Abstract
This essay considers how the idea of voyeurism is explored in writer Alan Moore and artist Jacen Burrows’ comic book Providence. The notion of voyeurism in this particular comic is examined used interdisciplinary approaches, including architecture theory – as the depiction of architecture on the page facilitates acts of voyeurism – and film theory, as the comic uses elements of cinematic framing within panels. The essay looks at how the main character’s homosexuality is depicted as a disruptive element to the places that he travels through, leading to, first, a break down in social order, and then ultimately reality itself. As the comic is well researched, bringing in elements of American history and geography, plus many references to H.P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre, these aspects of the narrative are also examined, to consider each aspect of the comic that presents a narrative of hidden sexuality, and hidden societies in 1920s America.
Keywords: Homosexuality; Voyeurism; Comics; Architecture; Americana
This essay considers how the idea of voyeurism is explored in writer Alan Moore and artist Jacen Burrows’ comic book Providence. The notion of voyeurism in this particular comic is examined used interdisciplinary approaches, including architecture theory – as the depiction of architecture on the page facilitates acts of voyeurism – and film theory, as the comic uses elements of cinematic framing within panels. The essay looks at how the main character’s homosexuality is depicted as a disruptive element to the places that he travels through, leading to, first, a break down in social order, and then ultimately reality itself. As the comic is well researched, bringing in elements of American history and geography, plus many references to H.P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre, these aspects of the narrative are also examined, to consider each aspect of the comic that presents a narrative of hidden sexuality, and hidden societies in 1920s America.
Keywords: Homosexuality; Voyeurism; Comics; Architecture; Americana
In Voyeurism: A Case Study, Simon Duff (2018) defines the phenomenon as ‘a behaviour… that involves observation of someone or something, it is intended to be secret, and… there is some form of sexual element to it’. [1] This relationship between covert observer and a person being observed without their knowledge [2] is an idea that is explored in many texts, and many different media. It is a leitmotif in many thrillers and psychodramas, to the extent that film theorist Chris Dumas suggests there might even be a ‘canonical genre that we would have to call “the Hitchcockian voyeurism thriller”’. [3] Certainly, furtive observation for both malign and benign reasons inform some of the director’s most famous films, including Rear Window (1954) and Psycho (1960), and connections between the former film and the topic of this essay will be discussed below.
In the medium of comics and sequential art, voyeurism is also an idea than informs certain narratives, with additional consequences in engaging with these narratives for the reader. Comics is a medium which can give the reader insight into how people interact with architectural spaces, and while voyeurism can occur in natural surroundings – one might imagine a voyeur hiding behind thick foliage – it is something that certain architectural constructions aid, with many aspects of the built environment favouring voyeuristic activities, such as looking through windows and partially-opened doorways. This being the case, there are many aspects of comics as a storytelling medium that aid this consideration. As a ‘static’ medium (compared to film or television), comics allow the eye to linger on a single comic panel for as long as the reader desires, and allow the reader to consider how this panel can give information about the activities of characters drawn within its frame. This also gives the reader a voyeuristic gaze, able to scrutinise private activities in otherwise concealed spaces.
Gendered spaces
Beatriz Colomina discusses the gendering of architectural spaces, and ‘rooms where sexuality is hidden away’ in her essay ‘The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism’. [4] In a survey of the rooms that one might find in a house, she suggests that certain rooms are coded in terms of their uses by different genders. ‘Male’ spaces are categorised as ones that are more often used by men, and she lists such rooms as the library and the office as having more of a masculine aura to them. Conversely, bearing in mind the activities of the stereotypical straight male gaze, she notes spaces where women can be freely observed as being more female. This dividing up of spaces also includes notions of privacy and solitude – the library and the office having aspects of these – while a drawing room being more open to all visitors is less private. Colomina then uses words with sexual overtones to describe passage through these spaces, calling them ‘intimate’, and places that can be ‘penetrated’.
The depiction of human interaction in such coded spaces in the comic panel allows the reader to view activities that would otherwise be concealed from other people via the occlusion of their gaze through closed curtains, doors, and non–transparent walls. The latter is a tool available to both the filmmaker and comic artist, as cameras give the illusion of moving through or seeing through walls (which can also be added and removed to film sets as required), while the artist can choose not to draw aspects of an architectural space on the page, in order to give the reader more of an omniscient gaze. This also makes the reader a voyeur as much as the characters within a comic: the hiding of sexuality, and sexual activities, is achieved often because of certain aspects of architecture – people choose to take advantage of walls and closed doors that occlude any potential onlooker’s sight, to engage in activities they wish to keep private – however the comic artist can reduce these impediments to voyeurism by removing walls on the page. The artist can also give the reader a vantage point of just outside a window, or by inviting the reader to ‘be’ inside the room from the position of an invisible observer. To explore these ideas of covert observation and hidden sexuality in comics, this essay will look at how these notions are depicted in Providence, a recent H.P. Lovecraft themed comic, published by Avatar Press in the late 2010s.
Providence
Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows’ 12-part comic book series Providence (2015–2017) utilises voyeuristic story-telling techniques to allow the reader to enter a world of hidden desires and subcultures of people excluded from everyday society in 1920s America. The narrative follows the cross-country journey of a fictional American journalist called Robert Black, as he investigates sub-cultures and weird phenomena across America in a narrative inspired by the work of writer H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft himself briefly appears as a character in the story, perhaps implying that, like the protagonist, he was basing his writing – in terms of the narrative of Providence – on events he observed around him, rather than conjuring them from his imagination. On this journey, the protagonist encounters black magic rituals and the existence of humanoid creatures that suggests successful human interbreeding with other species. At the same time, Black is also on a journey of self–discovery, as he slowly accepts his previously unrealised homosexuality. In the script, Moore not only reworks elements of Lovecraft’s stories into a cohesive whole – an America where such stories coexist with each other in a ‘shared universe’ – but also brings to the surface Lovecraft’s xenophobia, and the possibility of the original writer’s unspoken sexuality. Recent research into the latter include a 2017 article in New Yorker magazine, where Paul La Farge notes ‘literary critics have speculated that Lovecraft was secretly gay’ and lists various affections and friendships Lovecraft had with young men. [5] Many of Black’s encounters with other characters are framed voyeuristically – the mise-en-scène of several panels displays characters as being seen through door frames, windows, and from rooftops – and so suggests the reader is also engaging in an act of surveillance, with their view being obtained through an advantageous position of looking through windows and open doors into rooms where normally hidden activities and conversations are taking place.
This being the case, the comic turns the reader into a voyeur, by allowing them to adopt the position of someone staring, unobstructed, into architectural spaces, occupying a vantage point that would be hard to maintain in real life – i.e. if one was to stand outside a window or open door and stare continuously at the people within, this activity would be noted, and probably discouraged as being inappropriate. It is worth noting that another metatextual adaption of Lovecraft’s work, John Carpenter’s film In the Mouth of Madness (1995), has a scene where the protagonist, an investigator played by Sam Neill, is stared at through a café window by a madman. This agent of chaos, who has been driven mad by reading a Lovecraftian work, then breaks the glass with an axe to try and kill Neill’s character. Subsequently, as in Moore’s work, the reading of Lovecraft-inspired books causes the world to also go mad. Considering a later scene in the comic shows chaos through a broken window, that Providence’s protagonist is equally trying to avoid, it is possible parts of the narrative are in partial reference to Moore’s awareness of this film.
