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Moore's Cthulhu Mythos
Alan Moore's The Courtyard Color Edition
Several murders, no, more like lethal dismemberments, from the most unlikely of suspects just don't add up. What few leads there are all point to The Courtyard.
Paperback
First published February 25, 2003
28 people are currently reading
1333 people want to read
About the author
Alan Moore
1,578 books21.6k followersAlan Moore is an English writer most famous for his influential work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He has also written a novel, Voice of the Fire, and performs "workings" (one-off performance art/spoken word pieces) with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.
As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.
As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 189 reviews
November 13, 2011
The best Lovecraftian story I've ever read, bar none. And that's counting the stuff written by Lovecraft himself.
Fair warning though: It's dark. But, y'know, Lovecraft. You shouldn't be surprised by that. You can't complain if the Lovecraft story you read make you a little cringy, then sticks around in your head when you're trying to sleep that night. It's like chewing up some glass and then complaining that it's sharp. Of course it's fucking sharp. You're eating glass. Welcome to the bleak existential nihilism that is the Cthulian mythos. If you'd wanted a twinkie, you should go read Twilight.
Fair warning though: It's dark. But, y'know, Lovecraft. You shouldn't be surprised by that. You can't complain if the Lovecraft story you read make you a little cringy, then sticks around in your head when you're trying to sleep that night. It's like chewing up some glass and then complaining that it's sharp. Of course it's fucking sharp. You're eating glass. Welcome to the bleak existential nihilism that is the Cthulian mythos. If you'd wanted a twinkie, you should go read Twilight.
April 7, 2015
Misogynistic/racist/homophobic main character? Copious drug use? Dingy urban environment? Bad music? Monsters/horrors out of space and time? Gory violence? Yup, this is an Alan Moore story alright!
It’s worth noting that this is a comic based upon an Alan Moore short story, not a comic written by Moore. The Courtyard was a short story written by Alan Moore published in a mid-90s anthology of Lovecraft-inspired tales called The Starry Wisdom; this early ‘00s two-issue comic is adapted from that short by Antony Johnston (author of Wasteland, Umbral, The Fuse), with Moore credited as a “Consulting Editor”.
Aldo Sax is an undercover federal agent specialising in “anomaly theory” where he looks at seemingly random events and tries to see the links between them. Investigating three ritual murders, his search has led him to a bleak neighbourhood and an underground club where a drug called Aklo, peddled by an odd chap with a lisp and veiled mouth called Johnny Carcosa, seems to hold the answer.
The Courtyard is chock-full of Lovecraft references, as you’d expect from a story inspired by the writer’s works. The punk band is called the Ulthar Cats, numerous characters speak that weird shoggoth language, and the visions Sax sees are much like the primordial horrors seen throughout The Cthulu Mythos.
Jacen Burrows’ art makes this comic stand out. He uses page-length panels, two to a page, with the occasional splash page, though I’m not sure why – maybe to make it look like torn pages, so if you tore them lengthwise, you’re exposing layers of the story in other parts. Later on he does insert panels into the backgrounds of other panels, so maybe it’s an extension of that idea, time and space distorted? Even without the format, Burrows’ artwork is detailed, well-drawn, and superbly creepy.
The Courtyard is an interesting little horror comic. The script is no great shakes and the story isn’t brilliant as it meanders quite a bit, perhaps to deliberately mirror Lovecraft’s own questionable writing skills, though the art props it up and gives it this appropriately nightmarish look. It’s worth checking out if you’re in the mood for an ok Lovecraftian horror comic.
It’s worth noting that this is a comic based upon an Alan Moore short story, not a comic written by Moore. The Courtyard was a short story written by Alan Moore published in a mid-90s anthology of Lovecraft-inspired tales called The Starry Wisdom; this early ‘00s two-issue comic is adapted from that short by Antony Johnston (author of Wasteland, Umbral, The Fuse), with Moore credited as a “Consulting Editor”.
Aldo Sax is an undercover federal agent specialising in “anomaly theory” where he looks at seemingly random events and tries to see the links between them. Investigating three ritual murders, his search has led him to a bleak neighbourhood and an underground club where a drug called Aklo, peddled by an odd chap with a lisp and veiled mouth called Johnny Carcosa, seems to hold the answer.
The Courtyard is chock-full of Lovecraft references, as you’d expect from a story inspired by the writer’s works. The punk band is called the Ulthar Cats, numerous characters speak that weird shoggoth language, and the visions Sax sees are much like the primordial horrors seen throughout The Cthulu Mythos.
