Providence, Act 1 (Graphic Novel) (Horror)

by Alan Moore (writer) & Jacen Burrows (artist)

Publisher: Avatar Press, First Edition (May 3, 2016)

Hardcover, 160 pages 

          This is part one of Alan Moore’s love letter to H. P. Lovecraft, but it’s not the greatest story ever penned. In fact, it’s rather bland. If it wasn’t for the fact that a big name like Alan Moore is attached, the series probably would have been canceled. While I sincerely wanted to like this story, I walked away with a meh feeling. I think this was a tale that would’ve been better told as a prose novel.

          Perhaps it has something to do with the art.  It is competent, but not artistic. It is there doing a fine job of predicting what it needs to, but the action lies flat. There is no energy, no life, to the portraiture. It feels churned out, almost paint by numbers. Well, not that bad, but it certainly lacks a spark. If they wanted to catch the drabness of a cold New England autumn day, they did so. Unfortunately, it detracts rather than adds to the story.

          Now I’m not saying the story is particularly bad, it’s just not particularly good. It follows a reporter looking into the various deaths and events surrounding a book, Sous Le Monde, and leads him to strange places and odd people. This volume contains only the first four of twelve issues, so not much is set up. If you are unfamiliar with H. P. Lovecraft’s work then you will miss a lot of references. And if you are, you might just want to go back and reread him instead of this volume.

Apparently, the author spent a lot of time researching the material that went into this book, pulling events, places, and people right from the pages of history, but it doesn’t really show in this volume. For those who remember, he did the same thing with his Jack the Ripper book, From Hell, but the research aspect was much more evident in the story. I feel that how much time he spent on it was a publicity stunt.

          This first edition was further hyped by the fact that the publisher announced that it would only be printing 6,666 copies (Oooooo spooky. It’s like the antichrist with one more 6). I bought this copy years ago, but never got around to reading it until today. When I rechecked the price, I nearly choked. Do not get ripped off buying this volume, unless you desperately want it. Wait for the collected edition. While the publisher claims that it won’t be happening until sometime in the far future, in reality all we have to do it wait for them to have one bad quarter and watch it come out in a hurry.

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.