Much of the activity being observed in Providence has an illicit nature, however fleeting this observation might be. The comic is set in the 1920s, when homosexual activity and miscegenation was illegal in certain locations. Issues connected with the idea of being gay in 1920s America informs much of the narrative, and how the narrative is depicted on the page in many chapters of Providence refers to the necessity of concealment for homosexual activity at that time. Various writers looking at homosexuality in this period note favourable developments in gay-friendly spaces, while at the same time, such desire was not only being pathologised and demonised by some parts of society, but also made illegal in many places. [6] While psychologists such as Sigmund Freud were identifying types of sexuality being disruptive to individuals’ psyches – which will be explored further below – diverse sexuality was not hidden in parts of urban America. As anthropologist Chad Heap notes: ‘[I]n the late 1920s… pleasure seekers increasingly turned their attention to the spectacle of homosexuality emerging in the mainstream amusement districts of New York… and Chicago.’ [7] However, he suggests this was a relatively brief phenomenon, as by the second half of the 1930s, the ‘slummers’ who came to these areas of ill repute ‘publicly pursued sexual relations with members of the opposite sex’. [8] For further context regarding ‘gay representation’ in the early twentieth century, it is worth noting that the Hays Code, which forbade presentation of homosexuality and other kinds of ‘illicit’ human attraction, was applied to American cinema in 1934 after pressure from the Catholic Church, so a curtailing of gay ‘spectacle’ in other kinds of entertainment is probably not a surprise as a similar contemporaneous occurrence. This also coincided with the start of prohibition – another example of a popular American activity of which the ‘moral majority’ disapproved being curtailed – and with ‘increased legislation of businesses selling liquor… local authorities often used this power to close establishments with gay or lesbian customers’. [9]
Disruptive sexuality
Robert Black can be considered as a manifestation of disruptive sexuality. As he travels through Providence’s 1920s America, he can be seen as ‘encouraging’ homosexual activity via his very presence. This is manifested though the affection shown towards him by a local policeman shortly after they meet in issue two of the comic (which will be examined in detail below) and his sexual encounter with another male researcher in issue nine. In the comic he is investigating small town America, and so could be seen as bringing ‘urban ways’ to these more rural locations: his willingness to engage affectionately and sexually with other men might be seen as a disruptive encounter with the locals. This is not to say the men he encounters are unwilling participants, but rather his presence facilitates these encounters – a liberating of their otherwise unrealised sexuality – by his meeting them, and then engaging with physical interactions in spaces that are increasingly hidden from sight. Interestingly when the comic shows Black having sex with another man for the first time in issue nine, the dialogue for this scene is taken almost verbatim from an early chapter in the 1982 semi-autobiographical novel A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White, suggesting that these were characters Moore perhaps felt unprepared to fully write himself, without ‘assistance’ from a gay author who could lend a more accurate conversation for this encounter. [10]
Jonathan Ned Katz notes that, in 1920, Freud showed interest in how predilections for homosexuality and heterosexuality are connected with restrictions regarding the object of desire (and by implication, these restrictions also irrationally exclude the notion of bisexuality or pansexuality). Regarding Freud’s theory, Katz suggests this is one of ‘his most subversive and least followed up suggestions… a single brush with homosexual feeling… implicates heterosexuals in the dread abnormal. In contrast, a homosexual’s brief brush with heterosexuality has a positive moral connotation.’ [11] In Providence, Moore subverts this notion: Black represents the presence of a gay man in locations where semi-illicit heterosexual activities take place (often shown as a form of ritual to summon and appease old gods), and his entering these locations is disruptive to his own sexuality when he is possessed by some sort of spirit in issue of six of the narrative, and rapes a member of the opposite sex. This activity, which horrifies the character when he comes to his senses, queers the notion of his sexuality being subversive to the hidden America he encounters, when it is this encounter that briefly ‘forces’ heterosexuality on to him. Rather than his gay desire being disruptive to places that are supposedly straight, the illicit sexuality that has taken place in these locales – linked with black magic and forbidden knowledge – coerces him into a perverse form of heterosexuality, which is seen as a corrupting influence on his character.
The framing of illicit activity linked to sexuality (ranging from the brief touching of hands, to intercourse) in enclosed architectural spaces – where closed doors would obstruct viewing, or when no-one is looking through a window – can be easily demonstrated by the comic book artist to show how human figures are located in such rooms, and how their positions in these spaces are framed by the architecture, which can conceal or reveal their activities according to any observer’s vantage point. The first visual expression of the protagonist’s disruptive sexuality in Providence (following a chapter containing depictions of heterosexual nudity) can be seen in the second issue of the comic, when he visits Red Hook in Brooklyn following an invitation by local policeman Tom Malone, who suggests he may be able to help Black with his investigations into a missing writer. Malone takes Black on a tour of the area, and right from the start of this peregrination, the depiction of the pair as they walk the streets suggests (as portrayed by the comic’s artist) that the point of view we see of them, is that of an unseen observer, with page three of the issue framing them from various vantage points, which range from just behind their backs to a rooftop above the street. As Lovecraft himself set a story in the same location – ‘The Horror at Red Hook’ (1927) – a tale concerned with fear of the other, so connecting this place with a sense of being covertly observed seems apt. [12]
In the medium of comics and sequential art, voyeurism is also an idea than informs certain narratives, with additional consequences in engaging with these narratives for the reader. Comics is a medium which can give the reader insight into how people interact with architectural spaces, and while voyeurism can occur in natural surroundings – one might imagine a voyeur hiding behind thick foliage – it is something that certain architectural constructions aid, with many aspects of the built environment favouring voyeuristic activities, such as looking through windows and partially-opened doorways. This being the case, there are many aspects of comics as a storytelling medium that aid this consideration. As a ‘static’ medium (compared to film or television), comics allow the eye to linger on a single comic panel for as long as the reader desires, and allow the reader to consider how this panel can give information about the activities of characters drawn within its frame. This also gives the reader a voyeuristic gaze, able to scrutinise private activities in otherwise concealed spaces.
Gendered spaces
Beatriz Colomina discusses the gendering of architectural spaces, and ‘rooms where sexuality is hidden away’ in her essay ‘The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism’. [4] In a survey of the rooms that one might find in a house, she suggests that certain rooms are coded in terms of their uses by different genders. ‘Male’ spaces are categorised as ones that are more often used by men, and she lists such rooms as the library and the office as having more of a masculine aura to them. Conversely, bearing in mind the activities of the stereotypical straight male gaze, she notes spaces where women can be freely observed as being more female. This dividing up of spaces also includes notions of privacy and solitude – the library and the office having aspects of these – while a drawing room being more open to all visitors is less private. Colomina then uses words with sexual overtones to describe passage through these spaces, calling them ‘intimate’, and places that can be ‘penetrated’.
