After reading The Appeal earlier this year and finding it a classic page-turner British cozy mystery notable through its contemporary epistolary styleAfter reading The Appeal earlier this year and finding it a classic page-turner British cozy mystery notable through its contemporary epistolary style, telling its story solely through texts, emails, and documents, I thought it would be fun to check out its mini-sequel, the brief, breezy A Christmas Appeal. The Christmas season was, it turned out, mostly incidental (a mummified Father Christmas notwithstanding) so if you’re looking for something really Christmasy this might disappoint, I feel, but it follows Hallett’s fast-paced, suspenseful, and droll storytelling, so if you liked The Appeal it’s worth checking out.
Taking us back to the backstabbing, passive-aggressive mess that is the Fairway Players as they prepare a Christmas pantomime performance under new leadership after the unfortunate events of the previous novel, it seems rum doings are still afoot on and around the stage. Again, the reliance on correspondence makes it difficult to get a reading on the actual personalities and motivations of the characters who appear to mostly be insufferable social climbers, crims, or hopelessly “woke” and all no more than caricatures. In this case in particular, the addition of a pretty cringy “drugs” subplot and the more or less negligible inevitable murder does not add up to quite as much as the original. On the other hand, Hallett’s dry wit and penchant for madcap but understated absurdities definitely keep you reading. ...more
In Feelings, artist Manjit Thapp’s precise, measured line work tells a remote yet intimate story of personal artistic growth and mental health over a In Feelings, artist Manjit Thapp’s precise, measured line work tells a remote yet intimate story of personal artistic growth and mental health over a year in the life of a struggling artist. Tying the mood of the story to the changing of the traditional South Asian seasons made for a very effective theme, as the colors and textures Thapp uses change as the year progresses, evoking shifts in weather and communicating her story even with minimal words. I find the seasons and changes in weather to have a strong effect on my mood as well, and the comic captures this experience well....more
Like Adam Allsuch Boardman’s earlier work with Nobrow Press, An Illustrated History of UFOs, An Illustrated History of Ghosts is a stylishly produced,Like Adam Allsuch Boardman’s earlier work with Nobrow Press, An Illustrated History of UFOs, An Illustrated History of Ghosts is a stylishly produced, colorful piece of graphic art that provides a basic but thorough introduction to ghostly myths and legends throughout the world. Organized in a loose chronology from antiquity to the 21st century, Boardman’s simplistic but detailed cartoonish illustrations and infographics provide a nice rundown of all the common motifs of paranormal research, from various types of hauntings and multicultural ghost folklore, Spiritualism, debunkers, research groups, to ghost hunting shows. It definitely brought me back to the old Usborne books of the mysterious, which actually appear in the nice additional reading section. I also appreciated Boardman’s inclusivity in his accounts of the religious meanings of spirits, hoaxes, and other topics.
I think this one appealed to me a little bit more, guess I’m just more of a ghost fan than aliens, but I feel that each of these works, with their useful glossaries and resources, would be quite appropriate for teens and preteens who are interested in outré subjects....more
An intense, compact novel, Crudo is Olivia Laing’s anxious rumination on living in a time when the future seems far less certain than we’ve come to beAn intense, compact novel, Crudo is Olivia Laing’s anxious rumination on living in a time when the future seems far less certain than we’ve come to be accustomed to. Focusing on Kathy, an English woman living in the US who has just turned 40 and is getting married for the first time, she finds that these personal landmarks pale in comparison to the continued onslaught of apocalyptic news continually pouring out of 2017, both in the US and the UK. Trump. Brexit. Charlottesville. Channeling the work and emotion of Kathy Acker (whose writing I am unfortunately unfamiliar with), Laing captures the frightening but banal atmosphere of everyday life for many at the time, down to including citations for the various tweets and inspirations Kathy references.
Despite its relatable aspects (I too got married in 2017), Laing’s loose, impressionistic style can feel a little indistinct, refracted through viewpoints (Kathy the narrator, Kathy the subject, Kathy Acker, autofictional aspects of Laing herself), and I wonder how much I’m missing from the narrative having not read Acker. The novel floats through this cloud of reference and impression, which makes for an affecting if vague whole....more
A chilling and all too relatable work, Hari Kunzru’s novel Red Pill captures, to use a word that the novel’s unnamed narrator might, the zeitgeist of A chilling and all too relatable work, Hari Kunzru’s novel Red Pill captures, to use a word that the novel’s unnamed narrator might, the zeitgeist of the fraught 2010s with all its anxiety, fear, and sense of uncertainty. With its languid, meandering pace, though, broken up by lengthy asides, the novel lacks needed clarity in its reflection of the current state of the world, even as it builds to a fever pitch with the US election of 2016.
