Just read the latest book set in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen universe (It's OK, I'm allowed to read it, I haven't been reading Before Watchmen. Thinking about it, though, I'm not so sure. I mean, my reason for not reading Before Watchmen is more "It didn't sound interesting to me" and not "Alan Moore wouldn't want me to". Does intent count? Doubtless I am skating on thin ice here - and I don't even know how to skate!).
The book centers around Janni, daughter and successor to Captain Nemo, who robs Queen Ayesha of Kor, and is pursued to the Antarctic by American scientists in on behalf of Ayesha's host, an American industrialist. There they wander into the landscape of "At the Mountains of Madness" by our Howard, and eldritch shenanigans ensue.
The book is OK. Moore is obviously familiar with Lovecraft's work, and O'Neill's artwork - while I'm not generally overwhelmed by it - suits this kind of story. It's just that that story as a whole is kind of lightweight, somehow. For a Lovecraft pastiche by Alan Moore, the story is kind of - pedestrian - somehow. It's almost as though Moore, coming up against one of the few writers whose stuff is measurably weirder than his, is stymied somehow.
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Must be a misquote here. Can't find the word "allowed" anywhere in it.
Is the Ayesha the same one that Rider Hagard wrote about in She and She and Alan?
Figserello said:
If attempting to be funny was a crime, I couldn't get arrested...
Mark S. Ogilvie said:
I believe so.
Did you read Moore's Necronomicon? Now that's a pretty wild pastiche\commentary on Lovecraft. Rough stuff.
I was annoyed that Nemo wasn't in my LCS last week. Hopefully this week.
Read Neonomicon yesterday. It was OK, competently written and the artwork was quite good. Overall, fairly mundane stuff. I've come to think that our Howard's stuff just doesn't work well in a "visual" medium - I suspect that there's a certain amount of truth to the old saw that the monsters we come up with in our imaginations are always scarier/more disturbing than ones presented to us on film or on paper.
My copy of "The first page Google throws up with a definition in it" defines Mundane as
Or
I'd understand someone not liking it - very much so. I'm not sure what to make of it myself. But I can't say it fits those definitions of mundane. I haven't read too much like it in my time, that's for sure. It doesn't quite 'soar' artistically as much of Moore's work does, but it is a descent into a sewer, after all.
It all depends on what you consider "ordinary", I suppose.