The depiction of human interaction in such coded spaces in the comic panel allows the reader to view activities that would otherwise be concealed from other people via the occlusion of their gaze through closed curtains, doors, and non–transparent walls. The latter is a tool available to both the filmmaker and comic artist, as cameras give the illusion of moving through or seeing through walls (which can also be added and removed to film sets as required), while the artist can choose not to draw aspects of an architectural space on the page, in order to give the reader more of an omniscient gaze. This also makes the reader a voyeur as much as the characters within a comic: the hiding of sexuality, and sexual activities, is achieved often because of certain aspects of architecture – people choose to take advantage of walls and closed doors that occlude any potential onlooker’s sight, to engage in activities they wish to keep private – however the comic artist can reduce these impediments to voyeurism by removing walls on the page. The artist can also give the reader a vantage point of just outside a window, or by inviting the reader to ‘be’ inside the room from the position of an invisible observer. To explore these ideas of covert observation and hidden sexuality in comics, this essay will look at how these notions are depicted in Providence, a recent H.P. Lovecraft themed comic, published by Avatar Press in the late 2010s.
Providence
Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows’ 12-part comic book series Providence (2015–2017) utilises voyeuristic story-telling techniques to allow the reader to enter a world of hidden desires and subcultures of people excluded from everyday society in 1920s America. The narrative follows the cross-country journey of a fictional American journalist called Robert Black, as he investigates sub-cultures and weird phenomena across America in a narrative inspired by the work of writer H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft himself briefly appears as a character in the story, perhaps implying that, like the protagonist, he was basing his writing – in terms of the narrative of Providence – on events he observed around him, rather than conjuring them from his imagination. On this journey, the protagonist encounters black magic rituals and the existence of humanoid creatures that suggests successful human interbreeding with other species. At the same time, Black is also on a journey of self–discovery, as he slowly accepts his previously unrealised homosexuality. In the script, Moore not only reworks elements of Lovecraft’s stories into a cohesive whole – an America where such stories coexist with each other in a ‘shared universe’ – but also brings to the surface Lovecraft’s xenophobia, and the possibility of the original writer’s unspoken sexuality. Recent research into the latter include a 2017 article in New Yorker magazine, where Paul La Farge notes ‘literary critics have speculated that Lovecraft was secretly gay’ and lists various affections and friendships Lovecraft had with young men. [5] Many of Black’s encounters with other characters are framed voyeuristically – the mise-en-scène of several panels displays characters as being seen through door frames, windows, and from rooftops – and so suggests the reader is also engaging in an act of surveillance, with their view being obtained through an advantageous position of looking through windows and open doors into rooms where normally hidden activities and conversations are taking place.
This being the case, the comic turns the reader into a voyeur, by allowing them to adopt the position of someone staring, unobstructed, into architectural spaces, occupying a vantage point that would be hard to maintain in real life – i.e. if one was to stand outside a window or open door and stare continuously at the people within, this activity would be noted, and probably discouraged as being inappropriate. It is worth noting that another metatextual adaption of Lovecraft’s work, John Carpenter’s film In the Mouth of Madness (1995), has a scene where the protagonist, an investigator played by Sam Neill, is stared at through a café window by a madman. This agent of chaos, who has been driven mad by reading a Lovecraftian work, then breaks the glass with an axe to try and kill Neill’s character. Subsequently, as in Moore’s work, the reading of Lovecraft-inspired books causes the world to also go mad. Considering a later scene in the comic shows chaos through a broken window, that Providence’s protagonist is equally trying to avoid, it is possible parts of the narrative are in partial reference to Moore’s awareness of this film.
Much of the activity being observed in Providence has an illicit nature, however fleeting this observation might be. The comic is set in the 1920s, when homosexual activity and miscegenation was illegal in certain locations. Issues connected with the idea of being gay in 1920s America informs much of the narrative, and how the narrative is depicted on the page in many chapters of Providence refers to the necessity of concealment for homosexual activity at that time. Various writers looking at homosexuality in this period note favourable developments in gay-friendly spaces, while at the same time, such desire was not only being pathologised and demonised by some parts of society, but also made illegal in many places. [6] While psychologists such as Sigmund Freud were identifying types of sexuality being disruptive to individuals’ psyches – which will be explored further below – diverse sexuality was not hidden in parts of urban America. As anthropologist Chad Heap notes: ‘[I]n the late 1920s… pleasure seekers increasingly turned their attention to the spectacle of homosexuality emerging in the mainstream amusement districts of New York… and Chicago.’ [7] However, he suggests this was a relatively brief phenomenon, as by the second half of the 1930s, the ‘slummers’ who came to these areas of ill repute ‘publicly pursued sexual relations with members of the opposite sex’. [8] For further context regarding ‘gay representation’ in the early twentieth century, it is worth noting that the Hays Code, which forbade presentation of homosexuality and other kinds of ‘illicit’ human attraction, was applied to American cinema in 1934 after pressure from the Catholic Church, so a curtailing of gay ‘spectacle’ in other kinds of entertainment is probably not a surprise as a similar contemporaneous occurrence. This also coincided with the start of prohibition – another example of a popular American activity of which the ‘moral majority’ disapproved being curtailed – and with ‘increased legislation of businesses selling liquor… local authorities often used this power to close establishments with gay or lesbian customers’. [9]
Disruptive sexuality
Robert Black can be considered as a manifestation of disruptive sexuality. As he travels through Providence’s 1920s America, he can be seen as ‘encouraging’ homosexual activity via his very presence. This is manifested though the affection shown towards him by a local policeman shortly after they meet in issue two of the comic (which will be examined in detail below) and his sexual encounter with another male researcher in issue nine. In the comic he is investigating small town America, and so could be seen as bringing ‘urban ways’ to these more rural locations: his willingness to engage affectionately and sexually with other men might be seen as a disruptive encounter with the locals. This is not to say the men he encounters are unwilling participants, but rather his presence facilitates these encounters – a liberating of their otherwise unrealised sexuality – by his meeting them, and then engaging with physical interactions in spaces that are increasingly hidden from sight. Interestingly when the comic shows Black having sex with another man for the first time in issue nine, the dialogue for this scene is taken almost verbatim from an early chapter in the 1982 semi-autobiographical novel A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White, suggesting that these were characters Moore perhaps felt unprepared to fully write himself, without ‘assistance’ from a gay author who could lend a more accurate conversation for this encounter. [10]
Jonathan Ned Katz notes that, in 1920, Freud showed interest in how predilections for homosexuality and heterosexuality are connected with restrictions regarding the object of desire (and by implication, these restrictions also irrationally exclude the notion of bisexuality or pansexuality). Regarding Freud’s theory, Katz suggests this is one of ‘his most subversive and least followed up suggestions… a single brush with homosexual feeling… implicates heterosexuals in the dread abnormal. In contrast, a homosexual’s brief brush with heterosexuality has a positive moral connotation.’ [11] In Providence, Moore subverts this notion: Black represents the presence of a gay man in locations where semi-illicit heterosexual activities take place (often shown as a form of ritual to summon and appease old gods), and his entering these locations is disruptive to his own sexuality when he is possessed by some sort of spirit in issue of six of the narrative, and rapes a member of the opposite sex. This activity, which horrifies the character when he comes to his senses, queers the notion of his sexuality being subversive to the hidden America he encounters, when it is this encounter that briefly ‘forces’ heterosexuality on to him. Rather than his gay desire being disruptive to places that are supposedly straight, the illicit sexuality that has taken place in these locales – linked with black magic and forbidden knowledge – coerces him into a perverse form of heterosexuality, which is seen as a corrupting influence on his character.
