Jacen Burrows

So I finally got my hands on final volume. And it is a very mixed bag.

I wont go into details since that would be ruining experience for others. Lets just say that third act is basically a tie in between Providence story-line and Neonomicon story.
Ending is very reminiscent of the birth of Christ but turned around for 180 degrees because we are talking about the dark forces here.

We have St John-like character here (our curious and ultimately darn weird and stupid-on-oh-so-many-level's Mr. Black), that agent women from Neonomicon (that plays the role comparable to Mary) carrying something that will usher our world into darkness and all the others - call them wise three man (from the dark side) and locals witnessing the event (no shepherds here, this folk is sick and scary to the bone).

Black finally realizes that horrid things he saw and witnessed in previous volumes actually exist and consequently goes off the rails - he acts very much like Sam Neil's character from the movie "In the Mouth of Madness" but it is too late. Finally he ends up in that weird room for listening records [that you will most surely remember from act 1].

Of course since this books aims at being artistic we have same elements that I mentioned in my previous reviews. We have Black chasing down guys wherever he goes (I can only say thankfully no monster raping in this volume) and finally he gets ... serviced? ... by a messenger from these monstrosities from beyond that has entire face in form of female genitals and of course goes down on Black.

Most interesting part of the story is when Black finally connects the dots - when he realizes who is he talking to, ancestry and links between all these characters he came across. He then becomes aware they need to be stopped but unfortunately it is too late. Like in movie "The Fallen" he knows and they know he knows - he spirals into madness and ..... we bloody lose him from the story, one third in (???)

And this is my second issue with this novel - ending is like stuff from bad dreams (as one of the remaining normal [I hope] characters says - is this all dream?). Art as always is gorgeous and Jacen Burrows shows that dream-like quality of all the events in great form and detail.

But be it dream or not (everything looks like it is being erased in slow-motion by a giant eraser) ending is so abrupt and so unsatisfying ... its incredible. I dont ask for details in order to nit-pick them but ending is such reader is not sure what happened (I know I was asking myself "am I missing pages?").

Atmosphere and art are on the spot. But authors decision to abruptly pull the breaks and stop everything before ... I dont get it. Take for the example [b: The Books of Magic|17727|The Books of Magic|Neil Gaiman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1367303662l/17727._SY75_.jpg|2986314] by Neil Gaiman. Same dreamy out-of-this-world events, shadows lurking everywhere but book has start and the end. Even if this book ended in a similar way like "In the Mouth of Madness" (which is a variation of "I am Legend" book ending) it would be great. In order to detect lunacy story needs to give us same sane character - reader cannot be the one.

All in all, not so good ending for the series. Could have been much better [for me at least since lots of people are truly enjoying it].

If you like Lovecraftian horror treat yourself and give this 4-volume story a try (4th being Neonomicon that should be read first - if you ask me). Although it has its bad sides story is good enough and brings horror to the mind of the reader (which is not something comics usually manage to do).… (más)

This one is a mixed bag for me. I liked it, don't get me wrong but in general there are elements that are so common for artistic-oriented graphic novels that just .... annoy me personally.

So, to start with what I liked.

Main character, journalist Robert Black, starts investigation (because his newspaper needs fresh stories) into mysterious book "Sous le Monde" that drives everyone who reads it into madness and suicide.

While researching the subject Black (who is very strange character himself willing to accept all the weird things as "oh, right, it must be breakfast this morning that causes these sights of headless corpses") comes into contact with rather mysterious doctor who tells him of an even more mysterious book that might hold secret to eternal life.

Considering it ridiculous that such a book could ever exist, Black gets introduced into the world of strange small esoteric cults based on the very similar lore that migrated to America from Europe. This intrigues Black so much he decides to devote his talent and time to finding more about this awkward groups and write stories about them.

And so it starts. He finds himself traveling to many sites in pursuit of the book. Events that transpire would scare anyone but our good mister Black. To be honest, just witnessing some of the things would make me jump 8 feet high with high pitched shriek but our mister Black is very good at handling it - he just says to himself that people here are completely different and others are looking at them from high and that is the cause of all of the misunderstandings. I mean what the ... He enters the bus where he is basically only one looking remotely human and speaking in normal voice.... Just weird.

Scare here is always at subliminal level - what we as readers see might not be what Black sees from his perspective (which I guess would explain some of his behavior) - in the background you see some conversations in very small letters and weird things going on (shapes, visions, things people are moving from one point to other, their comments, ominous titles and behavior). It all builds the atmosphere very well and stage for act 2 gets set beautifully by the end.

Art is beautiful, very to the point and very cinematic.

In between issues there are excerpts from Black's journal where we can see both Black's view of things. Sometimes it matches what reader saw on panels, sometimes not. Very often journal pages contain a lot of Black's denial of what he did see bulked with Black scolding himself how he can so misinterpret things around him. Sometimes journal part is a little bit of radical-slow to the story pace but it has its value.

