The Necronaughts and Beyond

I’ve been re-reading the great 2000AD comic series ‘Necronaughts‘.  (My thinking is very much in this space at the moment.) This gem is about a gathering of an illustrious band of 1900’s heroes to take on the forces of darkness.  The team consists of the escapologist Harry Houdini, collector of the strange Charles Fort, writer of detective fiction Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and finally writer of strange tales, H.P.Lovecraft.  The four are ranged against cultists, dark forces and more.  It’s a great read and I’d totally recommend it.

Charles Fort and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle take on the darkness....

To me is has echoes of other mash-up fiction such as the sublime (in comic form anyway) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the fun ‘Poe Must Die‘ where Edgar Alan Poe, James Figg and Charles Dickens seek to stop an evil sorcerer.

I was also interested to discover that the idea of exploring the next world, as the Necornaughts do, has inspires an art project too, the International Neconaughtical Society. Here is their manifesto and 10 year review. In their manifesto they announced a plan to:

[To construct] a craft that will convey us into death in such a way that we may, if not live, at least persist…

While this now is art, there was a time and a hubris when we thought that it was not…