The framing of illicit activity linked to sexuality (ranging from the brief touching of hands, to intercourse) in enclosed architectural spaces – where closed doors would obstruct viewing, or when no-one is looking through a window – can be easily demonstrated by the comic book artist to show how human figures are located in such rooms, and how their positions in these spaces are framed by the architecture, which can conceal or reveal their activities according to any observer’s vantage point. The first visual expression of the protagonist’s disruptive sexuality in Providence (following a chapter containing depictions of heterosexual nudity) can be seen in the second issue of the comic, when he visits Red Hook in Brooklyn following an invitation by local policeman Tom Malone, who suggests he may be able to help Black with his investigations into a missing writer. Malone takes Black on a tour of the area, and right from the start of this peregrination, the depiction of the pair as they walk the streets suggests (as portrayed by the comic’s artist) that the point of view we see of them, is that of an unseen observer, with page three of the issue framing them from various vantage points, which range from just behind their backs to a rooftop above the street. As Lovecraft himself set a story in the same location – ‘The Horror at Red Hook’ (1927) – a tale concerned with fear of the other, so connecting this place with a sense of being covertly observed seems apt. [12]
Fig. 1 – Providence issue 2, pp. 6–7, Moore and Burrows (June 2015)
Pages six and seven (Fig. 1) add a more overt suggestion of looking in and looking out at their activities, with their walk past a graveyard drawn as observed from within its boundaries, with panels three and four on the page showing the point of view of someone if they were crouching near the ground, with the framing of the two characters between the railings taking on an aspect of prison-like bars, separating them and the observer.
Voyeurism in visual storytelling
As noted earlier, Colomina considers certain spaces (the office, the club) where men undertake activities with other members of their gender as ‘male’, while other spaces – that are perhaps more open to other visitors – are somehow more female, through associations with communality and openness to visitors being associated with femininity. While these generalisations can be debated, the idea of female and male spaces being areas that are entered and observed, can be seen at work in notable examples of voyeuristic visual storytelling.
For example, Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window is partially set in a coded male space – James Stewart’s living room – with Stewart’s character L.B. Jefferies stuck there due to a cast on one leg. In this film, he ‘enters’ the female space of a neighbour who lives in the building opposite by observing her and her neighbours covertly through binoculars. This observation also leads to the presentation of another kind of unwarranted intrusion, as Stewart observes a murder taking place, when the husband of this neighbour enters this space and seemingly kills the occupant. Film critic Michelle Patterson suggests that ‘the key to Rear Window is the framing of the shots. When Jefferies is looking out of the window, he forces the audience to follow him, forced into voyeurism.’ Jefferies seems to take to the role of voyeur quite willingly – the point of view of a would-be amateur detective, with the voyeurism undertaken to ‘explore… how ethical it is to peep into someone else’s life’. [13]
The act of intense looking, of scrutiny, gives the voyeur some similarities with the detective, and with the comic book reader, who can stare at renderings of characters wanting privacy in environments where they might not want to be watched. Architect turned academic Martin van der Linden quotes photographer Dominique Nabokov in considering the idea of a ‘sleuth–voyeur’, that when one looks at photographs of architectural interiors, one can scrutinise evidence of the lives of people who occupy such spaces, noting that ‘voyeurism… (of) these interiors provide an additional layer to our understanding’. [14]
On screen, Rear Window in particular – as an example of voyeurism depicted on film – makes for a cogent comparison with comics, as the image the viewer sees of the scenes where Jefferies is observing his neighbours have a comic-like framing to them. The character’s view of the world outside, while mostly unobstructed, is through three vertical windows side by side, which visually have a similarity to three comic book panels, and their arrangement between the audience’s eye and the building of Jefferies’ fascination means that the left-hand window frames a view of a low attic room with sky above; the middle shows the outside of four other windows that open out on to balconies and have a fire escape between them; the right hand window surrounds a view onto two further windows that allow no obvious egress, and are landscape in shape. So, each of the three sections of view can be seen to frame a distinct part of the urban landscape beyond, which also can be seen to geographically contain part of the unfolding narrative in the building opposite that Jefferies is fascinated with.
Comics often use a similar technique, with frames side by side to show neighbouring parts of a landscape, with the panel borders suggesting short ‘beats’ in the narrative, inviting a reading of individual panels side by side as an unfolding narrative that the reader is considering as they scan the page from left to right – see below for an example in Providence, as Black moves from panel one to two on page 16 of issue 2, in Fig. 2.
Architectural concealment – the panel and the window
In Mise–en–Scène, Acting, and Space in Comics, Geraint D’Arcy (2020) observes a concurrence between the comic book panel and the architectural window, noting that ‘the graphic world depicts images that we see-into, staged to be seen through this pane’. [15] To see into an interior which has a window, the viewer must peer through this window to see inside; similarly, to observe the narrative content of a comic, a reader must look at the contents of the panel. Not all comic book panels depict architectural interiors, but all panels have a discrete border (visible or implied) allowing for the conceptual similarity between a comic panel and a window. Panels in some comics do not have a drawn solid border, rather the rendering of the art within the panel may just be surrounded by empty space, which delineates the gap between one panel and the next; or a panel may be single page or double page size, spreading to the edge of the paper it is printed on, or screen it is read on. [16] The rendered images within the panel are contained within a frame on a page which may contain several other panels, which has a similarity with a window in a wall. The observer can look at each panel in turn, or look into each window in a wall. In terms of the vantage point of the viewer, both windows and comic panels allow an outside observer to scrutinise what is contained within the frame.
When considering Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu, David Spurr (2012) suggests that ‘interior spaces provide a refuge for the expression of forbidden desires... brought to light through a process of penetration and exposure’. [17] Via an examination of architectural spaces in this novel, and how they are used as locations for sexual activity and its observation, Spurr notes, ‘transgression is made possible by an interior space thought to be concealed, but which is in fact open to view from an adjoining space, the space of the voyeur’. [18] Similar observations can be applied to Moore’s Lovecraft comics, with Providence in particular using voyeuristic framing of parts of the narrative, where characters observe others or are observed exploring their sexuality in concealed spaces. However, more so than literature alone – where the writer has to describe in words the acts of observation – comics depict the observed location nakedly with no concealment (unless preferred by the artist) of the activities taking place, again tainting the reader with a voyeuristic point of view, as nothing is hidden from their sight. In film, the movie director and editor make a choice regarding the amount of time that the viewer can be a voyeur, dependant on how long the voyeuristic shot lasts on screen. This can be augmented via screens in one’s own home – i.e. the viewer can rewind and rewatch certain scenes – but in general the act of voyeurism undertaken by the viewer is relatively fleeting, the illicit moment is seen on screen fleetingly, and is then gone.
In comparison, the comic book reader can linger as longer as they like on a voyeuristic image. Time is frozen for as long as the comic reader wishes to stare at and scrutinise an image. Considering the film viewer in the home again, one can pause an image, but film is intended to unfold over time, so this is at odds with the intent of the filmmaker, unless he or she is inviting such unusual scrutiny of their film. The comic book artist, in comparison, is creating images that are designed to be still, and it is the reader that chooses how long they linger on each drawing.
