Neonomicon

Ah, you want dark ... this is dark. Well within the spirit of the Lovecraftian tradition and an added dash of American FBI TV drama with serial killer characteristics. Alan Moore even gets in a bit of Kenneth Grant on the side.

However, since many of you in America have more of a problem with sex than gory violence, be warned ... this is a work of sexual horror with explicit scenes of truly unpleasant sexual violence.

The scene of reptilian jissum flying through a wide arc as the FBI heroine jerks off the monster to save herself from yet another rape is not for the faint-hearted. There is a certain Sadean quality to one long section.

Moore is, as he gets older, increasingly interested in the sexual imagination and it is not unconnected to show more his interest in magick. For him, magick is creating something out of nothing and extreme sexual imagination is magick.

From Promethea through Lost Girls to this, the intensity grows but it is an honest intensity that should disturb the reader not as wrong or sick but as an expression of the wild capabilities of the full imagination.

There is also a genuine twist to the usual Lovecraftian story line that any aficionado of the horror genre will pick up as a borrowing from another trope of demonic literature (no spoilers here).

Let us just say that hybridisation is a theme that turns back on itself as the hybridisation of literary memes into new creative activity.

This graphic novel is genuinely horrific and far from 'adolescent'. Moore is also well served by the classic comic book style of Jacen Burrows which captures the Lovecraftian iconography of the tale well. Recommended but with the standard caveat that it is for mature minds only. show less

Excellent modern evocation of the Cthulhu mythos, using meta-fiction and Moore's trademark deep knowledge of the occult to give it real weight. I am so hoping this is the beginning of a new series, or at least that Moore will write further Lovecraftian tales.
After reading some other reviews though, I think a lot of people have missed the point. All those who reckon they know and love Alan Moore's works - have you read Promethea? I find that to be his best work, and some of the knowledge in that shines through here. Sometimes there is more information in artwork in a single pane than there is in all the dialogue on a double page.
Also, if you only read Lovecraft for the horror, you're going to miss the point here also. This is occult, show more folks, and if you do not have at least a passing knowledge of the Qabalah, you're only going to see a fraction of the story on offer. It is short, but there is much to be found, for the true seeker ;-) show less

So this collection is a weird one. Story "The Courtyard" is pretty much what you be expecting from the Lovecraft story. There is horror element, bizarre people uttering incomprehensible words and a detective hunting down mysterious murderers that seem completely unconnected, independent from each other but commencing gruesome murders in a same way. And then detective makes the mistake.

Story is full of tension, you do not see much of actual bloodshed - everything is right there but somewhere in the periphery of your vision. As I said very Lovecraftian.

Then we get to "Neonomicon" story arc. It is basically continuation of Courtyard but now detective from that story is arrested and committed to mental institution after events in "The show more Courtyard". Nobody knows what happened to the man - he speaks same gibberish language as those he initially hunted himself - but everything points to the same location where he sought the murderers. Two agents (male and female, where female has certain sexual addiction problems) are sent to investigate and then situation escalates rather quickly - very soon horrendous creatures start popping out. It ends on a rather strange (and rather depressing) note for the humanity itself because in the end everything hints to birth (and thus invasion or awakening) of ancient monsters bent on destroying humanity. Are we but a dream of a monster or do we all exist on separate astral planes and monsters are thinning the borders between the planes thus endangering us? Is what we see the past or the future - are the monsters yet to be born in the first place? Are Lovecraft's works basis for the strange cults or are they inspired by true stories buried down by authorities? Again, very interesting and very Lovecraftian.

And then we get to most conflicting part of this story - monster raping above mentioned female agent. Is it disturbing, oh believe me it is. Following contains spoilers so proceed at your own risk. Captured by the cult and offered to the unspeakable monstrosity of the deep as a sex toy agent barely survives and at the end is even offered help by that very same monster because it sensed something in her that makes her very special for its kind. After police rescues her and kills the monster in the process, strange language and images become more regular and soon she finds out that she is actually a portal for this horrendous creatures into our own reality. When she meets the detective from "The Courtyard" and starts talking the strange language she gets the confirmation that she is living portal that will enable monsters takeover of the planet and rise of their civilization. Crazed detective calls her a Chosen and even raises her to the level of deity - all of this just shows how dangerous she is to human civilization. That aside in regard to the topic of monster rape... As I said this is very disturbing scene and as far as I can see it is main reason why people don't like this collection. Again very understandable. With all of that keep in mind that sexual attack was always present in Lovecraft stories - never the detailed act itself but in hints and general neurosis and madness of the events. Also do note that in art first step for shock is always through sex and nudity. It must be something in us that drives us that way but I am yet to see representation of decadent society that does not include some sexual perversion or other (just look at Metabarons and latest [and even rather good [but using same approach]] Elric of Melninbone series of graphic novels).

