The Alan Moore Appreciation Society

[longmanshort]

"I know it's kinda fashionable to say Alan Moore's fantastic, but he is"

Can't remember which of us said that, but I'd like to thank them. Because you've opened up a whole new world to me.

Having only really ever read 2000AD, I was relatively unaware of The Bearded One (or TBO from now on). Even living in the same area as him for years, his reputation - somehow - didn't filter down to me. But enough people mentioned him here to make me want to check out the back catelogue.

And what I found left me stunned.

I've just finished reading V for Vendetta after having read Watchmen in a single day and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 1 in a couple og hours. This undisputed "classics" are widely held to be the best the medium has to offer. But why? I really can't get enough of this stuff, yet what is it about his writing style that makes TBO's work so readable? Rather than just saying 'aye, he's great', what elements of this outstanding works are the things that keep us hooked? Ignoring the intentionally ironic title of this thread,


Though I warn you if you've not read any Alan Moore stuff - here be spoilers!

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I suppose the moment that really hit me was during V for Vendetta, just after V killed the bishop.  As I read the scene, V's use of music to cover most of the conversion just seemed natural - something you might read in any crime novel and forget.
But it was the panel where the detective realises the music is Beethoven's Ninth, which begins with 'da da da dom' - the morse code for the letter V.
Just that simple moment hit me like an express train. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Surely TBO had a time machine and had planted this, just waiting for the right moment to unleash it! But no (maybe), he's probably just been typing away and two bits of random information had gelled in his mind. And voila! I think that must be why I have enjoyed this graphic novels so much - you can feel the craftsmanship that's gone into every single panel.

And that's what I feel makes TBO's work so entrancing. Every. Single. Detail. Seems to click into place with this amazing ease. It's like a tide of history sweeping you along, bringing you through the story effortlessly. Like a rollar coaster ride that you're enjoying so much you don't realise the passage of time until it's stopped and you just want  to go again.

It's the same with LoEG. The way he plucks fictional characters from their natural environments - even taking those which could NEVER have met - and slots them together as if them being together were the natural order of things. I can think of no other writer in my exprience that could pull that off.

And the ideas imbedded in this stories are fascinating in themselves, but which are subliminal until he reveals them in an interview - the use of frame sizes in Watchmen and the lack of thought bubbles or captions in V for Vendetta. Although you don't immediately notice them, you can sense that something is different.

Anyway, I've rambled on for far too long. But I'd be interested to know what other people think about Moore's work.

No-one can dispute that he's good. But what EXACTLY is it that you like about his stuff? Is there a panel where - like me - you feel the last fifty pages click into place and make very clear (and often quite chilling) sense?

cheers

Longman

[JamieB]

I like his sense of humour, me. The bit in TOP TEN when an infestation by super-powered mice turns into CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, or when there's an accident and the rubber-neckers have, well, rubber necks; genius.

He's one of the best users of the medium of comics Ive ever read; the use of time-between-panels in WATCHMEN is practically a masters thesis, god, even CHRONO-COPS is an object lesson in how to make comics work for you.

Also, he's barking mad, and I tend to respect that in a creator ;)

J-Bo-1

[JimBob]

 I'm always in two minds about Moore. I've loved some of his work V, Watchmen, Top 10 and Swamp Thing, but I've always thought -and i'll get stick for this- that he's politically dodgy. He comes accross as one of those 80's chaps who allowed there -perfectly reasonable- dislike of Reagan and Thatcher to somehow make the Soviets appear acceptible. I'm not saying he's anywhere near as bad as some of the apologists for Stalinism doing the rounds at the time, but it is something i always found disquieting. If I'm wrong about this I apologise unreservedsly but it is an impression I've got form hi work.
 One of the things that does stand out is his interest in Magick, anyone have any links to anywhere he discusses this?  

[Art]

But, to paraphrase Watchmen, who are to say the smartest man in the world is mad?