The coding of panel shapes, and possible implications
Colomina notes the exterior of a house is like a man’s dinner jacket: ‘[A] male mask… protected by a seamless façade, the exterior is masculine.’ [19] In contrast she names the architectural interior as a scene of reproduction and sexuality, and by inference female. Providence also codes exteriors and interiors as gendered spaces. Black spends much of the 12 issues wandering the American landscape, often looking up at the exteriors of buildings. Then, when interiors are shown, such as in the first issue, they are spaces where female sexuality is revealed, either in the present day of the narrative (as we see in the final comics page of the first issue where a female character strips while approaching her male lover), or in sepia toned flashbacks to the protagonist’s past.
In issue two, the comic moves from a world containing observable architectural details – interiors, doors, windows, etc. – into one that is more formless, contained within subterranean caves. One might suggest this is a movement from the ordered, rectilinear world controlled by men, to ‘flesh–like’ surroundings – considering the texture of the cave walls, and wrinkled bars of the cage – where we discover a female demon is imprisoned (Fig.2).
Voyeurism in visual storytelling
As noted earlier, Colomina considers certain spaces (the office, the club) where men undertake activities with other members of their gender as ‘male’, while other spaces – that are perhaps more open to other visitors – are somehow more female, through associations with communality and openness to visitors being associated with femininity. While these generalisations can be debated, the idea of female and male spaces being areas that are entered and observed, can be seen at work in notable examples of voyeuristic visual storytelling.
For example, Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window is partially set in a coded male space – James Stewart’s living room – with Stewart’s character L.B. Jefferies stuck there due to a cast on one leg. In this film, he ‘enters’ the female space of a neighbour who lives in the building opposite by observing her and her neighbours covertly through binoculars. This observation also leads to the presentation of another kind of unwarranted intrusion, as Stewart observes a murder taking place, when the husband of this neighbour enters this space and seemingly kills the occupant. Film critic Michelle Patterson suggests that ‘the key to Rear Window is the framing of the shots. When Jefferies is looking out of the window, he forces the audience to follow him, forced into voyeurism.’ Jefferies seems to take to the role of voyeur quite willingly – the point of view of a would-be amateur detective, with the voyeurism undertaken to ‘explore… how ethical it is to peep into someone else’s life’. [13]
The act of intense looking, of scrutiny, gives the voyeur some similarities with the detective, and with the comic book reader, who can stare at renderings of characters wanting privacy in environments where they might not want to be watched. Architect turned academic Martin van der Linden quotes photographer Dominique Nabokov in considering the idea of a ‘sleuth–voyeur’, that when one looks at photographs of architectural interiors, one can scrutinise evidence of the lives of people who occupy such spaces, noting that ‘voyeurism… (of) these interiors provide an additional layer to our understanding’. [14]
On screen, Rear Window in particular – as an example of voyeurism depicted on film – makes for a cogent comparison with comics, as the image the viewer sees of the scenes where Jefferies is observing his neighbours have a comic-like framing to them. The character’s view of the world outside, while mostly unobstructed, is through three vertical windows side by side, which visually have a similarity to three comic book panels, and their arrangement between the audience’s eye and the building of Jefferies’ fascination means that the left-hand window frames a view of a low attic room with sky above; the middle shows the outside of four other windows that open out on to balconies and have a fire escape between them; the right hand window surrounds a view onto two further windows that allow no obvious egress, and are landscape in shape. So, each of the three sections of view can be seen to frame a distinct part of the urban landscape beyond, which also can be seen to geographically contain part of the unfolding narrative in the building opposite that Jefferies is fascinated with.
Comics often use a similar technique, with frames side by side to show neighbouring parts of a landscape, with the panel borders suggesting short ‘beats’ in the narrative, inviting a reading of individual panels side by side as an unfolding narrative that the reader is considering as they scan the page from left to right – see below for an example in Providence, as Black moves from panel one to two on page 16 of issue 2, in Fig. 2.
Architectural concealment – the panel and the window
In Mise–en–Scène, Acting, and Space in Comics, Geraint D’Arcy (2020) observes a concurrence between the comic book panel and the architectural window, noting that ‘the graphic world depicts images that we see-into, staged to be seen through this pane’. [15] To see into an interior which has a window, the viewer must peer through this window to see inside; similarly, to observe the narrative content of a comic, a reader must look at the contents of the panel. Not all comic book panels depict architectural interiors, but all panels have a discrete border (visible or implied) allowing for the conceptual similarity between a comic panel and a window. Panels in some comics do not have a drawn solid border, rather the rendering of the art within the panel may just be surrounded by empty space, which delineates the gap between one panel and the next; or a panel may be single page or double page size, spreading to the edge of the paper it is printed on, or screen it is read on. [16] The rendered images within the panel are contained within a frame on a page which may contain several other panels, which has a similarity with a window in a wall. The observer can look at each panel in turn, or look into each window in a wall. In terms of the vantage point of the viewer, both windows and comic panels allow an outside observer to scrutinise what is contained within the frame.
When considering Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu, David Spurr (2012) suggests that ‘interior spaces provide a refuge for the expression of forbidden desires... brought to light through a process of penetration and exposure’. [17] Via an examination of architectural spaces in this novel, and how they are used as locations for sexual activity and its observation, Spurr notes, ‘transgression is made possible by an interior space thought to be concealed, but which is in fact open to view from an adjoining space, the space of the voyeur’. [18] Similar observations can be applied to Moore’s Lovecraft comics, with Providence in particular using voyeuristic framing of parts of the narrative, where characters observe others or are observed exploring their sexuality in concealed spaces. However, more so than literature alone – where the writer has to describe in words the acts of observation – comics depict the observed location nakedly with no concealment (unless preferred by the artist) of the activities taking place, again tainting the reader with a voyeuristic point of view, as nothing is hidden from their sight. In film, the movie director and editor make a choice regarding the amount of time that the viewer can be a voyeur, dependant on how long the voyeuristic shot lasts on screen. This can be augmented via screens in one’s own home – i.e. the viewer can rewind and rewatch certain scenes – but in general the act of voyeurism undertaken by the viewer is relatively fleeting, the illicit moment is seen on screen fleetingly, and is then gone.
In comparison, the comic book reader can linger as longer as they like on a voyeuristic image. Time is frozen for as long as the comic reader wishes to stare at and scrutinise an image. Considering the film viewer in the home again, one can pause an image, but film is intended to unfold over time, so this is at odds with the intent of the filmmaker, unless he or she is inviting such unusual scrutiny of their film. The comic book artist, in comparison, is creating images that are designed to be still, and it is the reader that chooses how long they linger on each drawing.
The coding of panel shapes, and possible implications
Colomina notes the exterior of a house is like a man’s dinner jacket: ‘[A] male mask… protected by a seamless façade, the exterior is masculine.’ [19] In contrast she names the architectural interior as a scene of reproduction and sexuality, and by inference female. Providence also codes exteriors and interiors as gendered spaces. Black spends much of the 12 issues wandering the American landscape, often looking up at the exteriors of buildings. Then, when interiors are shown, such as in the first issue, they are spaces where female sexuality is revealed, either in the present day of the narrative (as we see in the final comics page of the first issue where a female character strips while approaching her male lover), or in sepia toned flashbacks to the protagonist’s past.
