World Famous Comics: Alan Moore's The Courtyard (Color Edition)
Alan Moore's The Courtyard (Color Edition)
By: Alan Moore Publisher: Avatar Press Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Avatar Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 56 Publication Date: March 11, 2009
Product Description: Just in time for the sequel in 2009, Alan Moore's haunting masterpiece, The Courtyard, is available in color for the first time! The most celebrated writer in the industry, Alan Moore, teams up with brilliant artist Jacen Burrows, to unleash this timeless tale of Lovecraftian psychological horror. FBI man Aldo Sax has an amazing service record with the FBI. His legendary skills at piecing together the most baffling of cases has gotten him assigned to what may be his most confusing case yet. Several murders - no, more like lethal dismemberments - from the most unlikely of suspects just don't addd up. And what few leads there are, all point to The Courtyard. This special collected edition of the series features an introduction by Garth Ennis!
Overrated Well, I've read some other Alan Moore's graphic novels, such as V, Watchmen and The killing joke. I thought those were fantastic, very creative pieces of art. Then I read that the Courtyard will be finally available and that it's probably the best he has done, very intricate plot, blablablah and what do you know? my hopes went sky high. What I got was a short story, macabre, dense, nicely delivered, but that was pretty much it. The plot is very straight forward, it didn't impact me as much as I thought. Maybe I didn't get it, maybe I'm still expecting this to be a serie, with subsequent installments, maybe I need to be more Moore to understand the deepness. Right now I think it was a very expensive item for what I got.
In Madness You Dwell Very good story but first let me clear some things up. The book is not double long like it appears in the picture above, that is actually the front cover on the right and back cover on the left, but the size is about the same as a comic. Second it is in black and white, which is alright but unfortunate because of how beautiful color makes the covers look.
Obviously this story doesn't seem to appeal to everyone. I haven't read lovecraft so maybe in comparison it sucks, I am however actively interested in the occult studies, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say if you're neither interested in the occult or lovecraft you're probably going to find this very unenjoyable, that is to say it's definitely geared towards those audiences.
If you like horror it's my understanding that you should run, not walk, and get yourself some H.P. Lovecraft to read immediately. I'd also like to recommend to anybody who wants to know more about this occult stuff that Alan Moore himself is so enamored with to check out Robert Anton Wilson as soon as humanly possible.
I liked this book, it spooked me, or was that me just working myself up? At any rate it was a cool fun twisted good time on the edges of sanity with an FBI Agent, Presidential cover-up Evil Rock bands, drugs, flaming weirdoes, and the elder gods. Not to be missed by those especially attuned to receive this transmission.
go buy the companion I picked this up at my school's library(along with 100 Bullets, go figure) and read through in about 20 minutes. Well, gee, that was short. Very Lovecraftian ending, which still intrigues me, and some nice hallucenogenic visuals...but what happened? It was like a short story that didn't feel the need to elaborate on its characters at all, therefore, I don't sympathize with any of them. So yeah, if you want the actual experience of this piece, just forego this 20-minute noir fix and pick up the Companion--which makes little sense to me that it needs a companion when it's but one issue that anyone can manage by themselves.
The companion is just under the price of the hardback copy and has not only the script(like I said, why buy the comic?) but more original art, essays, and the references that are practically required for the HPL uninitiated. Interesting little read. I think I just spent half the time reviewing the book that I spent reading it.
An Average Cthulhu Mythos Story This brief graphic novel is Alan Moore's attempt at doing a Cthulhu mythos type story and Moore falls a bit short. The basic (very basic) plot tells of an undercover FBI agent who is trying to solve a series of gruesome murders that are similar, but have been committed by several different people in different locales. This agent specializes in being able to find connections where others can't, although if the average reader can't see these connections you'd have to be brain dead. Moore tosses in a lot of Lovecraftian references such as Clark Ashton Smith' Zothique and Robert W. Chamer's "The yellow Sign" as well as nods to Arthur Machen as well. Those who are familiar with Lovecraft and those who influence him will roll their eyes at "club Zothique" and those not familiar won't know what in the hell that Moore is talking about anyway. It's all a little much. This is definitely a book for adults with the violence, language and racial slurs made by the FBI agent about blacks. One wonders where Moore was going with this angle. It had no bearing on the story at all. The art by Jacen Burrows was decent but not enough to make me recommend this one.
Another failed attempt at adapting Cthulhu mythos 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.
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