[Cordite]

Firstly, Longman, how I envy you, coming to these epics for the first time. Read Watchmen in a day, did you! Ah, if only I could press some button and erase my recollection of it - everything bar the knowledge that what I'm about to read is so fucken good... and then be able to experience it all for the first time again.

I trust you will be reading Halo Jones and From Hell soon.

You ask: "what EXACTLY is it that you like about his stuff? Is there a panel where - like me - you feel the last fifty pages click into place and make very clear (and often quite chilling) sense?"

One of my favorites is during Dr Manhattan's time on Mars, when he mentions his watch, with the hands stopped, "frozen in time" and then later repeats this caption over the picture of the young lovers clinking their glasses together. Just beautiful; raises the hair on my neck every time.

Or the bit in V when SPOILERS!!!!!! you realise Evie's been tortured by V, and you think "what a bastard!" but can't help acknowledge the freedom he has conferred on her. Or that letter, y'know: "every inch but one;" or when the detective takes acid in the extermination camp;
the chapter in From Hell when Gull gives us an arcane travelogue to London; or the ending of just about every chapter of Halo Jones...

As Steve Coogan says in The Day Today, I could go on.

Moore is the best ever; a genius.

[longmanshort]

"He comes accross as one of those 80's chaps who allowed there -perfectly reasonable- dislike of Reagan and Thatcher to somehow make the Soviets appear acceptible"

I can understand where you're coming from on that. Looking back at the early 80s and the political situation is an interesting one for anyone from a left-wing background. Thatcher was in power and making that power felt. There was the - quickly dashed - hope of a Labour victory in 83. The Winter of Discontent was still fresh in the minds of most. The Left was in trouble. In that kind of situation, it should come as no surprise that people saw Thatcher's Britain as one step towards a totalitarian police state. In that kind of situation, even the Soviet Union seemed like a good idea. Relations with the USSR under the Carter administration had brought some thawing of the situation, but the West was mostly ignorant of the day to day suffering of ordinary Russians. For a lot of intellectuals and thinkers at the time, they were getting what they wanted - a Russia that was slightly more in line with Western values but remaining Socialist. I have an old 1978 edition of The Dictionary of Modern Thought, which lists the ideologies of the time. Reading it, you'd think the west was on the point of collapse and a benevolent USSR was finally going to take over. But now, we know they were wearing the same glasses as the apologists of the 40s and 50s were wearing  - they WANTED to believe in Russia. But it never lived up to their dreams.

In a Britain of strikes, police oppression, poverty and Right Wing government (see Alan's foreword in the V for Vendetta GN to see what his mental state was at the time!) images of a Russian 'golden land' are hard to resist. You can't blame them for wanting something better. and things like that can filter down into someone's writing without them ever knowing.

So I don't think TBO did it intentionally. He just did what he does best - creating strips that exist as comfortably in their time and as they do 20 years later.

[longmanshort]

I originally read Halo Jones Book III in Best of 2000AD Monthly and loved it. Got the collected GN a while ago and was not disappointed.

Read the first 30 pages of From Hell when I had three hours to spare in Boarders the other day. When i have the money ...

[JamieB]

He's certainly political - cf the Arthur article he wrote, and things like BROUGHT TO LIGHT, not to mention V - but I don't think you could accuse him of being preachy, really. Other than that, I have no idea about the extent or direction of his political views.

He's done the Magick thing at some length. There's a range of CDs available where he reads  / performs various ceremonies (THE HIGHBURY WORKING, ANGEL PASSAGE) and several of his recent comics are all about the magick - especially PROMETHEA, which has gone so far as to use chromatic colour-scales to reflect whereabouts in the Kaballah the lead character's travelling.

There's also a frequently hilarious interview with him regarding magic in issue 2 of Eddie Campbell's now sadly defunct magazine, EGOMANIA - which came out recently enough that you should be able to track it down in any halfway decent comic shop.

J-Bo-Let's-All-Go-Dagenham-And-Worship-Fictional-Egyptian-Snake-Gods-1

[Cordite]

From Hell is wonderful, but a little vague if you don't read the included annotations.
One of the great things about it is it's so damn big you can read it any number of times and still find something you missed all those other times.