In issue two, the comic moves from a world containing observable architectural details – interiors, doors, windows, etc. – into one that is more formless, contained within subterranean caves. One might suggest this is a movement from the ordered, rectilinear world controlled by men, to ‘flesh–like’ surroundings – considering the texture of the cave walls, and wrinkled bars of the cage – where we discover a female demon is imprisoned (Fig.2).
Fig. 2 – Providence issue 2, pp. 14–17, Moore and Burrows (June 2015)
In this sequence, the shape of the panels that the narrative is contained within changes from ‘widescreen’ (i.e. the dimensions of a cinematic image) to vertical. It is not obvious what this transition in panel shape is meant to signify; however, thinking of these shapes in terms of cinema and its antecedents, it is possible that the art is suggesting a shift backwards from the wide cinematic frame to the slits through which one might see an earlier form of moving image on the side of a zoetrope. The narrative is moving from a historical period – the 1920s – to a realm of early history complete with eldritch monsters, so perhaps the aspect ratio is shifting from narrative contemporary to historical. It also perhaps refers back to the earlier scene where we see Black and Malone framed between vertical bars, suggesting the environs of a prison.
The amount of time portrayed from frame to frame may also have a relationship to early cinema in this sequence. In earlier widescreen panels, such as most of the sequence where Black and Malone are talking, there is ‘smooth’ movement from panel to panel in terms of how we read the narrative. In the vertical panels, this feels more staccato, with time speeding up and slowing down, making the reader conscious of skipping moments between the frames, like watching a film with a frame-rate lower than 24 frames per second – flickery, with the gaps between frames noticeable to the eye.
The formalised layout of Providence is four widescreen panels making up each page, but sometime two are joined together to make a squarer panel, or an image occupies the entire page. Moore used a similar formalist layout in his most famous comic, Watchmen (1986–87), where each page was based around a nine–panel grid, and on some pages some of these panels were joined together, but the repeated layout remains as the basic structure. A look at the four pages where shift occurs between horizonal and vertical also suggests references to incarceration as an intended reading, with page 14 showing Black entering a trap door in the cellar (complete with pentagram at its entrance, suggesting a recent ritual has perhaps awoken the creature that lives below), and pages 15 onwards (Fig. 2) showing his exploration of the cavern beneath, with the shift from horizonal to vertical occurring between pages 14 and 15.
While the vertical panel suits the architecture of the environment Black initially encounters – a narrow staircase ending in a narrow tall entrance to a cave – it also mimics the cage-like structure he encounters on page 17, which may be where the creature he later encounters was kept. This being the case, the vertical panels mimic the view that one would have from between the bars of this cage – the architecture of the page itself reflecting the architectural design of part of the scene rendered in the panels.
Obscured views
In each issue of Providence, we see the representation of voyeurism – of characters looking through windows, and being looked at by others from windows above their line of sight and other hidden vantage points (Fig. 3). This covert observation lends everyday activities a sinister aspect, as if Robert’s flânerial walking is something that is a danger to himself and others.
The amount of time portrayed from frame to frame may also have a relationship to early cinema in this sequence. In earlier widescreen panels, such as most of the sequence where Black and Malone are talking, there is ‘smooth’ movement from panel to panel in terms of how we read the narrative. In the vertical panels, this feels more staccato, with time speeding up and slowing down, making the reader conscious of skipping moments between the frames, like watching a film with a frame-rate lower than 24 frames per second – flickery, with the gaps between frames noticeable to the eye.
The formalised layout of Providence is four widescreen panels making up each page, but sometime two are joined together to make a squarer panel, or an image occupies the entire page. Moore used a similar formalist layout in his most famous comic, Watchmen (1986–87), where each page was based around a nine–panel grid, and on some pages some of these panels were joined together, but the repeated layout remains as the basic structure. A look at the four pages where shift occurs between horizonal and vertical also suggests references to incarceration as an intended reading, with page 14 showing Black entering a trap door in the cellar (complete with pentagram at its entrance, suggesting a recent ritual has perhaps awoken the creature that lives below), and pages 15 onwards (Fig. 2) showing his exploration of the cavern beneath, with the shift from horizonal to vertical occurring between pages 14 and 15.
While the vertical panel suits the architecture of the environment Black initially encounters – a narrow staircase ending in a narrow tall entrance to a cave – it also mimics the cage-like structure he encounters on page 17, which may be where the creature he later encounters was kept. This being the case, the vertical panels mimic the view that one would have from between the bars of this cage – the architecture of the page itself reflecting the architectural design of part of the scene rendered in the panels.
Obscured views
In each issue of Providence, we see the representation of voyeurism – of characters looking through windows, and being looked at by others from windows above their line of sight and other hidden vantage points (Fig. 3). This covert observation lends everyday activities a sinister aspect, as if Robert’s flânerial walking is something that is a danger to himself and others.
Fig. 3 – Providence issue 3, pp. 5–6 (detail), Moore and Burrows (July 2015)
Architecture informs the content of the comic – many panels contain window frames, with the view beyond (as in Rear Window) interrupted by the frames between the panes of glass, creating panels within panels. The comic is commenting on the act of looking out of windows and the act of being looked at through windows. The view through a window is interrupted by the elements that make up the window frame – i.e. the strips of metal or wood that separate each pane of glass – and the reader’s continuous view of the narrative is interrupted by the space between each panel on the page.
When reading comics, the gap between panels is a space to indicate that each panel represents something slightly different – a movement in time or space from panel to panel – and so suggests another kind of continuation. The view through a window shows a mosaic style view of reality, with parts obscured out of necessity to suspend the window glass; the panels laid out on a comic page show a mosaic of storytelling elements where the reader is invited to look from one panel to another, to see a page long section of narrative. The panes of a window add up to make a whole image representing part of a landscape looked out onto, the panels of a comic add up to make part of a story being read.
That which should not be seen
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Man of the Crowd (1840) is a useful fictional text about architecture, flânerie and the urban environment, which is bookended with reference to an arcane text: ‘it was well said of a certain German book that “er lasst sich nicht lessen” – it does not permit itself to be read’ – with the final reference in the story perhaps referring to the unknowability of cities and people. [20] In Providence, it is Black’s reading of a forbidden text that leads to an act of possession and revelation, as well as knowledge of what can take place behind closed doors. When Black becomes cursed with this knowledge, subsequent issues depict society itself starting to break down in the locations he travels through. The violence of the protagonist’s actions when possessed spreads to everyone around him, because of his reading an arcane text in the previous issue and the act of violence it leads to him undertaking. This is reflected in the architectural penetration he also engages with, showing a character exiting a building through a broken window, rather than a door that is open to him (Fig. 4). By depicting a broken window as a boundary that has become an entrance / exit to a building, it suggests shaking up of societal norms, that expected roles of objects and therefore perhaps people also have changed.
When reading comics, the gap between panels is a space to indicate that each panel represents something slightly different – a movement in time or space from panel to panel – and so suggests another kind of continuation. The view through a window shows a mosaic style view of reality, with parts obscured out of necessity to suspend the window glass; the panels laid out on a comic page show a mosaic of storytelling elements where the reader is invited to look from one panel to another, to see a page long section of narrative. The panes of a window add up to make a whole image representing part of a landscape looked out onto, the panels of a comic add up to make part of a story being read.
