Comic review: Alan Moore’s Providence #3- A black, fishy comedy that mocks Christianity

Writer: Alan Moore
Artist: Jacen Burrows
Publisher: Avatar Press
Released: 12 August 2015



I’ve read this book more than a few times now, and have been afraid of reviewing it. The reason being, it’s complex, and a review wouldn’t be easy, and I don’t want to mess it up. However, I’ve read it again today, and can see a slither of meaning amongst the murkiness, and so, I’m ready to give it a go.

Fishy men collecting souls in bottles.

Okay then, so what’s it all about? I think that the following quotation (from the book itself) nicely sums it all up:

‘It’s leaking from the future.’

That’s how I see the book now. That’s why in issue #3 there are weird, disjointed dream sequences, giving hints that are confused (as all dreams are) with events that are currently happening in the life of the main protagonist.

Our man is dreaming of the future, but it’s mixed up with his every day anxieties, his feelings of guilt, and his longings for answers in the present. We are seeing the world through his eyes (as is reinforced by the diary extracts that follow the main comic book narrative) and the confusion that he is experiencing is being transferred into the reading experience of the reader.

The dream sequences (of the main protagonist) are explored in great detail during the diary sections of the book and expand the narrative after the main illustrated part of the book concludes. Within this diary section are clues for the reader, clues that hint at both what is happening, and what is to come. It’s a fascinating story-telling device, and something that adds so much to the comic book reading experience, adding subtle elements, and details that would otherwise have been lost within the necessarily truncated comic book story format.

After reading the main comic book text, and the diary extracts, I cannot help but conclude that our protagonist is a bit of a dim detective. He is preoccupied with homosexual urges that distract him from the clues that can be picked up by the attentive reader, and although he records everything, he is not exactly coming to any big conclusions for himself. I guess that’s our job. Our protagonist records the evidence, and it’s up to us to unravel and make meaning of it all.

Into the caverns of the mind.

Providence is an occult mystery narrative that is dropping clues as it goes along. It’s a complex, involving book, and that’s exactly what you want in a genre book of this type.

The protagonist has to be a bit dim, as he’s laying out the clues, not solving them. The enjoyment to be had here is in following the story, and speculating about what is going on, whilst always being a bit in the dark as the full picture has yet to be revealed.

As for the deeper meanings that lay behind the narrative, that’s even murkier, but at the moment I detect a black comedy that involves jews, fish people, and homosexuals. It’s hinted that all three groups are about to be persecuted by the upcoming Nazi regime, with the black comedy being that two of the group are real, and were persecuted, whilst the other is pure Alan Moore weirdness.

The main focus of Providence #3 is the aforementioned fish people. These half-human, half fish follow a religion that’s part Christianity, and part worship of an ancient Mesopotamian fish God called Oannes.

‘Oannes, in Mesopotamian mythology, an amphibious being who taught mankind wisdom. Oannes, as described by the Babylonian priest Berosus, had the form of a fish but with the head of a man under his fish’s head and under his fish’s tail the feet of a man. In the daytime he came up to the seashore of the Persian Gulf and instructed mankind in writing, the arts, and the sciences. Oannes was probably the emissary of Ea, god of the freshwater deep and of wisdom.’
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Oannes

The fictional fish religion in Providence substitutes Oannes into the role of Christ himself, and is thus blackly blasphemous, disrespectful and contemptuous of Jesus Christ and Christianity as a whole.

Dream sequences include gratuitous nudity, be warned. 

What writer Alan Moore is doing here is insinuating that Christianity itself is a mixed up religion that has taken weird elements from earlier cult worship, creating a new cult that is equally as ridiculous as what came before it.

To further reinforce this point, the book concludes with the ‘Church of St. Jude’s Parish Newsletter.’ This is a comedic, absurdist attack on the origins of Christianity, mocking Jesus by making him a fish on a slab, resurrected and thus followed by all fish that have come after him as the one true messiah of all fish.

