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Neonomicon

by Alan Moore, Antony Johnston (Goodreads Author), Jacen Burrows (Illustrations)

3.38 of 5 stars 3.38 · rating details · 972 ratings · 171 reviews

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 se...more

Paperback, 176 pages

Published November 8th 2011 by Avatar Press, Inc. (first published January 1st 2011)

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May 16, 2013 mark monday rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comikon, all-fucked-up

a sociopathic FBI profiler finds a dark path and takes it. some time later, two more agents follow in his footsteps. murder, rape, rage, despair, racism, homophobia, a swinger party, a cult, hallucinatory freak-outs, nightmarish dreamscapes, Deep Ones, Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, H.P. Lovecraft, and gruesome bloody slaughter are all delivered in a timely fashion.

celebrated genius Alan Moore's graphic novel was, per the author's own admission, done for a paycheck and so that's that. it was also remove...more a sociopathic FBI profiler finds a dark path and takes it. some time later, two more agents follow in his footsteps. murder, rape, rage, despair, racism, homophobia, a swinger party, a cult, hallucinatory freak-outs, nightmarish dreamscapes, Deep Ones, Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, H.P. Lovecraft, and gruesome bloody slaughter are all delivered in a timely fashion.

celebrated genius Alan Moore's graphic novel was, per the author's own admission, done for a paycheck and so that's that. it was also removed from a public library earlier this year due to its shuddery subject matter. here on Goodreads, reviews are mixed but many readers have reacted very negatively to all of the horrific nastiness on display.

so let's get that horrific nastiness out of the way first since it appears to be the central issue for some. spoilers ahead... in the last third of the novel there is a truly grotesque rape scene which also includes rape-by-monster. it is cruel, brutal, explicit, and goes on for a really extended period of time. now i have some serious problems with Neonomicon, but unlike many of my fellow reviewers, those problems have nothing to do with the rape. i actually think it is pretty well done, as such things go. it is not particularly exploitative (outside of the fact that it is depicted in the first place - which some could understandably argue is exploitative in and of itself); the pain & horror & ugliness are definitely not downplayed and the rape is not eroticized. the art is particularly interesting during this sequence, using the rape victim's blurry vision to startling effect. and the dialogue by the cheerful rapists is rather brilliant: banal, chatty, blasé, even friendly and supportive at times - all of that contributes powerfully to the pure horror of the situation.

my problems with Neonomicon are (1) the bizarre and pointless decision to make the heroine a sex addict (is this supposed to somehow make her better equipped to deal with her rape? ugh! NO, Alan Moore, NO!) and (2) with the dialogue that comes out of every single FBI agent's mouth besides our heroine. now it's one thing to have a sociopathic agent constantly shoot off comments that are not just misanthropic but pointedly racist and homophobic. fine, he's a sociopath and an asshole. but to have the same repulsive shit drop from the mouths of nearly every other agent? come on. obviously Moore himself is not a racist or homophobe (if you doubt me, just read his works), so clearly this must be how he envisions the FBI. i'm no apologist for the federal bureau of investigation - but give me a break! now that is just lazy, stupid, cheap writing and i expect a lot more from the author.

back to what's good... everything else! the art by Jacen Burrows is fantastic, particularly in the first part "The Courtyard" where almost every page is a double vertical panel. claustrophobia and murderous tunnel vision are aptly conveyed. and outside of the doltish dialogue from various agents, the writing is superb. Moore takes the Cthulhu mythos in a fascinating new direction (future is now!) and it is truly mind-boggling. i haven't had my mind boggled this way by anything lovecraftian in a long while - and that includes the superior Locke & Key graphic novels. so overall, Neonomicon is a flawed but absolutely worthy addition to the author's brilliant oeuvre.(less)

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Nov 09, 2011 Jonathan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Update: This is basically a better version of the story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QFwo5...