The novel centers on a middle-aged freelance writer sharing certain biographical similarities to Kunzru himself as he leaves his wife and young daughter in New York to cloister himself at a prestigious writer’s fellowship outside Berlin, hoping to finish his latest book. Soon realizing that the Deuter Center’s stifling atmosphere leaves him completely unable to write, he quickly spirals into bouts of existential dread and paranoia, becoming lost in the dark history of his new surroundings at Wannsee, getting sucked down various online rabbit holes, and binging on the disturbing and pessimistic cop show, Blue Lives. A chance encounter with an American writer, whom the narrator sees as the literal embodiment of all of the existential fears that were occupying his mind, the calculated transgression, laughing bigotry, and incipient fascism of the alt-right, causes him to spiral completely into madness.
As his narrator loses his grasp of reality, Kunzru does capture something of the fractured nature of reality in a time of “fake news” and echo chambers, as his friends and family see their own realities crumble upon that final, horrific revelation of November 3rd, 2016, making the narrator, in his anxious paranoia, a kind of harbinger. The last few years have had bad effects on individual mental health, as a world that once seemed settled and solid became an illusion hiding hideous ideologies. This Weimar Germany vibe is certainly one I’m familiar with, fixating on some online symptom of the fascist infection, becoming convinced that something is going to happen, but, especially after what actually happened in the years after 2019, there is a fatalism to the narrator’s attitude. In his private mental breakdown, unable to form a coherent response to the reactionary forces that he feels surround him, his isolation leaves him without solidarity.
But, the narrator is, after all, far from being alone in noticing the worrying shift in the facade of liberal democracy before 2016, the growing undercurrents of fascist thought online and in politics, so it seems odd that he never seems to find anyone to share his fears, his concerns. If we are going to oppose this fascist resurgence, we’ll need an organized response, whether through voting or action, and I think it’s important to recognize that there are many people who are bringing eloquent and passionate rebuttals to the Antons of the world....more
"The man they talk about is not the brother I had. Perhaps life here changed him, but I fear it did not- he could mask his darkness before, but this p"The man they talk about is not the brother I had. Perhaps life here changed him, but I fear it did not- he could mask his darkness before, but this place gave it permission and opportunity. Yet in his letters to me he was always the same. It seems there is only so much you can know from letters. A man can hide a world behind words."
The Appeal is a classic page-turner, an engaging and witty tale that quickly draws the reader in with the tension of its mystery, even before the requisite murder. A contemporary epistolary novel told through texts, emails, and the occasional official document, author Janice Hallett captures the ambiguity of modern correspondence, making for a fast-paced, suspenseful read. With the subtitle on the paperback edition challenging you to “uncover the truth,” this is a book you go into with an expectation that all is not as it seems and to take each account with a certain amount of suspicion, which is not a bad way to go about life on the internet, really.
Hallett builds The Appeal as a collection of correspondence surrounding some sort of legal scandal involving a posh English amateur theatrical group, as a couple of young lawyers are tasked to examine the files for discrepancies by their boss as part of some future legal action. The lawyers, and by extension, us, quickly realize that they are all focused on Sam Greenwood, a young newcomer, who recently returned to England in shame from medical volunteer work in the wartorn Central African Republic. Soon, she stumbled upon more trouble amongst the busybodies and characters of the close-knit group of locals she’s found herself among in the peaceful English countryside. Her perspective seems to be the only one missing from the files, and as the group rallies around raising money for an experimental US treatment for the theater director’s granddaughter, recently diagnosed with a rare and fatal brain cancer, we realize that there is something fishy going on. The only question is what? The darker, more troubling, elements of the novel are, for the most part, balanced by the light, droll pettiness of the secondary characters and the absurdities of online communication.