It feels like Black is walking through a dream - bloody scary dream though - and just like in a dream whatever he sees he takes as normal and does not get agitated much with rather scary element of the environment.

Now what I did not like.

Whenever I take artistic graphic novels like this I hope they wont do the things artistic graphic novels usually do. For some reason in artistic view ultimate fear is always shown as seeing people nude and horrific scenes including forced or kinky sex. Here same thing happens - everything comes down to some weird sex thing between humans and it (horror from beyond). I mean, imagine that you are millennia old creature wandering the starts and ruining civilizations and you come to Earth and your only idea is to make them crazy (so they worship you and eventually kill themselves out) and then have sex with them in every perverse way. I mean, come on. Lovecraft's stories were about what goes inside people's heads, question what is real and what is not and shere pressure of something unspeakable and explainable driving people mad - it was never about hedonistic space creatures going down on human populations like set of sex toys.

This could be limitations of the medium ... maybe. Written word relies on you to imagine situations while graphic novels need to show you the scene. But again why do the graphic novel authors decide to go this way when portraying horrendous things is beyond me. Just take Metabaron series - it is all about incest, in-breeding, cutting ones genitals and doing pervert things with it - in one of the stories Metabaron even controls his spacecraft with appendage coming from his loins after losing his genitals to treachery. I will never understand why authors of these types of novels decide to move in this way.

All in all Providence act #1 is slow, suspense building story.
Recommended to fans of horror and Lovecraft lore.… (más)

So this collection is a weird one. Story "The Courtyard" is pretty much what you be expecting from the Lovecraft story. There is horror element, bizarre people uttering incomprehensible words and a detective hunting down mysterious murderers that seem completely unconnected, independent from each other but commencing gruesome murders in a same way. And then detective makes the mistake.

Story is full of tension, you do not see much of actual bloodshed - everything is right there but somewhere in the periphery of your vision. As I said very Lovecraftian.

Then we get to "Neonomicon" story arc. It is basically continuation of Courtyard but now detective from that story is arrested and committed to mental institution after events in "The Courtyard". Nobody knows what happened to the man - he speaks same gibberish language as those he initially hunted himself - but everything points to the same location where he sought the murderers. Two agents (male and female, where female has certain sexual addiction problems) are sent to investigate and then situation escalates rather quickly - very soon horrendous creatures start popping out. It ends on a rather strange (and rather depressing) note for the humanity itself because in the end everything hints to birth (and thus invasion or awakening) of ancient monsters bent on destroying humanity. Are we but a dream of a monster or do we all exist on separate astral planes and monsters are thinning the borders between the planes thus endangering us? Is what we see the past or the future - are the monsters yet to be born in the first place? Are Lovecraft's works basis for the strange cults or are they inspired by true stories buried down by authorities? Again, very interesting and very Lovecraftian.

And then we get to most conflicting part of this story - monster raping above mentioned female agent. Is it disturbing, oh believe me it is. Following contains spoilers so proceed at your own risk. Captured by the cult and offered to the unspeakable monstrosity of the deep as a sex toy agent barely survives and at the end is even offered help by that very same monster because it sensed something in her that makes her very special for its kind. After police rescues her and kills the monster in the process, strange language and images become more regular and soon she finds out that she is actually a portal for this horrendous creatures into our own reality. When she meets the detective from "The Courtyard" and starts talking the strange language she gets the confirmation that she is living portal that will enable monsters takeover of the planet and rise of their civilization. Crazed detective calls her a Chosen and even raises her to the level of deity - all of this just shows how dangerous she is to human civilization. That aside in regard to the topic of monster rape... As I said this is very disturbing scene and as far as I can see it is main reason why people don't like this collection. Again very understandable. With all of that keep in mind that sexual attack was always present in Lovecraft stories - never the detailed act itself but in hints and general neurosis and madness of the events. Also do note that in art first step for shock is always through sex and nudity. It must be something in us that drives us that way but I am yet to see representation of decadent society that does not include some sexual perversion or other (just look at Metabarons and latest [and even rather good [but using same approach]] Elric of Melninbone series of graphic novels).

In many aspects this story seems very much like Warhammer40k story - especially time warping and establishment of monster portals through living beings. But again W40K has many common elements with unspeakable terrors from Lovecraft.

So to sum it up - pretty much what you would expect from Lovecraft is present here: depression, madness, hints of horrors and no happy ending.

This is not for underage readers due to rather traumatic part of the story - it is prolonged sequence, that indirectly shows all the horror, fear and despair (there are no explicit scenes in here) and maybe this is what makes it more horrifying. If you cannot stomach it then I would not advise you to go through this comic collection.

Recommended to all fans of Lovecraft and horror stories.
… (más)