Jacen Burrows’ art makes this comic stand out. He uses page-length panels, two to a page, with the occasional splash page, though I’m not sure why – maybe to make it look like torn pages, so if you tore them lengthwise, you’re exposing layers of the story in other parts. Later on he does insert panels into the backgrounds of other panels, so maybe it’s an extension of that idea, time and space distorted? Even without the format, Burrows’ artwork is detailed, well-drawn, and superbly creepy.
The Courtyard is an interesting little horror comic. The script is no great shakes and the story isn’t brilliant as it meanders quite a bit, perhaps to deliberately mirror Lovecraft’s own questionable writing skills, though the art props it up and gives it this appropriately nightmarish look. It’s worth checking out if you’re in the mood for an ok Lovecraftian horror comic.
February 28, 2016
A Lovecraftian short comic by Alan Moore, based on one of his own short stories published in a Lovecraft horror-themed anthology. For a fuller treatment and some background read Sam Quixote's review here. (Almost always do that, except when I violently disagree with him, which happens). I read this because another Sam told me in his review of Providence that this story worked as a kind of prequel to Moore's also Lovecraftian Providence that is just now coming out, which I started to read. The Courtyard is short, a dark, drug-induced, nasty, violent nightmare set in a Chthulu universe, with that mythos, giving the talented Jacen Burrows a chance to illustrate this crazy hallucinogenic world.
The main character is an FBI agent, Aldo Sax, trying to solve a grisly serial murder mystery through "Anomaly Theory" (by which he means bringing disparate unconnected facts together to help solve a mystery) and ingesting hallucinogenic drugs. There's this strange language/insight that Sax reaches through drugs; through drugs, you come to Chthulu language, closer to truth or madness or both. You will get to choose in this.
In Moore you usually get this scavenger hunt game of literary references. Usually they resonate, and enrich, but if you don't know them, it's okay. For instance, the name Sax is from Jack Kerouac's dark tale, Doctor Sax, who then appears in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier by Moore, in a story written by a character named Sal Paradise (from Kerouac's On the Road). How's that for obscure and esoteric. Vintage Alan Moore. And then there's of course all the Lovecraft references throughout. And many as usual few people including me don't get. Probably a few only Moore knows.
Sax scores this drug Aklo through gangster Johnny Carcosa and in a series of successive scenes uses the drugs to get deeper into this Lovecraftian world and language. Is the language he attains insight or madness? Is it on the way to solving the murder or it is itself murderous?
Here's some examples of crazy Moore writing, via Lovecraft:
Through drug use Sax reaches something called Wza Y'El, "a word for the negative conceptual space left surrounding positive concepts, the class of things larger than thought, being what thought precludes." (re: Anomaly theory, things that don't fit). I know, this sounds crazy and off-puttinggly stuffy and pretentious, but it's purposeful, trust me.
Aklo's not a drug, Sax says, it's a language: "The primal vocabulary giving form to those preconscious orderings wrung from a hot incoherence of stars, from our birthmuds pooled into the grandmother lagoon. . ." Too crazy for you? Well, it "makes sense" if you read to the end, I promise, because the story is basically about language and madness.
"In reality I am a memory of myself."
"All events are time roses."
Just when we think this is just more Moore madness, terrible writing, we see there is a method to it! Language devolves, coherence unravels. I've said enough. It's a horror comic. Okay, one more thing: Moore knows what he is doing in introducing this crazy Anomaly theory to us as a mystery solution, because what Sax says he is doing we also have to do as readers. Cool? (Yes).
So Courtyard is short, but pretty interesting, though not for everyone, given the dark nature of it all, with unpleasant underworld characters and serial killing and drug use and all. But it's perfect if you like literary--language- and idea-rich--horror, though.
The main character is an FBI agent, Aldo Sax, trying to solve a grisly serial murder mystery through "Anomaly Theory" (by which he means bringing disparate unconnected facts together to help solve a mystery) and ingesting hallucinogenic drugs. There's this strange language/insight that Sax reaches through drugs; through drugs, you come to Chthulu language, closer to truth or madness or both. You will get to choose in this.
In Moore you usually get this scavenger hunt game of literary references. Usually they resonate, and enrich, but if you don't know them, it's okay. For instance, the name Sax is from Jack Kerouac's dark tale, Doctor Sax, who then appears in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier by Moore, in a story written by a character named Sal Paradise (from Kerouac's On the Road). How's that for obscure and esoteric. Vintage Alan Moore. And then there's of course all the Lovecraft references throughout. And many as usual few people including me don't get. Probably a few only Moore knows.
