Reviews

Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths by Alan Moore, Alan David Doane, Juan José Ryp, Jacen Burrows

mattycakesbooks's review against another edition

4.0

As others have mentioned, don't read this book if you're looking for more Moore stuff that fits into the Cthulhu Mythos... there are a few pieces that focus on Lovecraft, but for the most part, it's just a collection of short pieces by Moore. My favorites were Recognition (about Lovecraft's father), Leviticus 20, The Nativity on Ice, and I Keep Coming Back, Moore's coda to the absolutely amazing From Hell. I can't imagine enjoying I Keep Coming Back, though, if I hadn't read From Hell and spent some time myself in the Ten Bells and the East End of London... it seems to be a bit out-of-context otherwise.

It's Alan Moore, so of course it's great. But it's more about him than it is about Lovecraft.

jammasterjamie's review against another edition

3.0

Don't let the title fool you - Most of the content in this book isn't actually by Alan Moore. The Moore stuff is all pretty good and I enjoyed the interviews and essays more than I thought I would, but this book really only has value to me as a Moore completist and won't be high on my re-read list.

arthurbdd's review against another edition

2.0

Not quite what you expect from the cover. This consists of a grab-bag of Moore off-cuts, some of which are more Lovecraftian than others, a few adaptations by Antony Johnston of some Moore writings into comic form (but, to my understanding, Moore did not contribute to the adaptation - so it's not Johnston illustrating Moore's script, it's Johnston constructing a script from Moore's original and then illustrating that), and a whole bunch of third-rate Mythos pastiches from Johnston which Moore was never involved in whatsoever.

None of this is particularly essential, needless to say. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2018/06/11/alan-moores-yuggoth-pastiches/

neven's review

3.0

A jumbled collection of some rare Moore shorts and a cycle of Lovecraftian stories, only for completists. There are a few very solid comics here (Cold Snap is a fun, lovely reminder of his AD 2000 work) but the Yuggoth material is Lovecraftian in every sense of the word: enchanting and poetic at a glance, but ultimately boring and arbitrary. Moore has been criticized for taking the Lovecraft mythos and reworking it into standalone tales that reinterpret its mythology. That usually makes for far more entertaining and ultimately meaningful stuff than the honest-to-god tales of madness here, which just sort of roll on and on in Moore's always-commanding language, but without really arriving anywhere at all.