Now, the idea of Alan Moore writing a Lovecraft comic sounds *amazing*, doesn't it? :D At the mention of such a concept, visions of a Lovecraft tale on the scale of "Watchmen" or "From Hell" or "V for Vendetta" fill one's mind. And GODDAMN if that wouldn't be amazing.

Yeeeeeah...that's not what we get here. At four issues, "Neonomicon" is quite brief, and given its quality, that might be a good thing....more

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Apr 02, 2012 William Thomas rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: cthulu-worship, fantasy, horror

HP Lovecraft was a completely overrated hack who had a race superiority complex. HP Lovecraft was a stone-cold racist and a terrible writer. Plain and simple. You can try and justify his disgustingly racist views by saying that he was just a product of his environment at a time when 'everyone' was racist, but that is an oversimplification and misunderstanding of the time and excuses bad behavior for its own sake. And the more I read Alan Moore, the more I think that his incorporation of blatantl...more

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May 24, 2012 Wendy added it

Shelves: found-randomly-at-work, graphic-novels

racist, much??

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

I'm not into H.P. Lovecraft at all...I know Cthulhu is all the rage these days. I like what Joe Hill has done as a homage to Lovecraft with the whole Locke and Key thing.

Locke and Key, Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft (A GREAT creepy/awesome/addictive series...)

I walked into this GN with no background, no looking up other reviews and trying to figure out the mythos behind some of the Lovecraftian lore and all the things that have come after and built upon it.

So...more

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Jan 30, 2012 Erik Erickson rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comics, fiction

It pains me to say this but this book is not very good. I love Lovecraft, and most of Alan Moore's work, but this mediocre at best, childish and revolting at its worst. Less is more.

It's got some overall ideas that are clever, but once the FBI agent is shot, everything becomes way too silly. The way the female agent acted and talked during the horrifying acts she was subjected to was goofy enough to take me totally out of it. Being a sex addict does my suffice to explain that kind of a reaction...more

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May 04, 2013 Gav Thorpe rated it 2 of 5 stars

The overall impression this left me with was that there was an interesting concept that wasn't turned into an engaging story. And that story might have been interesting as prose but didn't really have the visual qualities to warrant being in comic form for most of the time.

The art is okay, but pretty drab throughout and fights against a sea of speech bubbles for page after page. While I understand the idea of the mundanity - the back and forth idle chatter of Dagon cultists for example - it jus...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Okay, this book seems to divide people. It's not character driven, and is in fact hard to explain. This book is a grotesque book that explores dramatic narrative ideas. The books feels more like a horrifying literary experiment. It reminds of 'Crooked Little Vein' by Warren Ellis, which also felt less like a story and more like a literary work of mad science.

That said, this is pure Loveraft. Not Lovecraft in the 'this sounds like Lovecraft's crazy verbose dialogue', not 'like Lovecraft' in the...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Dave rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very (or, okay, not all that) subtle satire of people's idolatry of Twilight et. al., shown through the lens of "What would it be like if Lovecraft were right, Cthulhu were real, etc?" Lots of sex, lots of talk about sex, sex sex sex, mixed with some racial/sexual epithets, all meant (I assume) to illustrate HPL's personal and professional foibles? Offhand comments and expositional discussion of his racism (regretted later in life) and abstention (fear? Oogy-ness?) from sex, no women in his stor...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Jen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: banned-books, conspiracy, death, drugs, graphic-novel, horror, mind-effer

Mostly I requested this one because it was banned elsewhere. You start to think in the first few sections that it's obvious why, but it gets worse.
It's safe to say, I think, that this is one of the most vile, depraved books I've ever read. Of course, Moore does it on purpose. And of course, that's not my main problem. The premise - what if H. P. Lovecraft was writing about things that actually existed? - is an interesting one. It could have been awesome.
My main problem is, like some other revi...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Antonio rated it 4 of 5 stars

Antes de nada, cabe decir que si no has leído The Courtyard, hazlo antes de empezar con Neonomicon. Basicamente porque es una continuación directa y si no lees el primero será imposible que comprendas esta historia. Y aún así, es muy complicada.