For whoever is examining these files, though, either the novel’s investigating lawyers or the reader themself, these characters can only be shown at a remove, limiting the amount of characterization they get. As the lawyers brainstorm their theories, reacting to new bombshells, the reader is able to measure their conclusions against the ideas measured out as the novel progresses. Still, as the suspects are all mostly defined by their worst qualities if they are defined at all, it can feel a bit insubstantial. I was able to figure out whodunnit by around 60% in, though I’m not sure if that says anything about my deductive skills or more about my ability to predict tropes. All in all, a fun, easy, mystery perfect for a summer beach read....more
Scottish journalist Cal Flyn’s thought-provoking, intriguing 2021 book Islands of Abandonment provides much to consider about humanity's place on the Scottish journalist Cal Flyn’s thought-provoking, intriguing 2021 book Islands of Abandonment provides much to consider about humanity's place on the planet during these fraught and unstable years. Flyn travels to various sites left abandoned by humans across the world, reflecting on how their rewilding shows the resilience of the environment in recovering from human disruption. Whether left alone by war, disaster, disease, or economic decay, from West Lothian, Scotland, the “green line” of Cyprus, to the city of Detroit, talking to people connected to them, the places Flyn visits are each deeply instructive.
Her descriptions of how these spaces quickly revert to a natural habitat are both disturbing and inspiring, and, as in many of these works, an apocalyptic theme runs through much of it, though Flyn’s focus provides a strange type of comfort that can often be difficult to express. As global warming bears down on us, and much more than a few malls will be abandoned in the face of climatic change, Flyn’s musings on the resilience of our planet, if not our society’s, is a topical, sobering read.
From the perspective of 2023, Voodoo History, English journalist David Aaronovitch’s interesting but slightly disjointed 2009 critical analysis of conFrom the perspective of 2023, Voodoo History, English journalist David Aaronovitch’s interesting but slightly disjointed 2009 critical analysis of conspiracy theory through the lens of historical memory feels a bit quaint. However, he does provide an insightful glimpse of the evolution of misinformation in the first decades of the 21st century and perhaps some of the currents that presaged the later trends we are currently living through.
Curious about the persistence of conspiratorial thinking after encountering a man who believed that the moon landings were faked, Aaronovitch begins a lighthearted exploration of what he calls a “period of fashionable conspiracism,” an endeavor that quickly turns more serious. Hoping to understand the psychology of conspiracy theories, what he defines as “the attribution of deliberate agency to something that is more likely to be accidental or unintended” or “the attribution of secret action to one party that might far more reasonably be explained as the less covert and less complicated action of another,” and what makes them often more engaging to popular culture than actual history, in each chapter he delves chronologically into some of the last centuries most infamous hoaxes and myths.
As Aaronovitch explores in depth such paranoid tales as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the idea that FDR had prior knowledge about Pearl Harbor, the secret bloodline of Jesus as described in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and, of course, 9/11 being an inside job, he searches for some of the commonalities each share and hits on some thought-provoking threads. While I wouldn’t call the work prescient exactly (that would risk falling into the “historian’s fallacy” Aaronvitch describes, “the tendency to forget at the time that the actors in a historical drama simply did not know, at the time, what was coming next”), there was a lot that rang true for me as misinformation has only strengthened its grip on the publication imagination during the 2010s.
In particular, he describes the way that conspiracy theories can be used to aid an authoritarian regime. Aaronovitch’s account of the Kagonovitch trial in 1940s USSR, for instance, in which a prominent bureaucrat in the Stalinist regime was accused of being embroiled in a Trotskyist plot of sabotage, illustrates how conspiracy can become a convenient tool by the authorities by allowing them to explain away their failures on perfidious outside forces. I can see echoes of this in the Pizzagate and Qanon accounts of a deep state being behind the Trump administration’s lack of success.
In addition, the slow evolution of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion from 19th century French anti-Napoleonic literature to antisemitic ur-text through the plagiarism and repurposing of numerous bad faith actors in Germany and Russia, reminded me of the mutation of memes online in the 21st century. On that note, it was interesting to see Aaronovitch’s discussion of the capital-I Internet’s effect on 9/11 conspiracy theories, bringing into orbit strange political bedfellows, and how such drawings together of paranoid ideas across the conspiratorial landscape has only increased as algorithms rewarded engagement regardless of its truth.
