Growing up, I had a strong love for the genre of horror in comic books. Black and white Warren magazines like EERIE, CREEPY, and VAMPIRELLA. The horror-themed 1970s Marvel superhero books that fell under the umbrella I used to call "The Marvel Monsters"....GHOST RIDER, MAN-THING, TOMB OF DRACULA, WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, SON OF SATAN, Morbius the Living Vampire in ADVENTURES INTO FEAR, etc., etc.,.... Len Wein and Berni Wrightson's SWAMP THING (and, later, Alan Moore's mind blowing work with the character....more about Moore in a minute).
So, a continued interest in all things scary in funnybooks seems to be a perpetual constant in my existence, and recently I began thinking of putting together a list of some of the good stuff out there being published now....or at least within the last five or six years...that I'm really digging.
Hey, kids.....remember that wacky British Alan Moore fella? Y'know, that guy who kinda revolutionized comic books in the 1980s (in both the horror and superhero genres)? Y'know. ...that guy....the one who wrote a celebrated run on SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING, WATCHMEN, FROM HELL, BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE, THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, V FOR VENDETTA, amongst other things? Yeah....that's him....the grumpy, seemingly pretentious one that keeps disowning the film adaptations of his work. The one that's a practicing magician who believes in some sorta snake deity.
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| Alan Moore: Grumpy. Loveable. |
Over the last decade or so, when he hasn't been demanding his name being taken off movies based on his work....which is a shame...V FOR VENDETTA and WATCHMEN are pretty spectacular attempts....LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, well...I'll give you that one....I'd distance myself from it like it was the plague...but, Moore in the meantime has been writing some really good horror comics, creator owned stuff for publisher Avatar Press in a low key, no fanfare kind way.....
NEONOMICON, PROVIDENCE, CINEMA PURGATORIO and FASHION BEAST
The Premise? Alan Moore exploring Lovecraft through a contemporary lens, a decent multiple creator anthology book, and NEON DEMON....only co-written by Moore and the Sex Pistols manager.
The Premise? Alan Moore exploring Lovecraft through a contemporary lens, a decent multiple creator anthology book, and NEON DEMON....only co-written by Moore and the Sex Pistols manager.
Neonomicon follows a female federal agent (and recovering sex addict) and her partner's investigation of a murderer's mysterious disappearance (he literally disappears right in front of their eyes in a trippy kind of mind fuck scenario). A trail of clues lead them to a small town, in which the two agents go undercover as a married couple, and under this disguise they make the acquaintance of a kindly middle age couple who own a bizarre book/fetish/ head shop. They soon discover the older couple belong to a weird, tantric group of Dagon worshippers and things begin to grow even odder the deeper they infiltrate the group after being invited to join them.
Providence is Moore diving back into Lovecraftian waters, but this time at a more metatextual level. A 1930s period piece, the plot revolves around a journalist delving into Lovecraft's life at some point a few years after his death. As his investigation progresses, the stranger his immediate surroundings and the people become......until it seems that there's more truth than fiction in Lovecraft's work, and the newspaper man begins to believe he might be in the center of the deceased author's personal mythos.
Fashion Beast, a bizarre atmospheric story variation on the "Beauty and the Beast" tale based in London's fashion scene that reads, as mentioned above, like the recent "art house" horror film THE NEON DEMON, only filtered through Alan Moore's unique lens. It also possesses the literary pedigree of having been co-written by the late Malcolm McLaren, the eccentric clothes horse and former manager of the Sex Pistols. The project originated as a proposed film written by Moore and McLaren in a producer's position that fell through in the 1980s, and was finally adapted into a 10 issue comic book miniseries in 2012, about two years after McLaren's death.
Cinema Purgatorio is the most recent product from Moore, an anthology book headlined by his and frequent collaborator Kevin O'Neil (MARSHALL LAW, LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN) "Cinema Purgatorio", a Hollywood Babylonish collection of film themed tales. Another stand out serialized feature is Max Brooks' "A More Perfect Union", a surreal alternate history story in which the Union of the North doesn't battle their Southern brothers...but instead, an army of giant mutant insects. Crazy stuff....
Fashion Beast, a bizarre atmospheric story variation on the "Beauty and the Beast" tale based in London's fashion scene that reads, as mentioned above, like the recent "art house" horror film THE NEON DEMON, only filtered through Alan Moore's unique lens. It also possesses the literary pedigree of having been co-written by the late Malcolm McLaren, the eccentric clothes horse and former manager of the Sex Pistols. The project originated as a proposed film written by Moore and McLaren in a producer's position that fell through in the 1980s, and was finally adapted into a 10 issue comic book miniseries in 2012, about two years after McLaren's death.
(To be continued)
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