Tras lo que le ocurre a Aldo Sax en el final de The Courtyard, el FBI se propone entrar hasta el fondo del asunto para averiguar la verdad que rodea a toda esta historia de los asesinatos, el Aklo, etc. En este caso son los agentes Brears y Lampers los en...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Erin Reilly-Sanders rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, fiction, graphic-novel, horror

I found this book rather disturbing with an exceedingly strange sensibility to it, perhaps what was actually intended. To begin with, the art is appealing, bringing likable characters and their emotions to life as they are confronted by dark forces in their world. The lines, soft colors, almost prefect gradients within the shading, lack of extreme value changes, and even the nice glossy paper stock make the whole thing seem smooth- almost too easy for the difficult story that is told in two part...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Moonglum rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cosmic-horror, graphic-novels-comics

The Neonomicon is a very creepy work of meta-horror. It starts out as what might be a fairly cool modern Lovecraftian tale, but then people start to realize that, hey, there are all these references to H.P. Lovecraft going down.

The kind of prudish neo-fascist FBI agent who, despite his bad attitude and bad politics, does actually have some kind of weird and creative insight into things that seem relevant in the story (anomaly theory, he calls it) is not the main attraction. But in a sense he is...more

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Nov 29, 2012 Kasey Jane rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, horror

Question: How can you take you screw up a comic book about Lovecraft written by Alan Moore for a comic book geek who regularly plays Arkham Horror?
(view spoiler)...more Question: How can you take you screw up a comic book about Lovecraft written by Alan Moore for a comic book geek who regularly plays Arkham Horror?
(view spoiler)[
Answer: Make it all about sex. More specifically, sex and rape.

See, in a way I'm really grateful that Lovecraft's fiction includes so few women. While I would love to see a heroine in his stories, Lovecraft wasn't exactly Mr. Sensitivity. He's one of those writers of whom people say, "He was a product of his time." One of the unfortunate truths of reading older fiction is that women tend to be the sacrificial lambs. When a hack writer needs to drum up sympathy for his hero or crucify the bad guy, women get raped. Women get raped horribly and die torn apart and alone. It's a pretty effective way for bad writers to instantly polarize their characters in the battle of Good versus Evil.

I hate it. I hate the way rape is thrown around as an inevitability in fiction. My reasons have nothing to do with naivety or ignoring life's hard truths.

As you may have guessed, Neonomicon didn't sit well with me.

From the beginning of the graphic novel, we are assaulted with "LOVECRAFT!" "LOVECRAFT!" "YOU GUYS, DID YOU KNOW THIS SONG NAME WAS A PLACE IN ONE OF LOVECRAFT'S STORIES?" "HEY, THIS CHARACTER IS NAMED AFTER A LOVECRAFT CHARACTER! SECRET WINK!" I mean, peppering references into an homage is great. Clever. Here, Moore blasted this sucker with pepper spray.

Fortunately, this tapers off. Unfortunately, that's about when the distasteful elements of the plot decide to join in.

The one positive component of this otherwise wretched stew is Jacen Burrows's art. At first I thought it was pretty typical comic book artist fare -- high quality, but mostly body models with guns. Sax's first vision really impressed me and, as the story progressed, it seemed like Burrows got more of a feel for the characters. I only wish his talent was enough to redeem this.

I guess I'm most disappointed because there are so many good stories that can be told within the Cthulhu mythos or the larger Lovecraft universe. His oeuvre is so vast that a talented writer really doesn't need to feel constrained. I know Moore is talented, but he chose to write a story so disharmonious with the larger body of work that it just comes across as disconnected and needlessly grotesque. Lovecraft is all about the horror of other worlds bleeding behind our eyelids while we try to sleep. This was about fish monsters taking money shots.