It’s in Aaronovitch’s conclusion, I think, where the work's major weaknesses are shown, lacking a strong argument of how our culture may remedy this increasingly sinister situation. As he attempts to brush off such “alternative truths” as merely false assumptions that can be easily broken by critical thinking, after the last decade of mostly unmoderated digital disinformation, this feels like a simplistic hope. In any case, though, Voodoo Histories as a whole is a loose but fascinating collection of essays that provides some valuable information even a decade later....more
Philippa Rice’s Baby: A Soppy Story is, like Rice’s previous work Soppy, a pretty adorable little book, published originally on her blog. I found SoppPhilippa Rice’s Baby: A Soppy Story is, like Rice’s previous work Soppy, a pretty adorable little book, published originally on her blog. I found Soppy, a sweet autobiographical collection of anecdotes from her burgeoning relationship with her now husband to be very relatable as I started my own relationship, and her follow up, Baby, continued this as we went though our baby’s birth and first year. Rice’s art style is simple, elegant, and light, making it a nice little piece to read when you are looking for something a little British. Her simple, cartoonish drawings using only white, black, and red, make it an easy one to flip through. I loved the way that she illustrated her and her husband’s life with their new baby and how it changed them or how their lives stayed the same as well.
Effective and topical horror, discomforting and real, in Tell Me I’m Worthless, Alison Rumfitt draws from many frightening aspects of daily life for tEffective and topical horror, discomforting and real, in Tell Me I’m Worthless, Alison Rumfitt draws from many frightening aspects of daily life for trans people in the UK and refracts them through the lens of a haunted house, exposing the dark heart of England and the pain it’s imperialistic xenophobia continues to inflict. Rumfitt’s work is visceral and sickening and does not turn away from the trauma endemic to the specter of fascism, that nightmarish entity that continues to haunt the world. Told from the alternating perspectives of Alice and Ila, queer college grads, and The House known as Albion, which inflicts horrific abuse on both, absorbs their friend and inserts itself into each, driving the two apart as Ila embraces TERF ideology. Moving backward and forwards through time, the story is both hallucinatory and grounded, engaging in all of the transphobia, queerphobia, racism, and misogyny that haunts our lives on both sides of the Atlantic.
Exploring this blurry area between metaphor and reality, and wearing her influences on her sleeve, especially Shirley Jackson and Angela Carter, Tell Me I’m Worthless is full of interesting if grim insights and meta commentary, befitting the way history haunts the present and pulls us toward the future, in a way that does not pull away from the terror. In spite of Rumfitt’s utterly terrifying scenes, though, the ultimate message delivers a kind of strange catharsis. Taken together, this is a novel that captures the fear and humanity of our scary moment and offers much to think about....more
As an ancient evil stirs under England, tying the literary works of Geoffrey Chaucer with those of Dante, an agent of the Human Protection League (or As an ancient evil stirs under England, tying the literary works of Geoffrey Chaucer with those of Dante, an agent of the Human Protection League (or “Lovecraft Squad”) shows up to deal with the mess. A cursed church, a cheesy media stunt, and zombies based around the seven sins round out this bloated but not very scary horror novel. Nothing novel is brought to any of these established horror tropes. The campiness is played all too straight, the characters are completely wooden, alternating between skepticism and credulity as demanded by the plot, and it all drags on at least a hundred pages too long
Altogether, the novel reads like something Garth Marenghi might write, minus any sense of humor. As the first of a series of works featuring the HPL, a secretive international anti-supernatural task force affiliated with the American FBI in a world in which Lovecraft was writing nonfiction, All Hallows Horror definitely does not begin things on the best foot. Oddly, the HPL barely plays a role here, with the proceedings much more connected to another horror fiction anthology series involving the zombie apocalypse, a genre I could not be less interested in. In the end, this is one I wish I had skipped.
A vibrant and informative book from innovative English comics publisher Nobrow, The Art of Drag delivers an inspirational history of gender bending peA vibrant and informative book from innovative English comics publisher Nobrow, The Art of Drag delivers an inspirational history of gender bending performance from the ancient world to RPDR, illustrated in evocative and colorful style by a cast of dynamic artists including Sofie Birkin, Helen Li, Jasjyot Singh Hans. Whether jagged or curvy, their strong senses of style and visual ability make each page of the Art of Drag a delight, while author Jake Hall author Jake Hall details the subversive and influential legacies of gender non-conforming costumes.