‘And they said, let us thake him out and hang him upon hooks that he may cure. Yet many tides did not pass before he was risen from his slab and was descended unto Heaven, through black abysses to dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.’ (The Parish Church of Saint Jude, 138 Bridge Street, Salem, Mass. June- August, 1919)

Pretty silly, isn’t it? Christians are often mocked for taking allegorical Bible stories literally, but this really is taking things to a whole new level.

I have to point out that Alan Moore is picking very low hanging fruit here in mocking the origins of Christianity. It’s something that is allowed, and even encouraged, so I’m not going to applaud him for doing it. If he was mocking Judaism or Islam then I’d applaud him, but he’s not doing that, probably because doing so would be truly controversial, and dangerous.

Alan Moore is not being brave, or outrageous, or scandalous, or cutting edge in mocking the origins of Christianity and talking about a weird fish cult, insinuating that Christianity itself is pretty much the same thing. Sorry, he’s just not. He’s doing what you are allowed to do in our neo-liberal, atheist times, but he’s doing it very well, and Providence is noticeably superior to 99% of the other comic books that I read on a weekly basis.

Providence #3 then is a studious, intelligent, dark occult comic book, but it’s also, very much nestled within the centrally planned social consensus norms and mores of our neo-liberal, cultural Marxist times. Get it, enjoy it, have a laugh with it, but please, recognise it for what it actually is.


Rating: 9/10 (Blackly comic tale that is mocking the origins of Christianity)



Note:
I do realise that Providence is packed with references to H.P Lovecraft and that this book is more than likely a progressive/liberal critique of the identity politics issues within his work. I recognise that, but as I’m not particularly familiar with the PC thought crimes committed by H.P Lovecraft I’ve reviewed this new book by Alan Moore as a stand-alone text. 

Comic review- Alan Moore’s Providence #2- The world, the mind, a cavern

Writer: Alan Moore
Artist: Jacen Burrows
Publisher: Avatar Press
Released: 8th July 2015



Providence #2 can be a bit confusing on a first read, but after you go over it a couple of times it begins to make a lot of sense.

At the end of the main comic book strip there is a section of written text. This written text is the diary of the main protagonist, and in this section he describes what has happened in the main book, directly from his point of view and from his own personal understanding of the unfolding events. This technique of using the protagonist’s diary serves two purposes.

1- It clarifies plot points that might otherwise have been missed by the unattentive reader.

2- It allows Alan Moore to make excuses for the gullibility, and sheer stupidity of his main protagonist.

That protagonist is a journalist, an educated, scholarly man, so to see him blunder through the narrative, missing every single clue that noisily clatters around his feet (and there are lots of them) is a bit too much to take. It stresses incredulity to breaking point and you end up thinking, ‘This guy must be the biggest moron in the world if he cannot work out what is going on, because it’s as clear as day. It’s pretty obvious that the people he is investigating are witches/warlocks and what they are doing is engaging in child sacrifice, eating a weird diet and conjuring demons in order to prolong their lives and well, do whatever it is that witches and warlocks do.’

So why doesn’t this supposedly erudite guy see what is so flippin obvious to the reader? Is he really as foolish as he appears to be? Well, no, he's not, and it’s all explained in the diary section. There are two excuses for his apparent idiocy:

1- He’s blinded by lust/love, so is incapable of seeing what is right in front of his own face.

2- He doesn’t believe in what he sees with his own eyes anyway, due to his reading of dream interpretation theory by world famous bs artist Carl Jung.

If you buy that (and I will, because I want to enjoy the book) then you can let go, and have fun with it. The story is about the occult, life extension, secret societies, hidden books of magic, witches, demons, parallel dimensions, and everything else that goes woooo woooo in the night.

I love reading about secret spooky stuff, and this book is certainly delivering on that front. I read it four times today, and on the last read I found something new, something that I had somehow missed on the first read. I love it when that happens as it shows that the writer is putting a lot of work into the book, and that he expects his readers to put the same work in as well, just to keep up with him.