Huge disappointment. (hide spoiler)](less)

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Oct 05, 2012 Barnaby Thieme rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: comic-book

Although I am not a big Alan Moore fan, I was beguiled into giving Neonomicon a try by its fabulous premise - a modern-day, Lovecraftian tale of mystery and madness.

Moore apparently believes that the best way to build upon Lovecraft's legacy is to add long episodes of truly horrific sadism and sexual violence. In general, I'm deeply put-off by Moore's fascination with such material, and his tendency to dwell at length on wicked characters doing really monstrous things.

I do not object to such p...more

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Aug 28, 2012 Ross Byrne rated it 2 of 5 stars

Okay, here we go: if you love Lovecraft like I do, and you are a fan of Alan Moore, like I am, then stay as far away from Neonomicon as is humanly possible, because it's an insult to both. Moore has described the book as 'the most unpleasant thing I've ever written.' and on those terms at least, it lives up to its premise. A sequel to his geniunely chilling and enjoyable short story The Courtyard, inspired by a poem in Lovecraft's Fungi From Yuggoth cycle, Neonomicon takes the worst excesses of...more

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May 29, 2012 Charles rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: gothic-horror, manga-graphic-novels, paranormal, science-fiction, reviewed

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Stuff I Read – Neonomicon

I’m thinking after reading this that Alan Moore is probably a writer whose works should be read in one go, as a trade paperback or something like that, instead of month to month. For one thing, this series did not exactly come out in a timely fashion, so it was more like two months instead of one in between issues. For another thing, where the series leaves off at times just does not make for a completely satisfying read. Read all at once, without having to wait in the d...more Stuff I Read – Neonomicon

I’m thinking after reading this that Alan Moore is probably a writer whose works should be read in one go, as a trade paperback or something like that, instead of month to month. For one thing, this series did not exactly come out in a timely fashion, so it was more like two months instead of one in between issues. For another thing, where the series leaves off at times just does not make for a completely satisfying read. Read all at once, without having to wait in the dark for so long, makes for a much more enjoyable experience. Of course, I wouldn’t put it past the old man to do something like that on purpose, to intentionally take the reader to a very dark place and leave them there. It really is hard to say if it was meant to be as disturbing as it was or not, but in the future I might just wait until the thing is released as one story before picking it up. Not that it isn’t a good story. It is told in good, if much more modern, Lovecraftian tradition, and goes as far as to comment on Lovecraft and his relationship to his subject matter.

It is not without some problems, though, and the first is that the main character, a female FBI agent recovering from sex addiction, is not really as defined as she could be. Sure, she becomes the rather tried and true stereotype of an FBI agent, a bit like Mulder from the X-Files but with breasts. She just doesn’t really escape this intellectual mode that she starts out in. I mean, there is the sex addiction thing, which goes to show just how crappy men are, as they continue to treat her as a sexual object through much of the story, despite her constant stream of archaic knowledge that she brings to the table. I suppose this is in large part because this is a short series and things have to get moving, but the characters are just a bit weak. Not that they are horrible, but that they are rather undefined for Moore, who I expect more out of in that regard. Okay, so she is a recovering sex addict. I really don’t see that reflected in her character. Sure, it makes certain events in the story more significant, and really brings out the contrast between her character and the FBI agent who came before her, who is afraid of sex, like Lovecraft, and who is broken by his experiences. But it doesn’t really inform on her character. At least not in any way I could spot.

As for the story, it turns very dark. At first this might seem like it is going to be like the X-Files, where the agents have to uncover a mystery that brings them into contact with the alien and Lovecraftian. Instead, however, you have that theory get blown away in the second issue, quite literally, and it becomes something else entirely. I have to say, ending an issue with rape and then making me wait two months to find out what happens is just plain cruel. If it was intentional it worked at making me uncomfortable, because it leaves the reader in such a hole (no pun intended). It’s just that as a reader you want some sort of knowledge that this is going to turn out okay, and with that ending, with murder and rape, you’re really denied that entirely. And then to wait for months to get that release of tension is just rather unnerving. But eventually the ending happens and we find out how Moore has been playing with time, and how he justifies how Lovecraft wrote what he did when he did and what that means. Not really, mind you, because he is basically ignoring that to Lovecraft these were all aliens and Moore takes a more earth bound approach to it.