Sax scores this drug Aklo through gangster Johnny Carcosa and in a series of successive scenes uses the drugs to get deeper into this Lovecraftian world and language. Is the language he attains insight or madness? Is it on the way to solving the murder or it is itself murderous?
Here's some examples of crazy Moore writing, via Lovecraft:
Through drug use Sax reaches something called Wza Y'El, "a word for the negative conceptual space left surrounding positive concepts, the class of things larger than thought, being what thought precludes." (re: Anomaly theory, things that don't fit). I know, this sounds crazy and off-puttinggly stuffy and pretentious, but it's purposeful, trust me.
Aklo's not a drug, Sax says, it's a language: "The primal vocabulary giving form to those preconscious orderings wrung from a hot incoherence of stars, from our birthmuds pooled into the grandmother lagoon. . ." Too crazy for you? Well, it "makes sense" if you read to the end, I promise, because the story is basically about language and madness.
"In reality I am a memory of myself."
"All events are time roses."
Just when we think this is just more Moore madness, terrible writing, we see there is a method to it! Language devolves, coherence unravels. I've said enough. It's a horror comic. Okay, one more thing: Moore knows what he is doing in introducing this crazy Anomaly theory to us as a mystery solution, because what Sax says he is doing we also have to do as readers. Cool? (Yes).
So Courtyard is short, but pretty interesting, though not for everyone, given the dark nature of it all, with unpleasant underworld characters and serial killing and drug use and all. But it's perfect if you like literary--language- and idea-rich--horror, though.
July 28, 2018
Have you ever had someone tell you a really long joke, just to have them get to a short and obvious punchline that kind of made you roll your eyes a little? That's how I felt about this book. Maybe it works better in the context of Moore's other Cthulhu stuff but, by itself, it is pretty unsatisfying.
Another problem is that almost everything is named after something from a Lovecraft (and in one case a Clark Ashton Smith) story. I know this is supposed to be a love letter to HPL, but it's super distracting to have Lovecraft references thrown at you nonstop. An Easter egg here and there would be fine, but this is just way too much.
Another problem is that almost everything is named after something from a Lovecraft (and in one case a Clark Ashton Smith) story. I know this is supposed to be a love letter to HPL, but it's super distracting to have Lovecraft references thrown at you nonstop. An Easter egg here and there would be fine, but this is just way too much.
June 8, 2023
The Courtyard on its own is a very formulaic Lovecraft story with a heavy dose of tongue-in-cheek self-awareness. The protagonist is a genius outcast researching a series of bizarre crimes that cause him to descend into a downward spiral of sanity-breaking cosmic horror. He's also extremely racist, sexist, homophobic and hateful; poking fun at much of Lovecraft's backward beliefs that reflected in some of his own stories and characters.
It's jam-packed with references to Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Yog Sothoth, Red Hook, Innsmouth, a punk rock band called the Ulthar Cats and many more. I liked the self-aware delivery of the familiar story, but at the same time it still feels like a run-of-the-mill Lovecraftian pastiche from the old days of Weird Tales magazines.
The Courtyard leads into some of Alan Moore's other Cthulhu Mythos stories which I hear are much better than this one, so I'll definitely get around to checking those out someday.
My rating: 3.0/5
It's jam-packed with references to Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Yog Sothoth, Red Hook, Innsmouth, a punk rock band called the Ulthar Cats and many more. I liked the self-aware delivery of the familiar story, but at the same time it still feels like a run-of-the-mill Lovecraftian pastiche from the old days of Weird Tales magazines.
The Courtyard leads into some of Alan Moore's other Cthulhu Mythos stories which I hear are much better than this one, so I'll definitely get around to checking those out someday.
My rating: 3.0/5
March 3, 2022
Wow, one of my favorite comic writers, Alan Moore, taking inspiration from one of my favorite horror writers, HP Lovecraft, is a match made in heaven. This book however wasn’t exactly written by Moore, it was just based off an old prose he did. Antony Johnston teams with Jacen Burrows for the first of Moore’s Lovecraftian trilogy of comic books, followed by Neonomicon & Providence. This one sees Aldo Sax, a homophobic and racist FBI agent who is using “Anomoly Theory”, the use of bringing seemingly unrelated facts together to eventually solve a mystery, to stop a series of murders the FBI has him lookin into. He eventually finds himself down a Lovecraftian rabbit hole, and we all know what happens to those who go down that.
I’ll save my more in-depth thoughts for the other 2 books in this series, but this was a solid little horror comic with some amazing art. The last 6 panels are pretty fucking chilling.
I’ll save my more in-depth thoughts for the other 2 books in this series, but this was a solid little horror comic with some amazing art. The last 6 panels are pretty fucking chilling.