That which should not be seen
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Man of the Crowd (1840) is a useful fictional text about architecture, flânerie and the urban environment, which is bookended with reference to an arcane text: ‘it was well said of a certain German book that “er lasst sich nicht lessen” – it does not permit itself to be read’ – with the final reference in the story perhaps referring to the unknowability of cities and people. [20] In Providence, it is Black’s reading of a forbidden text that leads to an act of possession and revelation, as well as knowledge of what can take place behind closed doors. When Black becomes cursed with this knowledge, subsequent issues depict society itself starting to break down in the locations he travels through. The violence of the protagonist’s actions when possessed spreads to everyone around him, because of his reading an arcane text in the previous issue and the act of violence it leads to him undertaking. This is reflected in the architectural penetration he also engages with, showing a character exiting a building through a broken window, rather than a door that is open to him (Fig. 4). By depicting a broken window as a boundary that has become an entrance / exit to a building, it suggests shaking up of societal norms, that expected roles of objects and therefore perhaps people also have changed.
Providence issue 7, pp. 2–4, Moore and Burrows (Jan 2016)
Here the comic comments on parallels one might draw between damage to architectural forms by the people who encounter them (in this case glass shattered by bricks which seem to come from outside the page of the comic itself) and the damage to people themselves by human activities. In this scenario, the world outside has become a battleground because Black’s notions of his own sexuality have been disrupted.
Voyeur and flâneur
In Providence, Black is both a voyeur and flâneur, observing people that have previously been ‘unseen’, and travelling around different parts of America. He has an intent – to discover the hidden America – so one might also consider his activities a dérive, and until the plot starts to increase in intensity, there is a languorous pace to his travels, which seems to suggest the enjoyment of walking and accidental encounters in the landscape. By making this part of the narrative, it allows the writer and artist to depict various aspects of the American (built) landscape, based not only on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft which inspire Providence, but also the actual locations in the real America that are mentioned in both Lovecraft’s original stories and this homage.
While Providence does not have the footnotes that Moore’s earlier From Hell contains, fans of the writer have investigated his research journey through maps of America. The blog ‘Facts in the Case of Alan Moore’s Providence’ lists the corollaries between the comic and actual locations. For example, issue one is set in various parts of Manhattan, itself the location for Lovecraft’s story ‘Cool Air’; [21] issue two is set in Red Hook, Brooklyn, the location of Lovecraft’s ‘The Horror at Red Hook’; [22] issue three in Salem, Massachusetts, inspired by the location of Lovecraft’s ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’, [23] and so on. While Lovecraft’s stories have various amounts of fidelity to real locations, the blog shows that Moore and Burrows have used maps and photographs of the locations to inform the drawings on the page in their comic, giving their story some verisimilitude even while set in a fantastical world of black magic and half human creatures. The more ‘real’ the depicted location is, the more unsettling the strange occurrences set against these locations become.
This combination of the real and unreal is fascinating for readers interested in architectural rendering on the page, as panels of the comic show drawings of buildings that have existed or still exist in real life. In turn, when the comic causes architecture itself to take on a preternatural aspect, the use of human interaction with architecture depicted as a metaphor for human activity again increases the sense of unheimlich. Anneleen Masschelein notes Freud’s use of unheimlich to suggest a ‘negation of heimlich in the sense of “homely, familiar” and at the same time almost coincides... with the second meaning of heimlich, “hidden, secretive, furtive”’. [24] This combination of meanings is particularly notable in a pivotal scene in issue ten of Providence. At this point, Black is on the cusp of admitting his sexuality to himself, writing a letter to a male acquaintance, and as he is just about to admit this in the correspondence, the comic depicts the world outside his window contracting (Fig. 5), mimicking a visual effect found in cinema, the vertiginous dolly zoom seen in Hitchcock films such as Vertigo (1958). This is an example of the impossible physics that can be depicted in comics (or film), and also how the realisation of such impossible physics can be used as metaphor in an uncanny world. On screen, the ‘plasticity’ of buildings warp and change shape based on an alien influence on the world, or because of changing characters’ perceptions.
Voyeur and flâneur
In Providence, Black is both a voyeur and flâneur, observing people that have previously been ‘unseen’, and travelling around different parts of America. He has an intent – to discover the hidden America – so one might also consider his activities a dérive, and until the plot starts to increase in intensity, there is a languorous pace to his travels, which seems to suggest the enjoyment of walking and accidental encounters in the landscape. By making this part of the narrative, it allows the writer and artist to depict various aspects of the American (built) landscape, based not only on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft which inspire Providence, but also the actual locations in the real America that are mentioned in both Lovecraft’s original stories and this homage.
While Providence does not have the footnotes that Moore’s earlier From Hell contains, fans of the writer have investigated his research journey through maps of America. The blog ‘Facts in the Case of Alan Moore’s Providence’ lists the corollaries between the comic and actual locations. For example, issue one is set in various parts of Manhattan, itself the location for Lovecraft’s story ‘Cool Air’; [21] issue two is set in Red Hook, Brooklyn, the location of Lovecraft’s ‘The Horror at Red Hook’; [22] issue three in Salem, Massachusetts, inspired by the location of Lovecraft’s ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’, [23] and so on. While Lovecraft’s stories have various amounts of fidelity to real locations, the blog shows that Moore and Burrows have used maps and photographs of the locations to inform the drawings on the page in their comic, giving their story some verisimilitude even while set in a fantastical world of black magic and half human creatures. The more ‘real’ the depicted location is, the more unsettling the strange occurrences set against these locations become.
This combination of the real and unreal is fascinating for readers interested in architectural rendering on the page, as panels of the comic show drawings of buildings that have existed or still exist in real life. In turn, when the comic causes architecture itself to take on a preternatural aspect, the use of human interaction with architecture depicted as a metaphor for human activity again increases the sense of unheimlich. Anneleen Masschelein notes Freud’s use of unheimlich to suggest a ‘negation of heimlich in the sense of “homely, familiar” and at the same time almost coincides... with the second meaning of heimlich, “hidden, secretive, furtive”’. [24] This combination of meanings is particularly notable in a pivotal scene in issue ten of Providence. At this point, Black is on the cusp of admitting his sexuality to himself, writing a letter to a male acquaintance, and as he is just about to admit this in the correspondence, the comic depicts the world outside his window contracting (Fig. 5), mimicking a visual effect found in cinema, the vertiginous dolly zoom seen in Hitchcock films such as Vertigo (1958). This is an example of the impossible physics that can be depicted in comics (or film), and also how the realisation of such impossible physics can be used as metaphor in an uncanny world. On screen, the ‘plasticity’ of buildings warp and change shape based on an alien influence on the world, or because of changing characters’ perceptions.
Providence issue 10, pp. 15–18, Moore and Burrows (July 2016)
After the collision of aspects of reality, Black engages in a sexual act with this intruder into his reality and this activity disrupts the world itself. From this point on the unseen parts of the world – monsters and phantoms only visible to those who have arcane knowledge – become increasingly visible to everyone. While this isn’t the most positive depiction of homosexuality one can find in fiction – a reading of this scene can be that when Black finally embraces his sexuality, it starts the world down the path to apocalypse – it is a fascinating depiction of how disruptive sexuality has a knock-on effect regarding one’s own sense of reality itself.