And so at the end of the day we are given a rather solid effort to work with the Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft while still working with Lovecraft, that he was a writer and that he does exist in his own story. It is a strange line to walk, but I think that Moore is largely successful. This is a short piece, though, and as such, even with how much time we spend with the main character, I found her a bit lacking in definition. She is intellectual and I suppose does go through a transformation of sorts, changing her ways of looking at the world after being confronted by the undeniable proof for the situation. But I’m not sure there was enough of a character there to begin with to make that change truly significant. The focus was instead on the idea behind it all, on the concept that Moore ends on with getting past the linear view of time. But it still seems a bit rushed, a bit unresolved. But perhaps that is the nature of things. In any event, I give it a 7.5/10.
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Feb 29, 2012 Miles Reid-lobatto rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book is a hard one to review. I think Alan Moore is a brilliant writer and his work in the comic industry is well deserved of praise (V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Saga of the Swamp Thing) and critical acclaim. But the two interconnected stories here, The Courtyard and Neonomicon show Alan at his good and his bad and also shows off a rather disturbing trend in his work.

The Courtyard is the best story of the two, throwing the Lovecraftian Mythos into the seedy world of back street drug dealings,...more

This book is a hard one to review. I think Alan Moore is a brilliant writer and his work in the comic industry is well deserved of praise (V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Saga of the Swamp Thing) and critical acclaim. But the two interconnected stories here, The Courtyard and Neonomicon show Alan at his good and his bad and also shows off a rather disturbing trend in his work.

The Courtyard is the best story of the two, throwing the Lovecraftian Mythos into the seedy world of back street drug dealings, Lovecraft meets 'The Wire' as it were. It's not a Alan penned comic, it's an adaptation of one of his short stories. It really doesn't show off the fantastic flair of his comic-book work. It's a neat little tale and is a neat approach to the Cthulhlu Mythos, taking it away from the usual trappings that more pedestrian Mythos tales can spin in the Universe.

Neonomicon is a much more grotesque and graphic tale. It has much in the way of disturbing imagery and would have amassed a whole lot more controversy if it had been a film or had come from the hands of a different writer. Indeed, I think that Alan Moore's well deserved praise as a writer also goes hand in hand that we become a lot more willing to let a lot of things in his work go simply because he is THE Alan Moore. Here, following up from The Courtyard, two FBI Agents (one of them a former Sex Addict, something that is brought up again and again but yet I find little to no reason for it to be there, it feels like a simple one-line description of a character, no depth, no 3rd dimension, that's all she ever is) find themselves investigating a Lovecraft-Inspired Sex Cult... and it's here that the story simply decides to go off the rails and most of the second chapter is dedicated to a rapacious orgy. And most of the third chapter is occupied with Fish-Monster/FBI Agent rape (plus a hand job), which honestly feels gratuitous and seems to be that the story itself is obsessed with the squeamish approach to sexuality in Lovecraft's work. Moore himself in interviews has mentioned that is intent with the story was to write a Lovecraftian story that did not hide behind the attitudes of the 1930s censorship standards and morality. In one way, this is a perfectly valid concern and approach, the rascist and sexual attitudes of Lovecraft tend to be glossed over by modern readers and simply shrugged off as 'oh, that's how it was at the time', as a lot of people do with Robert E. Howard and Conan. But what results is a story that becomes all about rape with the subtext of 'Gosh, Lovecraft himself was afraid of sex', not even a subtext, a good deal of Lovecraft as a person is discussed in terms of his distaste of sex as an act. A liteary critique of both the artist and his work which comes off more like school-yard bullying than anything else.