March 12, 2024
Alan Moore knows how to write a love letter, as The Courtyard can only be described as such. A letter written to H.P. Lovecraft, but also other weird fiction authors with references to them scattered throughout the comic book. Clark Ashton Smith, Robert W. Chamber, Edgard Allan Poe.
The grim story of FBI's agent Aldo Sax's search for a motive behind serial killings of three murderers and his descent to madness were great, Jacen's drawing was subpar in places, but he was a first choice since it's Avatar publishing, and this goes hand to hand with Crossed 01 by GARTH ENNIS. He does wonders on some panels, especially those when Sax's hallucinating. Coloring was the main problem in this edition as it made everything look like it was done in MS Paint, on a Win98 OS.
The grim story of FBI's agent Aldo Sax's search for a motive behind serial killings of three murderers and his descent to madness were great, Jacen's drawing was subpar in places, but he was a first choice since it's Avatar publishing, and this goes hand to hand with Crossed 01 by GARTH ENNIS. He does wonders on some panels, especially those when Sax's hallucinating. Coloring was the main problem in this edition as it made everything look like it was done in MS Paint, on a Win98 OS.
August 15, 2021
The writing lacks both the shock value of Moore's Neonomicon or the literary sophistication of his Providence. Compared to those later Lovecraftian works of his it's rote and built on the same tired references you see in every undistinguished 1970s Lovecraft pastiche. Jacen Burrows thankfully props it up with some quality art so I'll give it the 3 stars, but this is forgettable as a Lovecraftian horror tale or horror comic.
May 12, 2017
Another love letter to Lovecraft..
October 25, 2017
A slight adaptation of a 90s Moore short story which somehow became the foundation of one of his longest sustained works - 18 issues of this, tentacle-rape schlockfest Neonomicon, and the more thoughtful and unsettling (or boring and inconclusive, according to taste) Providence. I really enjoyed Providence, and since parts of the ending to that pick up on plot elements here, you do probably need to read The Courtyard if you're tackling that.
But.... on it's own, it's not all that good. It reads a lot like any other edgy crime comic about serial killing, and the central future shock style beat (it's not a drug, it's a....) is fluffed a bit in the adaptation. There's a good point made - not very subtly - about how maverick loners who "see all the connections" are often just racist arseholes: the comic is from 2004, so while in an alt-right world this seems obvious, it was actually pretty shrewd. Jacen Burrows hasn't quite mastered what he gets bang-on in Providence - the difficult line between art that's creepily, atmospherically restrained and art that's just flat. So the script implies the scenes in "Club Zothique" are a perverse bacchanalia and the art shows a load of bored goths. Come to think of it, that's the most realistic thing in the comic.
But.... on it's own, it's not all that good. It reads a lot like any other edgy crime comic about serial killing, and the central future shock style beat (it's not a drug, it's a....) is fluffed a bit in the adaptation. There's a good point made - not very subtly - about how maverick loners who "see all the connections" are often just racist arseholes: the comic is from 2004, so while in an alt-right world this seems obvious, it was actually pretty shrewd. Jacen Burrows hasn't quite mastered what he gets bang-on in Providence - the difficult line between art that's creepily, atmospherically restrained and art that's just flat. So the script implies the scenes in "Club Zothique" are a perverse bacchanalia and the art shows a load of bored goths. Come to think of it, that's the most realistic thing in the comic.
August 29, 2013
This isn't a bad story, but it's really short and pretty unsatisfying. The art is excellent, and the plot is intriguing enough, but the payoff feels like a quick burst that just doesn't go into the kind of depth I've come to expect from Mr. Moore.
The introduction is decent, even if the setup feels a bit fomulaic. The main character is a pretty nondescript "everyman" (of the middle-class straight white guy variety), and he's on a case no different from Red Dragon or Saw or The Cell or any number of serial-killer stories.
The reveal is worthy of Moore's name, and I'm not wholly unhappy with the experience of the story -- thus three rather than two stars. But it doesn't use its few pages with much efficiency, and it really only skims the tiniest surface of what could have been, given the concepts at play.
The introduction is decent, even if the setup feels a bit fomulaic. The main character is a pretty nondescript "everyman" (of the middle-class straight white guy variety), and he's on a case no different from Red Dragon or Saw or The Cell or any number of serial-killer stories.
The reveal is worthy of Moore's name, and I'm not wholly unhappy with the experience of the story -- thus three rather than two stars. But it doesn't use its few pages with much efficiency, and it really only skims the tiniest surface of what could have been, given the concepts at play.
