The ceremonial magician and self-professed occultist Alan Moore is one of the most influential comic book writers in English and was hugely influential in elevating the genre. Primarily known for his work on Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, and Batman, Moore considers his magical activities as "a logical end step to my career as a writer" (quoted from Vylenz). "I believe that magic is art, and that art, whether that be music, writing, sculpture, or any other form, is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words or images, to achieve changes in consciousness... Indeed to cast a spell is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change people's consciousness, and this is why I believe that an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world to a shaman" (ibid.). The original 1994 prose story had first appeared in an anthology The Starry Wisdom: A Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft (Creation Books, 1995, ISBN 1-871592-32-1). Domed Hometown: One clue that this is not our universe is that cities have pollution-filtering domes over them. This is apparently a reference to the work of journalist and futurist David Goodman Croly (also mentioned in From Hell), another writer who, like H.P. Lovecraft himself, is chiefly remembered today for being a massive racist. Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Arguably, Agent Brears. Multiple rapes, the death of her partner, and being impregnated with Cthulhu seem to have turned her around to the idea of destroying the world by the end of the story.

Rape as Drama: A deeply disquieting look at the "blasphemous rites" Lovecraft talks about in his works. Abhorrent Admirer: Despite raping her constantly, the Deep One does seem to care about Brears, helping her escape when he learns that she is pregnant. It's implied that this is just how his species naturally reproduces, and he was unaware that Brears was in distress until she actively called him on it. Really Gets Around: Agent Merrill Brears is a recovering sex addict. This is not played for laughs. Faux Affably Evil: The Dagon cultists. While they initially appear to be just eccentric folk with weird fetishes who enjoy secret orgies (and who grin too much), they ultimately come off as more repugnant than the Mythos beings the protagonists meet.

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Mental Time Travel: Lovecraft's writings and other Cthulhu Mythos stories and visions of Eldritch Abominations are actually a result of four-dimensional "echoes" of powerful, highly evolved beings from Earth's distant future. Darker and Edgier: The story takes the works of H.P Lovecraft to some very dark places that even Lovecraft himself danced around or demurred from going to. Let that sink in for a moment. In “The Courtyard,” Alan Moore’s contribution to The Starry Wisdom, a 1994 anthology in which notable writers from J. G. Ballard to Ramsey Campbell (and even Grant Morrison) write stories in the mold of Lovecraft, we meet a racist, unhinged narrator who happens to be an FBI agent. According to his unreliable narration, his investigation into a series of murders in Red Hook has led him to infiltrate a cult-like nightclub where he gets hooked into Aklo, a potent white powder that gives the narrator visions of Lovecraftian nightmares. Here we are, in the end, with Neonomicon. Alan Moore’s last significant comic book work, other than the follow-up chapters of the larger League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga. And by the end of “The Courtyard,” the narrator—whose name turns out to be Aldo Sax, which I don’t think is mentioned in the story itself—has revealed himself to be one of the murderers himself, ritually carving the bodies of his victims in the manner of the killers he’s been pursuing. Or maybe it’s been him all along, committing these murders. His madness is palpable, and the truth is obscured.

Johnny Carcosa, a character who wears a yellow mask that is strongly implied to be part of his face?Severing Neonomicon #4 from the preceding three chapters is a bit unfair. It’s an ending; if you’ve made it this far, you’re not looking for a jumping-on point. More than that, it’s the ending of a sequel! Eight years ago, Antony Johnston ( Wasteland, Daredevil) and Burrows adapted a now- seventeen-year-old prose story Moore contributed to a Lovecraft tribute volume. This was The Courtyard, a jagged little two-issue spike of grimy discomfort told in terse blurts of noir narration and inelegant yet leisurely vertical composition. His entire career, Burrows has excelled the most in his composition; if “widescreen” panel structures play off of our adaptation to Cinemascope and 16:9 TV, then The Courtyard‘s “tallscreen” panels created an edge of discomfort simply by running perpendicular to vernacular. He has, of course, only improved since.

This dystopian graphic novel continues to be relevant even 30 years after it ended. With its warnings against fascism, white supremacy and the horrors of a police state, V for Vendetta follows one woman and a revolutionary anarchist on a campaign to challenge and change the world. Aldo Sax is an FBI agent using "anomaly theory", a method that correlates seemingly unrelated data into a cohesive whole, to investigate three seemingly unrelated ritual murders around the United States. His investigation leads him to a nightclub in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where he hears of a psychoactive drug called Aklo, peddled by a mysterious veiled man named Johnny Carcosa. Sax sets up a meet with Carcosa at the dealer's apartment building, where he is given a hallucinogenic white powder as a prelude to the Aklo. Carcosa speaks an unknown language to Sax, who experiences visions of spectral planes and hideous primordial creatures, while understanding the truth that Aklo is not a drug, but the language Carcosa spoke to him. The visions, given to him by Aklo, drive Sax to murder his neighbor using the same modus operandi as the killers he was investigating.NEXT TIME: A reflection on the Alan Moore legacy. And, in two weeks, I conclude the Great Alan Moore Reread with my All-Time Alan Moore Top Ten list. Pragmatic, indeed. And while we’re all delving into these kinds of comic books and providing context for and analysis of their artistic merit, it’s sometimes refreshing to hear a creator, even before the release of a project, admit that he did it for the cash. It’s a job.