W O R D S 1

Alan Moore's The Courtyard: Awesome. This is a 48-page reprint of a two-parter. I'd read the second half of it many moons ago and was always looking for more of it. I couldn't even find the book I'd originally read (it had gotten misplaced, is still missing now) to look it up by name, but I knew it was vaguely about a narcotics cop looking into a new drug. After reading the first half, it's no wonder I didn't understand that the story was over in that part I'd read. The whole story is actually about a cop who's looking into a serial killing spree that has three different perps, but all with the same exact M.O. This detective is an anomoly theorist or something and pulls together seemingly random details to, for lack of a better phrase, make order from the chaos. His investigation then leads him to a drug. The drug is called AKLO. But in the end, the drug ends up being not a physical drug, but a primordial language. The language, when heard while under the influence of a minor hallucinogen Moore calls DCM 7 or something, causes hallucinations of great intensity. All three perps had heard the language. And after the cop hears it, he ends the story by committing a murder in the same style as the other perps. It's not totally obvious, cuz there's no pictures of it in the story, he's just sort of describes it and we're looking at the cop. It also refers to the beginning of the story, which, as I said, I didn't read. Despite all that, I was very struck by the first part of the story, which was why I was looking for it for so long. I'm so glad the reprint came out.

Garth Ennis writes an intro for the book and he commends Moore for being so brief for such an interesting concept, and I have to agree it's commendable. It was such an interesting story and I didn't want it to be over. But it made sense since the main character was kind of psychotic at the end.

Jacen Burrows illustrates this book and, especially with the illustrations of the AKLO-induced hallucinations, it is pretty damn awesome. I wonder if Moore was satisfied with them, because one of his verbal descriptions in the narration didn't quite match the panel, but the illustration was still very very cool.

Brian posted at 1:12 PM.