February 20, 2023
I really liked the art of this comic. However, I must admit I was very confused about what was going on throughout, which isn't surprising given that I found most Lovecraft-inspired stories confusing but I don't have much interest in understanding it at the moment. I'll return to Alan Moore's comics at a later date when I'm in the mood for another horror, Lovecraftian comic.
September 11, 2020
I’m not sure what the protagonist being a fascist asshole brings to the story, but there it is, adding unwanted an unappealing dimension to the story 🤷🏻♀️
But what the hell, it’s fictional, and the character is really just a vehicle through which a mystery is explored and potentially resolved.
It is incredibly brief, but in its brevity we have some very strong description. Moore is one of the few, if not only, authors who makes it seem like the pictures are just supplementing the words instead of the words supplementing pictures.
In a normal comic you might see a background image and character dialogue occurring in that image to propel the story forward.
In a Moore story, you’ll see little details in the background that Moore brings to life. That fucking syringe on the ground isn’t just a syringe. It’s a metaphor for a nation in the throes of chaos being trampled underfoot by a police state. It’s a glass powder, a mirrordust that dissipates when windgrazed or what the fuck ever.
Whatever the fuck it is, his words are going to paint a more vibrant and deep image than the picture itself ever could.
The mother fucker is a poet writing comic books, and that’s a hell of a treat for readers.
Moore can’t not make comic books an art form. He cannot elevate them to the highest level of literary achievement in some capacity.
He we get a taste of his impeccable style. His ability to outthink the average analytical mind. His ability to weave a compelling story.
It’s a good book.
Read it. And if you haven’t read From Hell, go read that too.
But what the hell, it’s fictional, and the character is really just a vehicle through which a mystery is explored and potentially resolved.
It is incredibly brief, but in its brevity we have some very strong description. Moore is one of the few, if not only, authors who makes it seem like the pictures are just supplementing the words instead of the words supplementing pictures.
In a normal comic you might see a background image and character dialogue occurring in that image to propel the story forward.
In a Moore story, you’ll see little details in the background that Moore brings to life. That fucking syringe on the ground isn’t just a syringe. It’s a metaphor for a nation in the throes of chaos being trampled underfoot by a police state. It’s a glass powder, a mirrordust that dissipates when windgrazed or what the fuck ever.
Whatever the fuck it is, his words are going to paint a more vibrant and deep image than the picture itself ever could.
The mother fucker is a poet writing comic books, and that’s a hell of a treat for readers.
Moore can’t not make comic books an art form. He cannot elevate them to the highest level of literary achievement in some capacity.
He we get a taste of his impeccable style. His ability to outthink the average analytical mind. His ability to weave a compelling story.
It’s a good book.
Read it. And if you haven’t read From Hell, go read that too.
June 13, 2017
This was terrific. Alan Moore takes on the Cthulhu mythos. This is hard to find, and out-of-print, so its expensive, for what it is. But it was fantastic. A self-contained Lovecraftian story, with pitch-perfect, richly textured pencil art by Jacen Burrows.
June 24, 2016
short and sweet. Would be better presented as part of a general anthology.
January 8, 2018
Es un poco corto. Si hubieran sido 3 volumenes en lugar de solo 2, creo que el resultado seria mucho mejor.
March 9, 2019
Ξέροντας τι είναι τα Άκλο, η εξέλιξη δεν με έφτασε και στην έκσταση... Δυνατό του σημείο οι τελευταίες σελίδες με τη φάτσα του πράκτορα.
January 14, 2011
Alan Moore is trying hard to convince me that he is a stone-cold racist. I haven't read the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books yet, but if there is anything in there about phrenology, I think I could build a solid case on the evidence presented in his works.
I don't really believe that. I think that what he does with racism, what he does with the over-the-top rhetoric of some of his characters is to create something very gritty, real, and disgusting. I also think that this is what puts distance between the reader and the characters, which isn't exactly a favorable thing in fiction. Especially fiction about Elder Gods that already creates distance in it's fantasy.
This book. I don't know how he did it with this book. He made me wish for more at the last page but also made me grateful that it was over. It's such a short book that I didn't have any hope for it doing anything meaningful. But it did. And in a big way. I can't tell you much about it without detracting from the suspense that he creates in such an easy and laxadazical manner. It's like writing has become something he does, like a casual, offhand remark at a dinner party. Something he does without thinking and inbetween breaths.
I don't think that it has much to say about society like the Watchmen did. I don't think it had much of a purpose except to grab the reader and cut their heads off with it's brilliant paneling, it's drive and it's story.
