Providence #3

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Dropping hairpins” is gay slang for dropping hints that one is gay, perhaps as a precursor to flirting. La pregunta que os vendrá a la cabeza de inmediato es si lo consiguió o no lo consiguió. Yo lo tengo claro. Y según mi humilde opinión – cada quien tendrá la suya, igual de respetable-, la respuesta es un sí rotundo. No ya solo por “ Providence” como maxiserie sino por su ejercicio de equilibrismo narrativo con respecto a las otras dos miniseries. A veces he oído que se refieren a esta obra como “ El Watchmen de las obras basadas en Lovecraft” pero esto sería una simplificación – hasta un extremo casi paródico– injusta para un obra tan compleja, intrincada y meticulosa. Una obra que he tenido que leer hasta en tres ocasiones para poder abordar de una manera que, al menos no fuera superficial y que sospecho, aguantaría muchas más relecturas, todas provechosas. Cool Air” mentions Muñoz’ interest in precious books: “the unconventional and astonishingly ancient volumes on his [Dr. Muñoz’] shelves.”

Jacen Burrows on Alan Moore's Neonomicon – Avatar Interview of the Week". Bleeding Cool. 7 June 2010 . Retrieved 22 March 2011.The Transplanting of Souls” refers to Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep,” and possibly “The Shadow Out of Time.”

Providence is one of Alan Moore’s most ambitious final projects… a full-on deconstruction and metacommentary on the entirety of Lovecraft’s body of work and the subtexts of racism, gynophobia and paranoia. It’s like a kind of Unified Theory of Lovecraft Stories. And the incomparable Jacen Burrows’ precise line art charts all the creepy horror and crawling chaos with unflinching exactness. -Adi Tantimedh The only criticism I can offer concerns the alternation, in Providence, between graphic novel and handwritten recollection. For what it's worth, the handwritten sections are interesting, providing a first-person retrospective on the events we've just encountered. This resonates nicely with the theme of a "hidden America", letting us in on our protagonist's real feelings otherwise hidden behind his polite dissimulations. They also serve as a tidy recollection of what we've just experienced. As with any solid piece of literature it requires some reflective piecing-together, a certain level of engagement from the reader. The whole thing is positively saturated with stunning ideas which demand a bit of rumination. These retrospective portions certainly help with that. However they sometimes tend to drag a little, even interrupting the rhythm of the narrative. Perhaps they might have been trimmed some without harming things? Readers with a better grasp of NYC history and geography, please comment. This appears to be a Bryant Park slightly different that what actually existed in 1919. Our lives, the world, it’s all just lies, it’s all a story that we’re making up until a more compelling story comes along.”– This ties in to a frequent Moore theme that “stories are real”. Within the context of Providence, it may also be foreshadowing of the exchange between dreams and reality. The Yellow Book spine designs by Aubrey Beardsley, from P33 of Alan Moore’s 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom

All of Lovecraft is Here, Even Lovecraft Himself

The street sign says W. 19th Street. The view is looking south on 5th Avenue at 19th Street, similar to this contemporary Google street view. After completing Dossier in 2007, Moore turned to three major projects: Jerusalem, a million-word prose novel to be published in spring 2016, more League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books, and Neonomicon (2010) and Providence (2015- ), two comic-book contributions to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Moore’s interest in Lovecraft, however, predates the mid-2000s. In 1994, Moore wrote “The Courtyard,” a Mythos prose short story published in the anthology A Starry Wisdom: A Tribute to H.P. Lovecraft (1995). A two-issue comics adaptation of “The Courtyard” followed in 2003 from Avatar Press. Este “ Providence” es una de las obras menos reivindicadas de Alan Moore y al mismo tiempo – para mí– uno de sus mejores trabajos. Estamos ante una maxiserie que podría situarse tranquilamente a la altura de su “ Watchmen” o su “ V de Vendetta”, por poner dos ejemplos por todos conocidos. Es un cómic que consigue una atmósfera terrorífica como pocas veces – o ninguna– he visto y mete al lector en una experiencia inmersiva y subyugante. Como he dicho al comienzo de esta reseña, exige un compromiso para quienes se acerquen a la obra. No es un tomo que pueda -o no debería- leerse como mero divertimento. Seguir la trama y disfrutar de cada detalle requiere un esfuerzo consciente que no todo el mundo puede o quiere brindar a una obra de ficción. Also, and this is very obvious too, but not noted anywhere, the tree on the cover, and its shadow, are very suggestive of tentacles, and what could be more Lovecraftian?

Personally I didn't find the extreme gore and sex and other choices, often vividly presented in the excellent art, that hard to cope with; but they did make my eyes go wide in "oh no you didn't!" reactions sometimes. I have a strong stomach. Lovecraft would react otherwise! According to Wikipedia, Lovecraft wrote “Cool Air” during his unhappy stay in New York City, during which he wrote three horror stories with a New York setting. The building that is the story’s main setting is based on a townhouse at 317 West 14th Street where George Kirk, one of Lovecraft’s few New York friends, lived briefly in 1925.It takes hubris, or at least a cheeky sense of humor, to compare yourself to Shakespeare, but Moore makes his point: his Tempest will be his last comic, just as The Tempest was Shakespeare’s last play, though I personally wouldn’t object if Moore flipped in and out of retirement like Hayao Miyazaki. De l’Isle Adam” is Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, a French symbolist writer whose collection Contes cruels (1883) gave name to an entire genre of horror fiction. Alan Moore heavily researched the series; in a six-month period he acquired "nearly every book of [Lovecraft] criticism that’s been written". [2] Brears’ slumped shoulders and slightly bowed head (nicely captured by Burrows) convey defeat. She knows she’s returned to a job where she will be defined by her sex addiction, by the men who took advantage of her or wish they’d done so. Brears’ situation is “a particularly lucid exposé of the predicaments and contradictions of women’s existence under patriarchy,” and our sympathies lie with the vulnerable woman trapped in the torturous environment. Fischer, Craig (February 3, 2016). "Providence: Lovecraft, Sexual Violence, and the Body of the Other". The Comics Journal.

Moore has been leaving comics for a long time. In an interview with Jon B. Cooke in Comic Book Artist #25 (2003), Moore discussed his plans to bring his America’s Best Comics line to an apocalyptic finish in late 2003 (although he left open the possibility of publishing future League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books through ABC/DC). After years of grueling deadlines, Moore wanted to move into more personal and less predictable art-making: Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary, or merely virtual phenomenon.A map of Providence, Rhode Island, where H. P. Lovecraft was born and lived most of his life. Prominent at the top is Swan Point Cemetery, where Lovecraft is buried. Commenter Sithoid found the source: Cram’s Atlas Of The World (1901) Commenter David Milne points out that “Book of the Wisdom of the Stars” sounds like The Starry Wisdom, the name of the Lovecraft-inspired compilation where Alan Moore’s story The Courtyard first appeared. That book title referenced a fictional cult of worshipers of Nyarlathotep, the “Church of Starry Wisdom” which appears in Lovecraft’s story “The Haunter of the Dark.” More generally, the title would also apply to real-world Arabic works of astrology like the Picatrix, which may have inspired Lovecraft’s Necronomicon.