In many aspects this story seems very much like Warhammer40k story - especially time warping and establishment of monster portals through living beings. But again W40K has many common elements with unspeakable terrors from Lovecraft.

So to sum it up - pretty much what you would expect from Lovecraft is present here: depression, madness, hints of horrors and no happy ending.

This is not for underage readers due to rather traumatic part of the story - it is prolonged sequence, that indirectly shows all the horror, fear and despair (there are no explicit scenes in here) and maybe this is what makes it more horrifying. If you cannot stomach it then I would not advise you to go through this comic collection.

Recommended to all fans of Lovecraft and horror stories. show less

There's a whole lotta good in this, but there's also a shitload of bad here too. In other words, standard Alan Moore fare, a writer I have a distinct love/hate relationship with.

From Moore himself: "I had a tax bill coming up, and I needed some money quickly. So I happened to be talking to William from Avatar Press, and he suggested that he could provide some if I was up for doing a four-part series, so I did. So although I took it to pay off the tax bill, I’m always going to make sure I try and make it the best possible story I can."

Whatever, Moore. You still did it for the cash.

Anyway, let's get the bad out of the way first...
- as a lot of others have mentioned, really, you needed to give Merrill a recovering sex addict (and bring show more it up a bunch of times in casual conversation)? It literally added nothing but a slim attempt at titillation.
- the interaction between the characters. It's like Moore's never really seen two people talk in real life, and is faking it. I mean, good god, he's got two partners, one about to be married, sharing a hotel room, and the female stripping almost naked while they carry on a basic conversation. But it's okay, because the fiance back home actually likes Merrill, so hey, it's all good that her future husband is sharing a room with a naked former sex addict, right?
- while there was a lot of research that obviously went into this from a Lovecraft/Machen/Smith/Crowley/Howard/Chambers standpoint, there were times where it felt like Moore felt it necessary to simply drop references as easter eggs, instead of them having a solid point to the story.
- seemed to be a few instances of apologizing or rationalizing Lovecraft's weird world views.
- and the rape of Merrill by the Dagon. Yeah, not a big fan of that, but I do get it as a plot point. I guess my question is, why her? Why was she the one? And why oh why oh why does she have to basically have a "moment" with her rapist?

The good?
- it's just an really interesting take on the entire Lovecraftian mythos, and also incorporates other's views, such as Clark Ashton Smith and Robert W. Chambers in some fun ways, while also digging back to some original Lovecraft stories.
- the art, the art, the art. Jacen Burrows has never done finer work that he's done here. He's taken an often lackluster Moore script and made it look beautiful.

So, as I said, a bit of a mixed bag. Let's see what the three-part Providence story holds, shall we? show less

Very dark and quite extreme – so much so that I felt a little nauseous at a couple of points. But interesting – I was thinking about it for a fair while afterwards. I'm not generally a huge fan of the modern cult of Lovecraft, but Alan Moore certainly goes to some strange places with it – and what I like about Moore is that he is prepared to see his ideas through all the way, even if it takes you somewhere very unsavoury. There is a nice sense of brooding fear in the opening and closing sections, but some of the middle parts are a full-on kind of sexual weird-horror which I haven't seen done quite like this anywhere else. Strange, interesting, creepy.

Feels like a bit of a wasted idea. Moore supposedly wrote this to pay the bills, which is hard to not think you notice at times, but even if it's hard to find a new twist on the Cthulhu mythos he does manage to insert a few Moore-ish details, and leads up to an apocalyptic ending that feels like a decent (or indecent) conclusion. He also inserts a very drawn-out rape scene at the heart of everything that makes the story as a whole feel less dark and shocking than it feels nasty and tired.