Of course, this is not the first time that Alan Moore has used rape as a story-telling device. But given that Alan Moore is now free from editorial concerns or very simply, the comics code, he can throw it there on the page for us to see, but now it honestly feels pornographic, shocking but no longer horrific. Abby's reactions to the realisation that her Uncle Arcane is inhabiting the body of her husband in 'Swamp Thing' back in the 80s is a lot stronger and horrific. After reading Neonomicon, I began to look back on all the Alan Moore I've read and how much rape as plot device or rape as threat to female character is used. It honestly does not feel shocking any more, rape is an obscene act and to use it as liteary short-hand is almost just as bad as not talking about it. When rape is used in a lot of fiction, it is either for some form of titilation of as a cheap plot device. Alan Moore is just as guilty of using rape in these ways, it does not address the issue, it does not allow us to find a way to approach rape or even talk about it. To use it for shock and very rarely address ramifications is demeaning, it takes away the shock and the power of the act that we need to address in our society and just makes it a cheap plot device. Neonomicon feels like cheap pornography which does much to affect my opinion of a fantastic author and my opinions of his greater works.
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Dec 26, 2011 Kevin rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm a big fan of Lovecraft's writing and tend to enjoy Moore as well, so when I came across this book I figured it would be an entertaining one.

Although it takes place in contemporary times, Moore manages to craft a Lovecraft style story that is original while also being a good homage to it's origins. There was also some clever usage of Lovecraft's character names and places throughout the second story. Some of it's blatantly obvious while some is a bit more obscure hardcore Lovecraft fans will...more I'm a big fan of Lovecraft's writing and tend to enjoy Moore as well, so when I came across this book I figured it would be an entertaining one.

Although it takes place in contemporary times, Moore manages to craft a Lovecraft style story that is original while also being a good homage to it's origins. There was also some clever usage of Lovecraft's character names and places throughout the second story. Some of it's blatantly obvious while some is a bit more obscure hardcore Lovecraft fans will enjoy.

At it's heart the two stories are Lovecraftian in theme and style. The use of FBI agents fits in well with Lovecraft's more intellectual/investigation style of protagonists. Yet, Moore isn't a copy cat and he defintely spices things up with plenty of blood/gore and unlike the asexual writing of Lovecraft, there's some very graphic sex and sodomy here. However, Moore uses this not as a juvenille excuse to get his rocks off, but instead it plays on the background/fears/issues of Merril which any good writer of horror would do. I like the fact that Moore doesn't play nice with either of his main protagonists.

If you're conservative or easily offended you want to skip this book.

The artwork in the book is fantastic as is the gallery section. I felt the artwork was a bit stronger in the second story. The layout of the pages in both books made for an easy read while remaining interesting visually.

I think that Lovecraft fans will get the most out of this, but only if they do not have hang ups about bizarre sex. I think certain sexual scenes could be the make or break point for a lot of people. I give Moore kudos for having the courage to do this sort of thing since horror should be exactly that - horror - and human sexuality has long been a part of horror.

Although it is a lot shorter then his other works, Moore still manages to develop his main protagonist very well by the end of the book. Again at the end Moore manages to put an unique spin on the old mythos. I found the ending to be great - in a disturbing manner.

I'd recommend this to Lovecraft fans that are open minded enough to except new ideas and twists on Lovecraft and his mythos. Although Moore's tales may be unconventinal when compared to Lovecrafts, they still stay true to their origins.(less)

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Dec 02, 2011 Benjamin added it

Shelves: comics, bedside-reading, lovecraftiana

(I feel like I'm about to enter a Lovecraft kick, so here's a new shelf for you: Lovecraftiana. Imagine Kermit mixed with Cthulhu when I say "Yay!," shaking his tentacles above his head. Or imagine Willow Smith-Cthulhu: "I whip my tentacles back and forth!")