Profiling a variety of important figures in the history of drag, from the Great Barbette to Lady Bunny, the comic illustrates the long standing presence of such playful yet striking work throughout time and across the world. Highlighting both the challenges faced by drag performers across history and the impact they have on popular culture, the Art of Drag is a lovely celebration of fashion and queerness that is a wonderfully positive reading experience for Pride Month or anytime. ...more
A whimsical, distinctly British all ages picture book, Animal Anatomy is an amusing fifteen minute distraction. Contrary to the name, there’s nothing A whimsical, distinctly British all ages picture book, Animal Anatomy is an amusing fifteen minute distraction. Contrary to the name, there’s nothing really “anatomical” about this work, it’s just cute little illustrations of various animals with their little claws, fins, scales, or feathers labeled with quirky titles, from a hedgehog’s “stiffy stabbies” and “velveteen tum” to a wombat’s “chompy chops” and “pudgy wudders.”. A few fun animal facts are dropped along the way. Illustrated in fuzzy pencils, the creatures included are fun to look at, though, in the end, there’s not much to it. ...more
If I was slightly less enchanted by his Best Ghost Stories on my latest read than I was after first reading it, I think I can claim after finishing thIf I was slightly less enchanted by his Best Ghost Stories on my latest read than I was after first reading it, I think I can claim after finishing this collection of short weird tales by turn of the twentieth century English writer Algernon Blackwood, that these tales are definitely not his best. While a couple of the stories included here do make an appearance in the latter collection, the majority of these “tales of the mysteries and macabre” don’t really do much for me. Perhaps it was a side effect of reading the musty, yellowed pages of my copy of the book, but these tales felt just as musty and dusty. Many of Blackwood’s common motifs appear here; the mysterious power of nature, fraught relationships between characters, a strong build up of emotion, but all were better realized in some of his other tales of supernatural horror included the Best Ghost Stories collection and after a while felt quite repetitive.
The best of the pieces included in Tales of the Mysterious and Macabre are, like “The Heath Fire,” “The Wings of Horus” or “A Victim of Higher Space,” merely slightly more boring examinations of themes explored more effectively in Blackwood’s other stories. It didn’t help that many of them are particularly fraught with Blackwood’s period English racial attitudes and condescension, none worse than the first tale included, “Chinese Magic,” in which the entire shocking revelation of the story is that an English antiquarian loves China so much he delusionally believes his own wife is Chinese! Oh, the horror! One can only be thankful that it’s all in the poor chap’s head, the narrator concludes. All in all, these stories are only for completionists, I feel, and you can really stick with The Best Ghost Stories for a stronger representation of Blackwood’s ideas and moods with none of the works here being at all essential. ...more
“I mean, I don’t know much about the occult, but I’d have thought serious philosophers should be above all that.”- Robert Black “‘Course they should! T“I mean, I don’t know much about the occult, but I’d have thought serious philosophers should be above all that.”- Robert Black “‘Course they should! They talk about distant stars, an’ eternity’s depths, an’ how man ain’t nothin’, though respectable society is, seems like.”- Garland “Warlock” Wheatley Providence Act 4
“I had a bad time in New England.” Robert Black
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Compiling all twelve issues of Alan Moore’s dense, complex Providence series into one volume, the Providence Compendium is a dense, though intriguing, deconstruction of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mythos. Inviting comparison to Moore’s renowned comic Watchmen, treating Lovecraftian cosmic horror to the same critique the former did for the superhero genre, Moore wrestles with the legacy of US cosmic horror throughout popular culture, making some interesting points as well as becoming buried in inertia and shock value. As a follow-up and prequel to Moore’s previous Lovecraftian comic Neonomicon, a work that I found had some questionable analysis, I was intrigued enough to dig into it in spite of my reservations. However, in the end, it lost me, with the “cultists are actually right” storyline feeling all too trite.
At first, the series drew me in with its historical setting and intricate, realist art, promising a thought-provoking and detailed pastiche of Lovecraftian themes. Continuing in collaboration with artist Jacen Burrows, Moore’s talents in directing an almost cinematic pictorial experience make even the most verbose, static sections of the graphic novel flow. Burrow’s work complements the source material with his exquisitely detailed architectural and period work, coupled with humans who just always seem to be not quite alive. This unnerving aesthetic works well with the eerie themes of the graphic novel.
