Neonomicon

Neonomicon is a four-issue comic book limited series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Jacen Burrows, published by Avatar Press in 2010. The story is a sequel to Moore's previous story Alan Moore's The Courtyard and part of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. On March 2012 it became the first recipient of the newly created "Graphic Novel" category at the Bram Stoker Awards.

Publication history
Moore talked about the genesis of the project in an interview with Wired Magazine: "It was just at the time when I finally parted company with DC Comics over something dreadful that happened around the Watchmen film [...] I had a tax bill coming up, and I needed some money quickly. So I happened to be talking to William [A. Christensen] from Avatar Press, and he suggested that he could provide some if I was up for doing a four-part series, so I did. So although I took it to pay off the tax bill, I’m always going to make sure I try and make it the best possible story I can."

Moore wanted to elaborate on some of the ideas presented in The Courtyard while at the same time telling a modern story that didn't rely upon a 1930's atmosphere. Another idea was to use some of the elements he felt Lovecraft himself and pastiche writers censored or left out of the stories, such as the racism and sexual phobias. Moore explains: "Lovecraft was sexually squeamish; would only talk of ‘certain nameless rituals.’ Or he’d use some euphemism: ‘blasphemous rites.’ It was pretty obvious, given that a lot of his stories detailed the inhuman offspring of these ‘blasphemous rituals’ that sex was probably involved somewhere along the line. But that never used to feature in Lovecraft’s stories, except as a kind of suggested undercurrent. So I thought, let’s put all of the unpleasant racial stuff back in, let’s put sex back in. Let’s come up with some genuinely ‘nameless rituals’: let’s give them a name."

Plot synopsis
FBI Agents Lamper and Brears visit former Agent Aldo Sax at a psychiatric hospital to discover what led him to commit two murders after a copycat using his same MO arises. Sax speaks nothing but the unintelligible Aklo language, but Lamper and Brears follow his previous investigation to track down drug dealer Johnny Carcosa in Red Hook. Carcosa escapes, mysteriously, into the mural in the courtyard of his apartment building, and the agents track disturbing sex paraphernalia, all related to the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, found in his apartment to a speciality shop in Salem, Massachusetts. Undercover as husband and wife, they attend an orgy located in an underground pool hosted by the owners of the shop, members of a Cult of Dagon who regularly indulge in sex rituals to attract the sexual attention of a race of fishmen. Lamper and Brears are discovered as agents and Lamper is killed by the cultists. One of the fishmen arrives and rapes Brears, and continues to do so for several days after the cultists lock her in with the creature. While imprisoned, Brears has a vision of Johnny Carcosa, who reveals himself as an avatar of Nyarlathotep, one of the Great Old Ones.

The creature sees Brears urinating and then tastes the urine performing a pregnancy test. The creature then helps her escape into the ocean through the sewers leading into the ocean. Brears contacts the FBI to send a raid to the shop and the underground pool. They find the cultists killed by the creature, whom the raiding party kills in turn. Three months later, Brears visits Sax, revealing her newfound comprehension of Aklo and her pregnancy with the child of the fishman, foretold to her by her vision of Carcosa. She realises that the apocalyptic events in Lovecraft's writings are true, but occurred not in the distant past, but will occur in the near future, beginning with the birth of her child, who will be Cthulhu.

Collected editions
The series was collected into a single volume, available in both hardcover and softcover. Both versions include the coloured edition of The Courtyard.


 * Neonomicon (176 pages, hardcover, November 2011, ISBN 1-59291-131-5)
 * Neonomicon (176 pages, paperback, November 2011, ISBN 1-59291-130-7)

Reception
A public library director in Greenville, South Carolina made the decision to remove the book from library shelves in January 2013 after a patron objected to its content.