Not having read Alan Moore’s original short story… I have to wonder if Antony Johnston added all the racial slurs to make The Courtyard seem more “authentic.”
I’ve read the comic before (so I remember the big reveal)—I did not remember, however, the titular courtyard doesn’t even show up until the second issue—but it was probably before I’d read Moore talk about comic book writing. Besides the center spread, Jacen Burrows splits every page into two long panels. Johnston includes the text; again, whether it’s his or Moore’s is unclear.
Burrows’s artwork is good, but The Courtyard doesn’t really give him a chance to do anything. His panels are mostly static, even when he’s got an actual scene, he’s still in the same two panel format (Watchmen it ain’t).
It’s also unclear how Moore weighted the original text; the Lovecraft stuff, for example, could have been more prevalent.
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