Taking us back to 1919, we follow the closeted gay New York journalist Robert Black, who is also hiding his Jewish heritage, as he embarks on a tour of New England hoping to track down an ancient book of mysterious arcane lore he’d heard about from a certain chronically ill Spanish doctor he’d talked to as part of a story. Hoping to consult the book as background material for his own book on the secret myths of the United States, Black travels to Salem and Athol, MA, to Manchester, NH, Boston to Providence, RI, at each stop encountering various characters mentioned in Lovecraft stories before running into the “old gentleman” himself. Each chapter in the series plays with a Lovecraft story, introducing Black as an outside observer to the events of, say, The Horror at Red Hook, The Dunwich Horror, The Thing on the Doorstep, or Pickman’s Model, to name just a few. At the same time, nestling these horrific tales into interesting and less well-known historical events such as the 1919 Actors' Equity Association strike and the Boston Police Strike serves to ground these tales into the material reality of the time.
At the end of each chapter, Moore includes an excerpt from Black’s Commonplace Book, his diary in which he composes his writing notes, which serves mostly to recap the events of the last comic and illustrate what a tedious prose writer Moore is. Whatever interesting ideas that are posed (ghouls and organized labor, for instance) are drowned out in repetitive walls of text, adding little except recapping the chapter’s subtext. Along with the copious references and easter eggs to various weird tales and weird tale writers throughout the century, these entries can make much of the body of Providence begin to drag.
As a whole, while it’s a very interesting choice to explore the sexual, social, and racial tensions that undergird Lovecraft’s writing, I find Moore’s argument here to be spurious. As mentioned by Moore in an interview, in Neonomicon his goal was to “put the sex back in” to “the sexually squeamish” Lovecraft’s work, which continues to be a theme in Providence. Serving as a stand-in for the various gay and/or Jewish people close to Lovecraft during his life (Robert Bloch, Robert Barlow, Samuel Loveman, Hart Crane, Sonia Greene), Black is an ideal conduit to challenge Lovecraft’s latent antisemitism and homophobia. Well, if he actually challenged anything, at least.
As noted by Moore in the words of Wizard Whately stand in Warlock Wheatley, Lovecraft’s brand of cosmic nihilism seems at odds with his virulent xenophobia and hatred of other humans when everyone is just equally insignificant compared to the infinity of deep time, but in terms of the way the narrative frames the actions of these cultists and ne’er do wells, we have to conclude that, in a way, they are correct in their assumptions.
For a work attempting to deconstruct the Cthulhu Mythos and explore its role in shaping contemporary US popular culture, Providence plays the tropes of Lovecraft’s tales remarkably straight (pun not intended). As Black meets with various Lovecraftian characters, he finds that many of them are queer themselves (Herbert West, Detective Malone, Charles Dexter Ward, among others), though this does not change their generally odious actions. Containing one of the most unpleasant and degrading scenes of sexual violence in any of Moore’s pieces (which is saying something), in general, the cultists and otherworldly beings Black meets behave just as Lovecraft depicted them, illustrating what was only inferred. Like Neonomicon, the rampant racism, misogyny, and homophobia of the characters are mostly unremarked upon. It seems Moore favors the “light is the best disinfectant” style of subversion, taking pleasure in showing just how awful the ramifications of Lovecraft’s stories and attitudes are. I’m not sure that it works in this case, though. For me, at least, this focus on Lovecraft’s sexual hangups was a mere distraction from his extreme racism and xenophobia- as though being asexual or repressed in his sexual attraction caused Lovecraft to react with hatred towards all non-Anglo Saxons. I, for one, am not convinced that the racism of the US stems from any latent societal sexual repression, and this amounts to a deep acephobic undertone.
We’re not meant to witness the scene of underage mind swapping rape in Act 5 and think it’s good, for instance, but what place does it serve in the narrative? The debatable “if we’re going to have a serious, mature exploration of this work, we’re gonna have to include graphic sexual violence” argument notwithstanding, it illustrates that gross misogyny and abuse will take you far. True enough, I guess? These points are certainly well made, but carry with them a major risk as well, that of taking these influences at their word and making the antagonists appear right, and I feel that is what happens by the end of Providence. Framing the xenophobic Lovecraft as being correct, that shifty foreigners and degenerate sexual deviants seek the destruction of the world, in particular.
As poor Black is led around from one Lovecraft reference to another, becoming increasingly unhinged and traumatized, he only gets one consensual sexual experience, and that ends up spelling his doom and that of humanity, as well. Black discovers that he himself is an occult Herald meant to provide Lovecraft (the true Wilbur Whately) with the raw material to create his most influential stories. As the chosen one meant to “clear off the Earth for the coming of the Great Old Ones,” Lovecraft in effect compiles Black’s experiences into his strongest works, creating a fandom or a cult (same thing) that, returning to the characters from Neonomicon, triumph in the end. Our fascist serial killers and immortal rapists stand alone as the human populace goes mad or dies horribly. Well, I guess that’s as good a metaphor for the state of the world as any.
