Ah, I misremembered. I thought this issue ended with an insanely graphic scene. It doesn’t, it’s all implied… which means on the second reading (or whatever) it’s a lot less intense.

There are three or four double-page spreads here, so I guess Burrows does get to do some work. It’s good he gets to do them, even if they’re gross, because the rest of the issue is pretty boring. It’s mostly scene work, but he’s stuck with the two panels a page and it really doesn’t work for someone walking up a flight of stairs.

The Lovecraft reference—the Cthulhu name-dropping—is clearer in the end, but it comes during an early Photoshop (changing color-tones—I hope Burrows got paid for each page, even though the last three are identical illustrations) and it really doesn’t matter.

I hope Moore bought himself something nice with his Courtyard paycheck.

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.