Possible Spoilers
Do you want a book filled with decapitation, drugs, racism, Chtulu and schizphrenics all for the very reasonable price of 7.99? You can have it all. Yes, you can.
I don't really believe that. I think that what he does with racism, what he does with the over-the-top rhetoric of some of his characters is to create something very gritty, real, and disgusting. I also think that this is what puts distance between the reader and the characters, which isn't exactly a favorable thing in fiction. Especially fiction about Elder Gods that already creates distance in it's fantasy.
This book. I don't know how he did it with this book. He made me wish for more at the last page but also made me grateful that it was over. It's such a short book that I didn't have any hope for it doing anything meaningful. But it did. And in a big way. I can't tell you much about it without detracting from the suspense that he creates in such an easy and laxadazical manner. It's like writing has become something he does, like a casual, offhand remark at a dinner party. Something he does without thinking and inbetween breaths.
I don't think that it has much to say about society like the Watchmen did. I don't think it had much of a purpose except to grab the reader and cut their heads off with it's brilliant paneling, it's drive and it's story.
Possible Spoilers
Do you want a book filled with decapitation, drugs, racism, Chtulu and schizphrenics all for the very reasonable price of 7.99? You can have it all. Yes, you can.
November 3, 2021
CW: gore, drug use, racism, antisemitic slurs, references to N*zis, mental illness comments
This story is closely related to H. P. Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook" which I previously read and reviewed here!
Dismantling Lovecraft is one of my favorite genres/literary concepts. Generally, I find his writing boring and painfully racist/xenophobic/antisemitic, so it's lots of fun to see non-white and LGBT writers take stabs at him.
In this particular instance, it's not a dismantling so much as a bare-ing. This story hits many of the Lovecraft expectations while upholding the typical disgustingly racist/xenophobic/antisemitic/etc male narrator, but in almost a tongue-in-cheek way. Both the reader and the author are aware of how terrible Aldo Sax is.
And that kind of makes it more fun to watch him get absolutely fucked over.
This story is closely related to H. P. Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook" which I previously read and reviewed here!
Dismantling Lovecraft is one of my favorite genres/literary concepts. Generally, I find his writing boring and painfully racist/xenophobic/antisemitic, so it's lots of fun to see non-white and LGBT writers take stabs at him.
In this particular instance, it's not a dismantling so much as a bare-ing. This story hits many of the Lovecraft expectations while upholding the typical disgustingly racist/xenophobic/antisemitic/etc male narrator, but in almost a tongue-in-cheek way. Both the reader and the author are aware of how terrible Aldo Sax is.
And that kind of makes it more fun to watch him get absolutely fucked over.
February 21, 2017
wza-y’ie dho-hna yrnhhngr
Very Lovecraftain, Very Moorish. I still don't understand this paving way to perverse Neonomicon. Excellent use of artwork and panels, wish it had more Pickman prints though.
Very Lovecraftain, Very Moorish. I still don't understand this paving way to perverse Neonomicon. Excellent use of artwork and panels, wish it had more Pickman prints though.
April 25, 2020
I decided to give Alan Moore’s Mythos series a second go despite giving up on it the first time. I enjoyed this first part more this time around, but I still wish he wouldn’t try to write song lyrics.
April 28, 2020
Nasosal jsem spoustu Lovecraftových povídek, dostal se to té správné atmosféry (bez ní by to stěží fungovalo) a pustil se do Moora. A jo, tohle jsem si náramně užil - gradace je stejná jako u HPL a moderní interpretace jeho mýtu velmi povedená. Ester eggy potěšily.
March 21, 2012
short and powerful, like a spear to the chest. I can't wait to get into Neonomicon!
February 12, 2021
Better than Providence, lol.
July 13, 2020
D'impatto e disturbante, proprio come mi aspettavo dalle premesse.
L'unica cosa che non me l'ha fatto godere appieno, è l'eccessiva (e a volte non richiesta) verbosità di Alan Moore, che in questo suo apripista al grande tributo di Lovecraft, ho trovato decisamente indigesto. Ripensandoci, anche in altri suoi scritti più famosi - come "Watchmen", per esempio - l'autore si lascia andare in tante descrizioni. Tuttavia, in "The Courtyard" l'ho trovato meno giustificato. Forse perché spesso pieno di informazioni non necessarie ai fini della narrazione, come il bisogno, ad un certo punto, di specificare l'età dei personaggi.
Per il resto, è quello che desideravo: vedere Lovecraft con disegni moderni e all'altezza del suo immaginario collettivo.
