Alan Moore's Providence

[FanboyStranger]

Whoa... Jacen Burrows is a FANTASTIC artist. When stuff starts getting weird and strange later on, his clean lines will be a most welcomed sight.

I agree he's a good artist, and he's done some great work in the past. What this issue required more than anything is an underlying atmosphere of dread, and we didn't really get that. I'm sure when the more cosmic aspects of the story appear, Burrows will be more in his wheelhouse, but he's not an artist who brings much to characters sitting around and having conversations. It all felt a little clinical and bland.

[Batmil]

I just picked it up and read it. As someone who has next to zero knowledge of H.P Lovecraft's work (besides knowing he created Cthulhu) I found this issue very confusing. Besides the suicide there wasn't much happening but it did kept me.. intrigued. Though this feels like a book I should be picking up in OHC when the time comes. I think this has potential to become another classic.

[Ragdoll]

Issue 2 came out today, it was pretty spooky.
spoilers:

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there wasn't any gas leak.

end of spoilers

[The Beast Of Yucca Flats]

I read #4 yesterday after dinner, and this is the best horror book I've seen since Locke & Key ended; and it may very well be Moore's best achievement from this decade.

[The Beast Of Yucca Flats]

Here's a site of Jess Nevins-type annotations for this, in case anyone's interested in a companion read:

http://factsprovidence.wordpress.com

[FanboyStranger]

I read #4 yesterday after dinner, and this is the best horror book I've seen since Locke & Key ended; and it may very well be Moore's best achievement from this decade.

I really like the book, and I think Moore's end is great, especially the text pieces. I'm just not feeling Burrows' art on it, though. There's some nice moments in every issue, but there isn't much atmosphere overall. His style is just too clean for my tastes.

[Ragdoll]

Just finished #4. I love how the protagonist comes face to face with the supernatural in every issue yet always convinced himself it is something normal. He gets chased in an underground passageway and convinces himself it was a gas leak induced hallucination. He believes he watched seals migrating at the end of #3. He believes he met a bunch of crazy people in #4 and not that he just met demonic spawn and an invisible monster.

Anyone want to be kind enough to give a quick summary of the journal entries from the back? I never have the patience for them.

Also, is Robert Black supposed to be Robert Bloch?

[The Beast Of Yucca Flats]

Anyone want to be kind enough to give a quick summary of the journal entries from the back? I never have the patience for them.

Honestly, I recall doing the same thing with Watchmen my first time. But like Watchmen, they ultimately really give an enhancement to the narrative.

Also, is Robert Black supposed to be Robert Bloch?

Bloch was the basis for a pastiched character (which the annotations talk a little bit more of) in Lovecraft's "The Haunter Of The Dark," but mostly, the basic germ for Robert Black was from George Chauncey's Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940.

[CaptCleghorn]

I have gone drinking with people living on North Orange Road. In retrospect, I probably should have picked up that round.

[Ragdoll]

Did anyone read issue 6? That was the craziest one yet! How has this dude still not accepted that some truly evil stuff is happening and just gone home. He keeps convincing himself things that happened didn't actually occur. Like this issue, he was all "Whoa, you must have hypnotized me!?" haha dude, get with it.
spoilers:

You just got turned into a 13 year old girl and raped, leave town.

end of spoilers

[t hedge coke]

Ragdoll, when I was teaching a Lit class last term, I was suddenly struck by how out of Lovecraft, we really do get this strain of horror fiction where everything would be solved in the person in question would just pick up their bag and go home. Just leave.

But, they never do, because if they did, it wouldn't be horror.

(Not the most revelatory note, I know, but I hadn't noticed it as a clear sub-genre before. The just-walk-away-now genre.)

[Ragdoll]

This book has been so good! With this months issue, we got a Pickman's Model homage. And next month, we'll get
spoilers:

Randolph Carter!!!!!

end of spoilers
Soooo hyped for that one. I'm loving this little tour of the Lovecraft world.

[Random4]

So i havn't been following Providence in a while (lack of funds)

so how is it going

[Ragdoll]

New issue dropped today. I did not expect HP Lovecraft to be an actual character in this, seeing as half the other characters are characters from Lovecraft stories. This issue featured Randolph Carter giving us explicit instructions on how to lucid dream (which I plan on attempting ASAP) in one of the trippiest sequences of the book yet. This book is pure genius.

So i havn't been following Providence in a while (lack of funds)

so how is it going

It is Moore's greatest work to date, surpassing Watchmen IMO.

[The Beast Of Yucca Flats]

...

After this, #9 could honestly be Planetary-level late, and I wouldn't mind a damn bit.