I really appreciate a writer (and artist) who pay special attention to the smaller details of their book, and that is what you are getting here. As ever with Mr. Moore his work really does stand alone as something a bit special, something that has taken a fair amount of time, effort, research and imagination to construct. Providence is a book that has been carefully laboured upon, and it’s very apparent that it’s meant to be savoured slowly, and enjoyed. For that reason alone it’s a must buy book, and once again my book of the week. Take your time with it, have fun, then read it again, and read it again. The more you read, the more you get, and that really is the sign of a very good book.


Rating: 10/10 (Deep caverns, lots going on)

Alan Moore’s New Comic Book (Review)- Providence #1: An Open Doorway to the Occult

Writer: Alan Moore
Artist: Jacen Burrows
Publisher: Avatar Press
Released: 27th May 2015



Mr. Moore has a good story-telling technique going on here that just might entice the feminist liberal types into an understanding that there are deeper things happening in the world than they are at present conscious of.

The technique is to present his story ‘Providence’ through the eyes of a closeted homosexual, Jewish news reporter. The book is set in the post WW1 period in the US, a time and place where being a homosexual Jew might have a detrimental impact upon your career. This man has two huge secrets, and he has already experienced tragedy in his personal life. That tragedy links him to the main story, and with the idea that just as this man hides his deepest, darkest secrets in order to blend in with the everyday world, so does another more powerful group of people.

‘There is a concealed country, therefore, hidden below the society we show the world. Uncomfortable truth, it lurks behind our pretences.’

Sounds like a member of the illuminati speaking some truth behind closed doors, don’t you think? Throw in the fact that the man who is saying these words is obviously doing something that involves prolonging his own life, and you have a link to transhumanism, or the idea that man can become immortal through technology. Well, only certain kinds of men, obviously.

The Billionaire controllers of this world fear death so much that they are investing heavily in life enhancement technology. Why do they fear death so much, are they not religious people? That’s the issue. They are religious people, but rather than being on the side of God, they are on the side of Satan.

Transhumanism offers these criminal ‘elites’ the possibility of avoiding their inevitable day of judgement, when they will have to pay for the crimes they are committing against humanity. If they live forever, they will never have to pay for their crimes.

Providence #1 hints at these secret world controllers and transhumanism, but it’s not aimed at people like me, people who already talk about these kinds of things. Alan Moore is being clever here. He is strategically aiming the book at the generation of children who have been brought up by feminist liberal Marxist ideologies in their schooling. What he is doing in this book is giving them occulted truth that they might otherwise instantly (like a trained parrot) dismiss as ‘conspiracy theories’ and thus, not even bother engaging with.

By using one of their own heroes (a tormented gay guy) he is giving them exactly what they want to read, but placing occulted truths about the real nature of world power into that feminist liberal friendly narrative.

It’s a magic trick performed by a skilled master of misdirection. Look at the left hand, whilst what I am doing is concealed in the right.

The book itself is wonderfully crafted. It’s subtle, you have to take you time reading it, and there are joys to be had in re-reading it at least two times over, as trust me, you’ll see things on the second or third read through that you missed on the first. The book is literary, huge in scope, and is more of a novel than a comic book, even concluding with a long essay from the main protagonist in something called a ‘Commonplace Book.’

This ‘Commonplace Book’ clarifies not just the plot, but the sense of empathy that the reader will feel for the tormented protagonist, and as I’ve mentioned repeatedly throughout this review, that empathy is the key to getting Moore’s message across here.

Providence #1 is a fascinating book, not just because of the superior comic book construction skills of Mr. Moore, but because it’s hinting at deeper truths, and allowing readers an easy, open doorway where they can casually stroll through and discover those hidden truths for themselves. Mr. Moore, you are a genius, a very clever dude indeed, and I applaud what you are doing here.



Rating: 10/10 (Mr. Moore’s friendly invite into the world of the occult)