Alan Moore's the Courtyard

Rating:
Summary: Cthulhu in the Courtyard
Review: I am a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. Many authors have done a wonderful job adding to this mythos. This story is not one of them. In fact, the most entertaining thing about the book was the introduction.

Alan Moore does a fine job showing us that he is familiar with many details of the Mythos. He does this the same way he showed his familiarity with Victorian literature in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

But unlike in League we do not have a story to hang the references on. We are introduced to an investigator who specializes in seeing the patterns in chaos. He is very good at his job. He is currently undercover looking into a series of unconnected murders.

My real problem is that the story has only one character. He starts off as a genius seeing connections no one else can. But then, when the obvious is in front of him, he sees no onnections whatsoever.

The story is very nicely illustrated in a clean black and whit by Jacen Burrows but clean art cannot save a story that is not there. Very disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Cthulhu in the Courtyard
Review: I am a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. Many authors have done a wonderful job adding to this mythos. This story is not one of them. In fact, the most entertaining thing about the book was the introduction.

Alan Moore does a fine job showing us that he is familiar with many details of the Mythos. He does this the same way he showed his familiarity with Victorian literature in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

But unlike in League we do not have a story to hang the references on. We are introduced to an investigator who specializes in seeing the patterns in chaos. He is very good at his job. He is currently undercover looking into a series of unconnected murders.

My real problem is that the story has only one character. He starts off as a genius seeing connections no one else can. But then, when the obvious is in front of him, he sees no onnections whatsoever.

The story is very nicely illustrated in a clean black and whit by Jacen Burrows but clean art cannot save a story that is not there. Very disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Ulthar Cats Worldwide Tour!
Review: This book blew my mind! Unlike most people who probably read it, I had no idea it was a Lovecraftian piece, just that it was Alan Moore's first horror comic in something like a decade. So as I read it I was confronted with a vaguely unsettling sense of familiarity, until I realized at the end exactly what this monstrosity was and started over from the beginning! Notes in Yuggoth Cultures #3 (another Lovecraftian collection by Moore) reveal that The Courtyard was originally intended as part of a novel (Yuggoth Cultures) wherein he treated Lovecraft's 36 sonnet "Fungi From Yuggoth" cycle as "literary fungi" (basically taking each sonnet and writing a story based on or inspired by it) So this is NOT like the many lovecraft pastiches out there which just invent more extraterrestrial deities, it's Alan Moore's warped take on Lovecraft's universe. There's even some mystical concepts worked into the tapestry, the like of which might be somewhat familiar to Promethea readers, except they're twisted to fit a very Lovecraftian end...I must have read this thing four or five times by now, and each time I read it I pick up on things I didn't notice or didn't understand before. I don't have the companion (yet!) but I'm sure it enhances the reading immensely...

Rating:
Summary: Another failed attempt at adapting Cthulhu mythos
Review: This is something you cannot do. The Cthulhu mythos begins and ends with Lovecraft as far as I'm concerned. It's just not scary when anyone else tries it. Don't get me wrong I love Moore's earlier work. From Hell is the last thing he did worth buying and it could've benefited from major editing. If you're interested in Alan Moore check out Watchmen, V for Vendetta, or The Complete DR and Quinch. If you're interested in the Cthulhu mythos go for Lovecraft.