I bought this trade paperback in Chicago, as a way to give money to a comic book store that I often browsed but never patronized (guilt!); and I'm finally getting to it now, when I'm thinking about Cthulhu-in-Texas stories. Before I get into...more (I feel like I'm about to enter a Lovecraft kick, so here's a new shelf for you: Lovecraftiana. Imagine Kermit mixed with Cthulhu when I say "Yay!," shaking his tentacles above his head. Or imagine Willow Smith-Cthulhu: "I whip my tentacles back and forth!")

I bought this trade paperback in Chicago, as a way to give money to a comic book store that I often browsed but never patronized (guilt!); and I'm finally getting to it now, when I'm thinking about Cthulhu-in-Texas stories. Before I get into any review, let me start by noting that this book's title page tells us that every character depicted in this book is over 18. Oh boy, I hope that means they all went to college. But no, in fact it means that there's quite a bit of sex and rape and naked bodies.

Now, I read Lost Girls and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, so I'm used to Alan Moore rewriting/riffing on older material and bringing out what's repressed in the original or not talked about much in the adaptations; in this case, Lovecraft's racism gets a walkabout in the two-issue story "The Courtyard" and his repressed sexuality is most of the other four issues of "The Neonomicon." In a way, Moore's like a more skillful version of Alice Randall, with her Wind Done Gone rewrite of Gone With the Wind--although, frankly, I think it's more important for America to face up to the hidden black labor that undergirded Southern gentility than it is for America to deal with Lovecraft's repressed sexual urges and embarrassing racism. In other words, Neonomicon is only of interest to big Lovecraft nerds.

The two-issue "The Courtyard" follows a Lovecraft-looking investigator in some altered America (the cities are under domes?) as he tracks down some mysterious drug being traded out of Club Zothique in Red Hook. (Zothique is from Clark Ashton Smith; Red Hook is a reference to Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook.") True to form, this investigator is racist and goes mad. The four-issue "The Neonomicon" follows two investigators tracking down some cult activity to Salem, which ends up with an orgy and a Deep One repeatedly raping the female investigator. At the end (i.e., spoiler alert), the woman turns out to be pregnant with Cthulhu, which works out because of the weird time of the Lovecraft mythos. That final turn is a fun punchline, but it's not really the heart of this book. The heart of this book is the extended rape and discussion of sex in Lovecraft. (As one FBI guy says when his boss says that Lovecraft has no sex, "The monsters and all that? They're like a lot of cocks and pussies crawling around.") That rape's not a fun read, but it's not as pointlessly transgressive as, say, Preacher.

That is, Moore certainly has a point about a) how Lovecraft avoided sex even though so many of his stories are about horrible interbreeding; and b) how Lovecraft's modern followers tend to whitewash (ahem) his racism. So maybe it's fitting that Moore's punchline here (woman Mary pregnant with god after rape) is also an inversion of Lovecraft's cosmic pessimism: the coming of the outer gods is, for her, a joy. (less)

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Nov 27, 2011 Ray rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic_novels

Alan Moore (Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) delivers a very disturbing tale set in the world of H.P. Lovecraft.

At first it seems like Cthulhu mythos stuff is just being thrown in for flavor, but as the story went on I realized that all these elements are key points, not just set dressing. Moore tells a unique tale very well, that at first confused me with odd little details that just didn't seem to fit, but it all adds up towards the end.

The artwork is beautiful and very effective....more

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May 03, 2012 Kate rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, age-adult, horror, graphic-novels

I found this graphic novel doing a search for Lovecraft in the library catalog. As it starts out, an undercover agent is looking to piece together 15 nearly identical murders (bodies decapitated, hands cut off, and the torso "tulipped"), of which handfuls are confessed to by 3 different men. The agent pieces together some anomolies and ends up at a club, where he attempts to buy drugs off an man named Johnny Carcosa, and instead gets an earful of Aklo - the strange language spoken by characters...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Jake Kilroy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, horror