For whatever insightful and thought-provoking points Moore makes about race and sexuality in Lovecraft’s work, though, by Providence’s apocalyptic conclusion, he only reinforces the general points of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror that sexual and ethnic diversity only bring madness and pain to the world. While that’s definitely not Moore’s point, the general misanthropy throughout Providence and Moore’s taking Lovecraft’s work completely at face value makes me feel it is not effective at expressing a solid conclusion. Many works have been published recently that take Lovecraft’s reactionary tendencies to task while exploring what gives his stories staying power in a much more coherent and affirming way, but given Moore’s well known penchant for lack of engagement with contemporary pop culture, he probably isn’t aware of them. This, in the end, makes the general atmosphere of Providence feel really outdated, making points that have already been made better by others.
“Who makes the world? Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there…a clock without a “Who makes the world? Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there…a clock without a craftsman.” - Dr. Manhattan’s inner monologue while on Mars
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What if superheroes are bad, actually?
This seems to be the main argument, to be reductive, of much of the work of acclaimed English comics writer Alan Moore. While perhaps now a bit of a cliched premise (with comics-based shows like The Boys and Invincible taking on the “superheroes are bad” gritty realist over the top genre deconstructions in recent years), it’s not one that I really have much to disagree with. I have always had trouble taking the idea of superheroes seriously, which, to be fair, is probably due to my own snobbery.
My own obsessions run to popular fiction in general, and cosmic horror in particular, two of the genres that Moore also tackles in detail. After finishing his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Providence series, I was interested to read his magnum opus, Watchmen, for the first time, to better understand his style of genre subversion, and why, despite working with some fascinating ideas, his work ultimately leaves me cold.
While I’ve never been interested in superhero comics and so lack a lot of background to catch the specific tropes and ideas Moore was working with in his seminal 1986 graphic novel, I can see how it is influential, though perhaps not in a way Moore quite enjoys. Even with my ignorance of the genre, Watchmen was innovative in taking the idea of masked avengers seriously as a work of literature rather than mere escapism, as well as being the source for many mainstream superhero comics writers incorporating the gritty atmosphere but tonally missing its point. But to be honest, I can’t say I blame them.
All in all, I found Watchmen to be an engaging if ponderous read, creating a complex and detailed world and dealing with some very interesting questions, themes that continue to be relevant even more than thirty years later. What does it mean when some of our most popular fictions engage in such simplistic, wishful thinking morality? What does it say when one of our biggest corporate properties of the moment remains a cinematic universe where private superhumans are all that stand between humanity and oblivion? Who watches the watchmen, indeed? These are engaging questions that continue to stay relevant.
In Watchmen, Moore, with the artistic support of Dave Gibbons, creates an exhaustively grounded alternate late twentieth century, one in which the emergence of masked avengers and vigilantes fighting crime in the 1930s (mirroring the emergence of this trope in popular storytelling in our world). By the 1960s, the presence of a truly superpowered being led to a US victory in Vietnam and Cold War tensions escalating to a fever pitch by the ‘80s, with a nuclear holocaust between the US and the USSR all but inevitable. In this, Moore taps into the gloomy mood of the time he was writing, as the Cold War heated up again under a jingoistic and corrupt US president (here represented by a still popular Nixon). All in all, it's a world that feels lived in, realistic, with strange details that show it to not be our own (odd cigarette designs, pirate comics being popular rather than superheroes), expressed naturally.
I feel that Moore’s strengths lie in his ability to infuse a level of gravitas and engrossing detail throughout his work, working with Gibbons to bring an almost cinematic level of dynamic action to the work, even in scenes in which Dr. Manhattan is engaged in lengthy soliloquies alone on Mars or the newspaper salesman is pontificating on world affairs on the busy New York street. Gibbons’ use of vivid color and broad line strokes evokes the classic superhero comics, providing a vivid counterpoint to Moore’s at times tedious prose. Along with the historical records, memoir excerpts, and other primary documents that end each chapter, the world is brought to life. The same can not quite be said of the characters, however.