L'unica cosa che non me l'ha fatto godere appieno, è l'eccessiva (e a volte non richiesta) verbosità di Alan Moore, che in questo suo apripista al grande tributo di Lovecraft, ho trovato decisamente indigesto. Ripensandoci, anche in altri suoi scritti più famosi - come "Watchmen", per esempio - l'autore si lascia andare in tante descrizioni. Tuttavia, in "The Courtyard" l'ho trovato meno giustificato. Forse perché spesso pieno di informazioni non necessarie ai fini della narrazione, come il bisogno, ad un certo punto, di specificare l'età dei personaggi.
Per il resto, è quello che desideravo: vedere Lovecraft con disegni moderni e all'altezza del suo immaginario collettivo.
June 1, 2016
As mentioned previously, I've tracked down some of Alan Moore's more recent works to get caught up on him. I've been a fan of his for a while, though his later work isn't nearly as good as his earlier stuff, but even then, his stories have a certain style and punch to them that makes it distinctive. The Courtyard is the first in a series of three collections using the Cthulhu Mythos as their center.
In The Courtyard, we meet a government agent in a world very similar to ours, though it's significantly different. This agent is investigating three different murder cases that seem related, despite the different locations and perpetrators, and his job is to find the connection that links all of those murders. His investigation takes him to a club where he sees a band perform, and then meets a strange man from whom he purchases a drug that he thinks links all of the cases together. He discovers that he is right, but not in a way that he expects.
This is a brief graphic novel (56 pages), so the story moves quickly, and is more build-up than conclusion. Additionally, it's lacking some of the poignant points that I've come to expect in Moore's work. Instead, it seems more focused on story, but it feels like it's incomplete. It does seem to be saying something, as Moore appropriates some thematic elements that makes it a commentary on Lovecraft himself. Lovecraft is a troublesome role model, as he was a blatant racist, and Moore makes his main character the same. The thing is, that point doesn't go anywhere significant. It seems to be there to shock more than anything, which is disappointing when you consider Moore also wrote the classics Watchmen and V for Vendetta, which were all about making a point.
It turns out that The Courtyard is an adaptation based on a prose story Moore wrote for a Lovecraftian collection several years before. Given that the adaptation was written by someone else (Johnston) instead of Moore, I assume that the foibles of the story are due to the adaptation and not the work itself. Either that or the story was just too short to go into the level of detail that I expect from Moore.
I'm interested in seeing where the story goes from here. It's so short that it seems to require more to fill in the blanks, which I assume will happen in Neonomicon and Providence. I'm not sure if I would recommend it at this point, given that the story is out of print and commanding some high prices on the secondary market. As it is, the minimal story doesn't justify the prices, but if it serves as the starting point for a larger, more cohesive story in the following volumes, maybe it will be worth it. We'll see.
In The Courtyard, we meet a government agent in a world very similar to ours, though it's significantly different. This agent is investigating three different murder cases that seem related, despite the different locations and perpetrators, and his job is to find the connection that links all of those murders. His investigation takes him to a club where he sees a band perform, and then meets a strange man from whom he purchases a drug that he thinks links all of the cases together. He discovers that he is right, but not in a way that he expects.
This is a brief graphic novel (56 pages), so the story moves quickly, and is more build-up than conclusion. Additionally, it's lacking some of the poignant points that I've come to expect in Moore's work. Instead, it seems more focused on story, but it feels like it's incomplete. It does seem to be saying something, as Moore appropriates some thematic elements that makes it a commentary on Lovecraft himself. Lovecraft is a troublesome role model, as he was a blatant racist, and Moore makes his main character the same. The thing is, that point doesn't go anywhere significant. It seems to be there to shock more than anything, which is disappointing when you consider Moore also wrote the classics Watchmen and V for Vendetta, which were all about making a point.
It turns out that The Courtyard is an adaptation based on a prose story Moore wrote for a Lovecraftian collection several years before. Given that the adaptation was written by someone else (Johnston) instead of Moore, I assume that the foibles of the story are due to the adaptation and not the work itself. Either that or the story was just too short to go into the level of detail that I expect from Moore.
I'm interested in seeing where the story goes from here. It's so short that it seems to require more to fill in the blanks, which I assume will happen in Neonomicon and Providence. I'm not sure if I would recommend it at this point, given that the story is out of print and commanding some high prices on the secondary market. As it is, the minimal story doesn't justify the prices, but if it serves as the starting point for a larger, more cohesive story in the following volumes, maybe it will be worth it. We'll see.
March 5, 2018
Oh, please Alan Moore! Please tell me how do you do it. How the hell do you manage blowing my mind every time I finish a book that bears your name on its cover? Can you stop doing that for a bit, because I just cannot imagine my world as the same after finishing 'The Courtyard'? (On second thoughts, please don't .)