The new ‘reality’ that the character embraces is something that changes not only his view of the world he inhabits (which was presaged earlier in the comic by others who could already see into other realms), but also changes the world itself. Obviously, this is an exaggeration of lived experience – when people come to terms with their own sexuality, one might consider that their relationship with the world has changed – but this is a fantastical portrayal of this notion. The concentrating down of different worlds into the same space also works as a literary / artistic device commenting on the idea from quantum mechanics that all probabilities co–exist [25] until when ‘we make a measurement, or observe a quantum entity… the collapse happens.’ [26]
At the risk of over-extending this metaphor, as Black’s sexuality was previously concealed but also somewhat malleable (as seen in the issue where he is briefly coerced into heterosexuality), the concatenation of spaces in this scene collapses the possibilities of his sexuality into one version of himself, which he has to accept. He can no longer rely on being concealed (and voyeuristically observed), because the disruption to reality itself means there is no longer anywhere for left for him (or the various humanoid creatures that inhabit the fictional landscape) to hide.
Conclusion
Providence offers many scenarios where disruptive sexuality is hidden by architectural locations and then, via science-fictional and fantastical aspects of the narrative, the comic shows the boundaries of places where sexuality can be concealed also breaking down. Like several of Alan Moore’s comics, the series ends with a vision of apocalypse which doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the world, but certainly a shift in human perception from what the world was to what the world could be after a disruptive event (and so technically the end of ‘a’ world). Indeed, we can also see similar ideas about a Revelation–style event changing people’s concept of the world around them, rather than the world actually being destroyed, in Moore’s Watchmen, Promethea (1999–2005), and a climactic issue (#50) of Saga of the Swamp Thing (1986). Providence, then, is a comic that comments on concealment, that sexuality, particularly disruptive sexuality, is often hidden but also viewable by those who have a voyeuristic vantage point, including the reader. However, the narrative suggests that the idea of making such sexuality more open and visible to all, is the most disruptive idea of all.
Footnotes
The new ‘reality’ that the character embraces is something that changes not only his view of the world he inhabits (which was presaged earlier in the comic by others who could already see into other realms), but also changes the world itself. Obviously, this is an exaggeration of lived experience – when people come to terms with their own sexuality, one might consider that their relationship with the world has changed – but this is a fantastical portrayal of this notion. The concentrating down of different worlds into the same space also works as a literary / artistic device commenting on the idea from quantum mechanics that all probabilities co–exist [25] until when ‘we make a measurement, or observe a quantum entity… the collapse happens.’ [26]
At the risk of over-extending this metaphor, as Black’s sexuality was previously concealed but also somewhat malleable (as seen in the issue where he is briefly coerced into heterosexuality), the concatenation of spaces in this scene collapses the possibilities of his sexuality into one version of himself, which he has to accept. He can no longer rely on being concealed (and voyeuristically observed), because the disruption to reality itself means there is no longer anywhere for left for him (or the various humanoid creatures that inhabit the fictional landscape) to hide.
Conclusion
Providence offers many scenarios where disruptive sexuality is hidden by architectural locations and then, via science-fictional and fantastical aspects of the narrative, the comic shows the boundaries of places where sexuality can be concealed also breaking down. Like several of Alan Moore’s comics, the series ends with a vision of apocalypse which doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the world, but certainly a shift in human perception from what the world was to what the world could be after a disruptive event (and so technically the end of ‘a’ world). Indeed, we can also see similar ideas about a Revelation–style event changing people’s concept of the world around them, rather than the world actually being destroyed, in Moore’s Watchmen, Promethea (1999–2005), and a climactic issue (#50) of Saga of the Swamp Thing (1986). Providence, then, is a comic that comments on concealment, that sexuality, particularly disruptive sexuality, is often hidden but also viewable by those who have a voyeuristic vantage point, including the reader. However, the narrative suggests that the idea of making such sexuality more open and visible to all, is the most disruptive idea of all.
Footnotes
- Duff, S. (2018) Voyeurism: A Case Study. New York: Springer International. 3.
- Postmus, J.L. (2013) Sexual Violence and Abuse: An Encyclopaedia of Prevention, Impacts, and Recovery Volume 1. Santa Barbara: ABC–CLIO. 759.
- Dumas, C. (2012) Un–American Psycho: Brian De Palma and the Political Invisible. Bristol: Intellect. 33.
- Colomina, B. (1992) ‘The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism’. In: Colomina, B. (ed.) Sexuality and Space. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. 82.
- La Farge, P. (2017) ‘The Complicated Friendship of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Barlow – One of His Biggest Fans’, New Yorker. 9 March. Available from: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page–turner/the–complicated–friendship–of–h–p–lovecraft–and–robert–barlow–one–of–his–biggest–fans [accessed 14 June 2022].
- Berkin C. et al. (2013) Making America – A History of the United States, Volume 2: Since 1865. Boston: Cengage Learning. 585.
- Heap, C. (2009) Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife, 1885–1940. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 231.
- Heap, 232.
- Berkin et al., 585.
- White, E. (1982) A Boy’s Own Story. London: Pan MacMillan. 17.
- Katz, J. (1995) The Invention of Heterosexuality. Chicago: University Press of Chicago. 73.
- Joshi, S.T. (2001) A Dreamer and a Visionary – H.P. Lovecraft in His Time. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. 360.
- Patterson, M. (2021) ‘Mise–en–scène analysis of Hitchcock’s Rope and Rear Window’. Found at https://michellepatterson.net/2021/04/15/mise–en–scene–analysis–of–hitchcocks–rope–and–rear–window [accessed 14 June 2022].
- Van der Linden, M. (2021) Architecture – Changing Spatial Transitions Between Context, Construction and Human Activities. Singapore: Springer. 175.
- D'Arcy, G. (2020) Mise en Scène, Acting, and Space in Comics. London: Palgrave. 184.
- Martens, C. and Cardona–Rviera, R.E. (2016) ‘Generating Abstract Comics’. In: Nack, F. and Gordon, A.S. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. Cham: Springer International. 170.
- Spurr, D. (2012) Architecture and Modern Literature. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 61.
- Spurr, 62.
- Colomina, 94.
- Poe, E.A. (1840) ‘The Man of the Crowd’ in Levine, S. and Levine, S. (eds), The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe – An Annotated Edition Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 283.
- Linton, J. (2015) ‘Providence 1’. Found at https://factsprovidence.wordpress.com/moore–lovecraft–comics–annotation–index/providence–1/ [accessed 30 August 2022].
- Linton, J. (2015) ‘Providence 2’. Found at https://factsprovidence.wordpress.com/moore–lovecraft–comics–annotation–index/providence–2/ [accessed 30 August 2022].
- Linton, J. (2015) ‘Providence 3’. Found at https://factsprovidence.wordpress.com/moore–lovecraft–comics–annotation–index/providence–3/ [accessed 30 August 2022].
- Masschelein, A. (2016) ‘The Uncanny’. In: Hughes, W., Punter, D. and Smith, A. (eds), The Encyclopaedia of the Gothic. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. 699.
- Darling, D. (1995) Equations of Eternity: Speculations on Consciousness, Meaning, and the Mathematical Rules That Orchestrate the Cosmos. New York: Hyperion, 189.
- Gribbin, J. (2019) Six Impossible Things: The Mystery of the Quantum World. London: Icon Books, 28.