The great bard of Northampton, England has the first part of a new Lovecraftian graphic novel out now, as a $1.99 preview sampler titled Neonomicon: The Hornbook (a “hornbook” is an old disused word for a school writing slate). The full graphic novel version of Neonomicon is apparently set for later in 2010, as a leather-bound limited edition of 3,000 copies.

The horror in Neonomicon is unfortunately said to be of the “gore” variety, thus breaking with Lovecraft’s hints and elisions to graphically show intricate nastiness — perhaps Moore is aiming at something in the manner of Lord Horror, and in doing so is seeking to challenge petty British censorship in the same way as he did with Lost Girls. As for me, I’ll be waiting until the whole series is published before considering reading it. I dislike the modern tendency of comics publishing to dribble out stories in pamphlet parts, to scrape more money from the fans.

Bleeding Cool website has an interview with the artist Jacen Burrows, as does the Comics Bulletin.

Moore has of course tackled Lovecraft once before, also with Jacen Burrows as the artist, in the short comic The Courtyard. This was an adaptation of his short contribution to the anthology The Starry Wisdom: A Tribute To H. P. Lovecraft (2003), and it was not very well received by his fans — I gather that it was oversold as a “new graphic novel”, and so the fans were looking for a new Moore blockbuster. What they got was only a slight 74 page comic — which is why you can currently find it very cheap on Amazon. The Neonomicon apparently serves as a sequel to The Courtyard.