Back so many years ago in the incomparable 'Watchmen', you gave us an alternate New York City unlike any other, with electric cars and bizarrely-shaped airships, with streets that 'smelled of ozone rather than gasoline' and which were 'extended gutters full of blood' and which was dying. (All that was in your own words.) But 'The Courtyard', set in the grim and grimy Brooklyn of today's post-modern age, is even more unsettling in its portrait of urban decay. The gritty, almost cold-blooded panels of the opening pages (drawn with stark, almost cynical neatness by Jacen Burrows) leaves you shaken with sights that refuse to be dislodged, bolstered by Moore's relentless, almost nihilistic prose.
At heart this is a murder mystery but again more than just that. Moore starts with a dissection of a spree of senseless and seemingly disconnected murders and then, as the narrative hands us our primary clue, the point of pathos connecting all these deaths, we are more than bowled over by the steadily escalating darkness of the tale as it soon envelops everything in sight and culminates in an apocalyptic explosion of psychedelia and psychosis.
Lovecraft lovers will spot many a reference to the horror and mystery legend here (Moore himself is one of them) but the overall blow to our collective solar plexus is purely Moore's to own. He has done it again, by plunging us into the hell that is to be found in the sordid slime and soul of the deranged and disillusioned and he does not present us the final upsurge of insanity as escape from darkness but only a deeper, more definite plunge into utter evil.
As I said before, please don't stop blowing our minds, Alan. Especially when it is so liberating!
Back so many years ago in the incomparable 'Watchmen', you gave us an alternate New York City unlike any other, with electric cars and bizarrely-shaped airships, with streets that 'smelled of ozone rather than gasoline' and which were 'extended gutters full of blood' and which was dying. (All that was in your own words.) But 'The Courtyard', set in the grim and grimy Brooklyn of today's post-modern age, is even more unsettling in its portrait of urban decay. The gritty, almost cold-blooded panels of the opening pages (drawn with stark, almost cynical neatness by Jacen Burrows) leaves you shaken with sights that refuse to be dislodged, bolstered by Moore's relentless, almost nihilistic prose.
At heart this is a murder mystery but again more than just that. Moore starts with a dissection of a spree of senseless and seemingly disconnected murders and then, as the narrative hands us our primary clue, the point of pathos connecting all these deaths, we are more than bowled over by the steadily escalating darkness of the tale as it soon envelops everything in sight and culminates in an apocalyptic explosion of psychedelia and psychosis.
Lovecraft lovers will spot many a reference to the horror and mystery legend here (Moore himself is one of them) but the overall blow to our collective solar plexus is purely Moore's to own. He has done it again, by plunging us into the hell that is to be found in the sordid slime and soul of the deranged and disillusioned and he does not present us the final upsurge of insanity as escape from darkness but only a deeper, more definite plunge into utter evil.
As I said before, please don't stop blowing our minds, Alan. Especially when it is so liberating!
April 6, 2015
Strong story by Moore, but I just have trouble getting past Jacen Burrough's art. It feels like he's drawing with one half less dimension than necessary, and his characters are so terribly ugly. His stylization is less an example of deliberate simplification and more the result of his lack of sophistication. Utter shame to see Moore's stories visualized so poorly.
My Suggested Readings in Comics
My Suggested Readings in Comics
April 27, 2023
After initial read, I had given this four stars. But after a second read, and a re-read of the Red Hook case as depicted by HPL, I think Moore surpassed himself in this one. It's absolutely awesome.
And you knpw what?
Despite reading uncountable tales involving mythos etc. this is one story that keeps creeping me out everytime I think about it.
That’s real, REAL horror. Believe me.
Highly recommended.
And you knpw what?
Despite reading uncountable tales involving mythos etc. this is one story that keeps creeping me out everytime I think about it.
That’s real, REAL horror. Believe me.
Highly recommended.
May 19, 2020
Aún no leo a Lovecraft. Podríamos decir que lo más cercano que he tenido a una introducción ha sido esta obra, de la que, por cierto, no sabría que tenía relación con H. P. si no fuera porque leí la opinión de otros ―aunque creo recordar que en el propio cómic se dice explícitamente esto―.
En cuanto a la historia, no me convenció mucho. Está llena...
El resto de la reseña se encuentra en mi blog: https://jsaaopinionpersonal.wordpress...
En cuanto a la historia, no me convenció mucho. Está llena...
El resto de la reseña se encuentra en mi blog: https://jsaaopinionpersonal.wordpress...
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