What...the...FUCK, Alan Moore? I lead off with that as somewhat of joke, as this was one hell of a page turner, but it's also sinister as hell. It made me feel so goddamn weird. It's just sex and violence in the most evil way. I was really into the story, but it doesn't give the payoff that it promises. It stops short, which is saying a lot, considering it in no way stops anywhere in the beginning. It gets right into the weird and the occult. And, in his older age, maybe the last decade, Alan Mo...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Courtney rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction, graphic-book, horror-thriller, monsters

Um...well, I can't say that this is what I expected when I began reading. In fact, I'm not quite sure anything could have prepared me for what resides between those covers. I've read a fair amount of Alan Moore, so it's not like I'm uninitiated, but this, while morbidly compelling, left a nasty taste in my mouth.
So, we've got a bunch of ritualized murders and a bunch of creepy people speaking in a Lovecraftian language. That much I can handle. It's the point at which an FBI agent gets kidnapped...more

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Nov 16, 2011 Tanabrus rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

Questo volume raccoglie l’intera serie di Alan Moore del 2010.
Alan Moore incontra H.P. Lovecraft, e il risultato è strepitoso.

Ne Il cortile, che funge da antefatto, incontriamo l’agente speciale Aldo Sax, che indaga su alcuni omicidi efferati e apparentemente senza alcun collegamento tra di loro se non l’orribile modus operandi. I colpevoli sono già stati arrestati, rei confessi, ma le similitudini tra i casi sono troppo sospette per essere lasciate stare. E quindi l’agente indaga a Red Hook.

Dop...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Read this after hearing that a public library in SC decided to remove it from their collection. And yeah, this isn't appropriate for a public library's YA area. It probably has a place in adult graphic novel collections in communities with a strong graphic novel readership, though. If you aren't familiar with Lovecraft, the story is understandable, but it really helps of you are familiar with his work. I am intrigued that I feel some empathy for the creature. As a human, you really shouldn't fee...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Noëlibrarian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Well...I really like Alan Moore, and have great respect for his immense talent. HOWEVER, this was not at all his finest work. Not even close.

He begins with a pretty hair-raising premise, which is, I think, that the in-between places in your brain, the places that acid and other hallucinogens enable you to explore, happen to be the gateways through which Cthulu and the other Old Ones may enter and stay on this plane of existence. Plus, we gather, Cthulu (or at least one of his manifestations)real...more

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Feb 17, 2012 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

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...more

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May 10, 2012 zxvasdf rated it 5 of 5 stars

Alan Moore goes into real dark territory here, into these nether regions I'd normally expect from Warren Ellis or Rick Veitch. The Cthulhu mythos has never been as horrifying, as weird as in these pages (at least in my experience). It wouldn't be as frightening if Jacen Burrows weren't doing the pencils. I bet you a buck or two the dude's a cultist. It's like he sleeps with tentacles and lets them seep into his dreams so that when he wakes and pads to the drawing board, they can also leak onto t...more

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Apr 03, 2012 Riju Ganguly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Quality of drawing: Superb, and one of the best that I have recently seen in works by Alan Moore.
Story: The first part ("The Courtyard") was better, while the second part was the bleakest & darkest piece that has originated from Moore's Pen (except "From Hell", but there truth was darker than fiction).
Concept: Many authors have tried to re-interpret H.P.Lovecraft and his mythos, according to their own perceptions, and Moore makes his own contribution. But in the 2nd half, the sexual stuff be...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Connor Sheridan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Woah. Never before have I been so utterly freaked out by a work of art (literature obviously included). This newer graphic novel by legend Alan Moore starts off very dark, but easy to follow. It is about two detectives trying to solve an outbreak of similar, gruesome murders committed by completely different people. The plot quickly takes a turn down towards the depths of human fear as the detectives are caught up in something that is bigger than any problem the world has ever faced. Two things...more

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About Alan Moore

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Alan 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)...more

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1

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