Moore peoples this familiar yet strange world with a host of deeply flawed yet understandable human beings who have, for whatever reason, opted to put on a mask and fight “crime.” While none are completely unsympathetic, these “heroes” are as human as anyone, even the guy who got reduced to his constituent atoms and gained omniscient knowledge of the universe. Whether they are grifters, callous murderers, uncompromising zealots, or just ineffectual and damaged people uncertain how to help, their desires to save others come from selfish, petty neuroses. You know, like politicians or something. And the one with actual superhuman power has been rendered cold, disconnected, dispassionate, unconcerned with the petty problems faced by humanity.
The narrative boils down its characters, whether the masked avengers or one of the everyday citizens just trying to get by in the margins, into the rather archetypical needs of the plot, rather than as living breathing people, in contrast to the detail of the world. In general, his female characters are depicted particularly badly, and his treatment of race is not much better. As the convoluted plot begins to unravel, uncovering just the type of ludicrous, over-the-top supervillain scheme celebrating the grandiose kind of overcomplicated, world-ending plans that tend to, the wider themes of the graphic novel come to the forefront. How the power fantasies projected in such works, might makes right, the ends justify the means, function in a more realist world.
In building this intricate, exhaustively grounded alternate late twentieth century, one infused with a noir sensibility painting the idea of caped crime fighters in morally ambiguous shades of gray, Moore calls to task the escapist fantasy of relying on heroes to solve the world’s problems. In a world facing problems that require the mass of humanity to work together to solve, it can be comforting to imagine a world where it can all be fixed by one morally unimpeachable team of ubermensch. The fascist implications are definitely there and as fascist thinking rears its ugly head again from the White House to the Kremlin, interrogating these messages endemic to the superhero genre continues to be relevant.
Throughout the comic, Moore focuses on what it means that this genre of fiction, supposedly relegated to juvenile fun, is so popular, even among adults, and what this says about our society. In critiquing the superhero myth, Moore relies on the tool of using “light as the best disinfectant,” to depict just how awful such power fantasies would play out if looked at seriously, issues that the source material can only hint at or paper over with childish platitudes or jingoism. By portraying these stories as thoroughly unpleasant, showing all of the far right, misogynist, and cruelty that a world with anonymous “crime fighters” would entail, Moore hopes to reveal the moral rot at the center of the genre, and by extension, the authors and culture that produce them. However, in the end, I feel that his satire escapes from him, and the tone he creates is all too easily misunderstood.
Partly, it stems from how the narrative is framed, rendering these insidious actors to be right, at least in terms of the context of the plot. From here, I’ll be discussing some plot-specific details. In the world of Watchmen, in many ways, the repugnant fascist vigilante Rorschach is the viewpoint character. We can see that crime is rampant, the government is corrupt after five terms of Nixon, and the average person is apathetic (the story of Kitty Genovese is brought up multiple times). In the end, the smelly little paranoid is proven correct in his theory that some sort of “mask killer” is behind the death of his old colleague, the Comedian, complaining all the while about the “filth” of the New York streets. Tracking down the conspiracy to discover another former teammate Ozymandias's desire to personally be the guy to pull the lever in a Trolley Problem of his own creation, a manufactured psychic space squid attack on New York to diffuse the nuclear tensions somehow, Rorschach is the only one to oppose this ludicrous plot. Rorschach’s odious beliefs are easy to dismiss when he is the only one who seems to selflessly desire justice.
In comparison to the deific Dr. Manhattan, trapped by his complete understanding of physical reality, experiencing time as happening simultaneously, unable to alter his place in the timeline or see the moral difference between the living and the dead in terms of the infinite, Roarsach tries anyway. Dr. Manhattan’s fatalism implies that the world can’t be changed, and the rest of the story that if you are even trying, you are a naive, ineffectual fool or a psychopath with delusions of grandeur.
Despite Moore’s cynical take on the genre, his sophisticated exploration of the kind of place a world with superheroes would be, what his imitators saw and ran with was how cool the idea of taking these nostalgic caped crusader stories and making them “mature.” As much as many readers misinterpreted or lost his critical message, the “coolness” of the setting certainly was not lost on them. With an entire generation of superhero writers taking the wrong message from the cynicism of Watchmen, making a darker, edgier take on the world without understanding the rejection of the power fantasy elements Watchmen focused on, it seems Moore failed in his goal to make comics fans think more deeply about the genre. In the end, it gives me a greater understanding of what I dislike about the form.
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