Ross Byrne's Reviews > Neonomicon

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 something like the New French Extremity movement in French cinema, where outrageous or disturbing subject matter is plastered indiscriminately across the narrative from beginning to end under the guise of moralistic grandstanding, and applies this to the comics medium, resulting in a work that's miserable to look at, miserable to read.

While the idea of uncovering the sexual aspects left unexplored by H.P.L., and acknowledging his admitted racist leanings has merit, what's unfolded on the pages of Neonomicon is a flat, glowering squib of a non-story, where any spark of character, plot, or dialogue is submerged in the relentless grimness of what the writer felt we should be appalled by, as if this information was previously unknown to the reading public.

Lovecraft's work succeeds and has endured despite the period prejudices evident in the author's personality, Moore is a writer whose work normally rates and resonates on a number of levels; this misguided effort (written primarily, we're told, to pay off a tax-bill)isn't going to do anything to rectify the problematic nature of rape and racism in genre fiction, and only leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.