The film, sadly, is dire. I'd had high hopes, cos I liked the Hughes brothers' previous films, but this is muck and actually reverts to stereotypical images of the Ripper.
I'd advise you steer clear - at least until you've read the GN... although the film is so different it probably wouldn't make much difference anyhow.
Humph, Abberline being some kind of fey psychic indeed.

[ukdane]

I've read Watchmen twice and loved it- the second read really opened my eyes. It's well worth the read along with the annotated notes (available on the web).
There's a lot of time and care that he puts into these stories.
Top ten was great.
I've just started LOEG.
V i've owned it for about 10+ years, and still NEVER read it.
I've also got Promethea book 1 and have yet to read that.

Certainly of the things I have read that he's written. It comes across that:
1) He's both interested, and loves, what he's writting.
2) He takes time and care to nurture each project as if it were a baby.
3) He writes about things that he (it appears) has knowledge (hence the interest- I guess) about.

He KNOWS how to write comics, and can get what he wants across to the artist-no matter who the artist is.

Looking and the various artists he has worked with and yet each comic IS an Alan Moore comic.

[Richmond Clements]

The Killing Joke, Longman, you gotta read it. Read it again and again. First time I read it I went 'is that it?'. But read it again and again, sooo many layers.
Oh yeah. The art's okay too.

One of my favotire bits in Watchmen, which I only noticed on the secong reading, was all the stuff going on in the background.
At onw point Rorshach(sp) tells someone to leave him a message in a litter bin. Later, when the News Vendor guy is talking in the forefront of a frame, in the background, the End Is Nigh guy is rummaging through the bin. Brilliant.

[Leigh S]

Jimbob - I think thats the impression you got from his beard rather than his work! :)

[Mikey]

Is it not a Roman snake?? ;)

There's interviews online if ye look;Neil gaimans site has links(in the journal archives section-may take a bit of a search).One of my favorite quotes from him,when asked if he'd ever move to America cos of work stuff he said
"I barely move from this end of the living room"
Sweet as!(Also-alanmoorefansite.com.)
I have a video(taped off telly)of him talking about magic and the stories in Voice of the Fire.
He is just simply a fantastic writer-detail was mentioned,Warren Ellis's CIA column give a few samples of what he's like script wise-immensely detailed,every frame described for the artist.Contrast with Wagners"particularly exciting telegrams"(Gibbons??)
He's just fantastic.LMS you are a lucky swine to have such great stuff to go through!
M.

[Mikey]

Why do I like his writing so much?Because you know he loves the media and takes it seriously,his writing is watertight,entertaining,informative,witty,intelligent.And thats just top ten ;p

Politics?The man's definately a Socialist(possible anarchist?)So what?As The Exploited had it"Maggie,you're a c*nt"Why not hold former USSR up to right wing f*ckers simply to piss them off?That's why it didn't work,selfishness!
ahem.(power ta tha peeps!)
M.

[paulvonscott]

"But it was the panel where the detective realises the music is Beethoven's Ninth, which begins with 'da da da dom' - the morse code for the letter V."

From what you've said isn't that Beethoven's Fifth? (Vth!)

Alan Moore obviously knows how to write a comic, he's also great at looking at something objectively and coming up with loads of great observational material on that subject which he weaves seemingly effortlessly into a story.  

He's not however as good at coming up with his own ideas, a lot of what he's done has been a reworking of something already exisiting and he's applied his (admittedly not shabby) powers of observation and storytelling to them.  Resulting in a seemingly magical process of turning base metal into gold.

To a certain extent everyone does this of course, and it's a petty point as he's basically the knees of a many knee'd mutated bee, more a three hundred and thirty three knee'd bee than some statistically challenged bee of a mere three knees which couldn't win a victory in a bee knee knocking contest if it's three remaining bee knees depended on it.  And still rarer than the thirty three knee'd bee discovered by Ivan Chutnee, a worker in a superglue factory, in 1973.