will make nearly no sense at all. It sets the world stage, it has the suicide chambers, its pretty key to the setup and its a little while before we even get to H.P. Lovecraft references.
Now our journalist, after the death of his lover, decides to learn more about a book that is not called the Necronomicon but seems very likely one and the same, I mean how many mad Middle Eastern authors are there writing occult books? And Black's first lead can be no other than the refrigerated doctor from Lovecraft's Cool Air.
We then find ouselves in New York, running into the Detective Malone and Suydam from The Horror at Red Hook. Black then follows his lead to what is most certainly Innsmouth but it has a different name, the fishy people are unmistakable though (I loved the bit about the seals...*cough*) His research then takes him to the Whateleys which feature in The Dunwich Horror. After an uncomfortable conversation with them (especially that poor disturbed albino daughter trying to get her giant imaginary son back into the shed...) his next stop will be a university, not called Miskatonic but what else can it be?
Unfortunately my unfamiliarity with Poe prevented me from noting if there was anything overt from his works, other than the characters occasionally mentioning his works.
But it's not just a book about all the creepy things crawling through the minds of early 20th century horror authors, but also a review of the time period itself. See, our protagonist is gay, and while he doesn't have gills or hooves or any of the other interesting things the people he meets up with do (hooves? nah, orthopedic shoes, that's all) he himself is a creature on the outskirts of society, with secrets he cannot share.
At the same time he represents the rest of us, how when presented with something strange and horrific, we find ways to rationalize it, normalize it, brush it off as a "gas leak" or a "dream" or that just a strange physical mutation or mental instability. And yet, the more he is exposed to things, the more he is starting to feel that there might just be something a little bit more to all this strangeness.
Will see who far down the rabbit hole he goes in the second volume...
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