And Then I Read: NEONOMICON 3

Images © Alan Moore and Avatar Press.

First off, this series is definitely for adults, and ones whose tolerance for violence and extreme sexual situations is high, so be warned.

You can always count on Alan Moore to have interesting things to say in addition to telling a good story, and both are happening here. One story thread features some government agents who are trying to figure out what's going on with the recent plague of Lovecraft-related incidents of violence, rough sex and weirdness. They've lost two agents sent undercover to get answers, and the subject they have for questioning speaks only in an arcane gutteral language no one can understand. Alan has one of the agents commenting on what he sees as the strong undercurrent of repressed sexuality in Lovecraft's work, and I think makes points worth thinking about. Ones that Lovecraft himself might have fainted to hear, but worth thinking about.

The other thread follows the surviving member of the undercover agent team, a woman who is being kept as a sex slave by a Lovecraftian monster, a somewhat humanoid one who seems visually to combine elements of Giger's aliens and "The Creature from the Black Lagoon." The woman is so traumatized when we first see her that she's out of her own head, having a vision of Lovecraftian proportions, and a very odd conversation with a very odd person in that vision. Despite the rough and brutal handling of the woman by the monster, Alan is able to shed some interesting light on this creature and their relationship, and we see it change through the pages of the story, until at the end they are almost communicating as equals. Quite a feat of writing! And the ending seems to lead toward more mysteries being unveiled.

The art by Jacen Burrows looks with inflinching eyes at every moment of the story, and pulls no punches, but at the same time, does not revel in the cruelty or sexuality of the events either. I think it's quite well done and skillful.

Recommended if you like your horror raw and unfiltered.