Alan Moore's Future Shocks

[O Lucky Stevie!]

Let's not forget Green Bonce's bonce bobbing up in that glorious episode of Flesh in Prog 6 when the panel showing the child getting dino-chomped in the wreckage from the Dino-Express was censored.

[sheridan]

Cool! Did he do that in prog 1 then?

I can see that Barney says Tharg's first appearance in 2000ad, i.e. in a story not the intro and letters pages, is prog 24. (Tharg and the Intruder 1 episode (Prog 24) 3 pages Script: Kevin O'Neill, Artist: Kevin O'Neill, Letters: Peter Knight) But knowing Tharg as I do, I suspected he might have popped up in something else and started talking to readers or characters in a meta-fictional kinda way. MAch 1 could be the first time, eh.

Cheers

Monty

There's a three-panel story where a sub-editor droid tries to escape and is disassembled by Tharg - I think this was in the very early issues, before there were any letters to publish.

[sheridan]

There's a three-panel story where a sub-editor droid tries to escape and is disassembled by Tharg - I think this was in the very early issues, before there were any letters to publish.

Prog 3 - sub-Editor Mark IV spelt two words wrong, tried to escape and was disintegrated by Tharg (using a hand-held weapon, and not a magic/psychic beam from his fingertips or anything).

[Montynero]

Good info, thanks Sheridan.

I've written about 4000 words so far. One surprising area that's emerged is the influence of British TV sketch comedy. If anyone has any anecdotal info about TV viewing habits in the Moore house as Alan grew up that would be most apposite.

There wasn't an awful lot to watch in those days. so if the TV was on the family would more than likely be viewing a couple of the same big shows half the nation watched: Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies etc. Mum's and Dad's chose the channel, especially in the evenings, and kids either joined in or amused themselves while it rumbled on in the background. Though I don't want to make too much of that while it's merely conjecture.

Cheers

[Montynero]

I finished writing this a month or so or ago and, after I'd shown it to a few people, someone suggested that with a few modifications I could probably get it published as an academic paper!!! Colour me surprised.

I'm not overly bothered either way, but I think it may need to have never been published anywhere else to qualify. So I'll let that play out before I post  a link here.

Monty

[TordelBack]

...someone suggested that with a few modifications I could probably get it published as an academic paper!!!

Amazed it turned out that dull and unreadable. Gutted for you mate. 

[Montynero]

Oh, god, I learnt so much writing it. Really enjoyed it.

Wondering whether to read Jerusalem now. I've previously thought of Moore as a great writer of comics, not prose (which is not to say that the prose within his comics isn't vivid and evocative) so haven't bothered with his novels. I'm not a fan of verbose writers, you see - there's the rub. But there's clearly so much intertextuality in his work, principally surrounding the psychogeography and fourth dimensional hyper-moment, plus so many autobiographical elements, that it seems an increasingly attractive proposition.

[TordelBack]

Wondering whether to read Jerusalem now. I've previously thought of Moore as a great writer of comics, not prose (which is not to say that the prose within his comics isn't vivid and evocative) so haven't bothered with his novels. I'm not a fan of verbose writers, you see - there's the rub. But there's clearly so much intertextuality in his work, principally surrounding the psychogeography and fourth dimensional hyper-moment, plus so many autobiographical elements, that it seems an increasingly attractive proposition.

It's bloody great. It's insanely big, and while I was tempted to pray for the retrospective intervention of a stern editor more than once, it's clear that the length, the scope, and the repetition of elements, are all entirely intentional parts of the art: this is Moore unfettered from the pace dictated by the production of every individual comics page, and largely free from economic concerns, just putting everything together.   It runs the full range from intimate observations of the routines of everyday life to end-of-the-universe batshit cosmology, high-concept farce and biting political critique, amazing imagery and finely honed turns of phrase, thinly veiled character assassination and hagiographies,  invented (?) languages, Gods and monsters, rapists and saints, sociology and economics, half-a-dozen distinct literary pastiches, local history and genealogy, self-deprecating autobiography and shameless boasting, conspiracy theories, homilies, shaggy dog stories and heart-breaking laments. 

I'm not quite done and I'm seriously considering starting again, with a notepad beside me this time.  It's not the greatest work of literature by any means, but it's absolutely fascinating from start to (I presume) finish.

[TordelBack]

Ugh, now I've caught verbosity off of it:

It also delivers a few of those wonderful hair-raising moments where the reader feels reality and fiction merging - accentuated for me because early on I had taken to following the characters circling journeys around Northampton with Google Street View, and there were bits which I would otherwise have sworn were pure Moorish invention until they popped right up on my screen like some kind of creepy-pasta thing.

[Montynero]

Haha. Verbosity is clearly an alien idea intent on invasion (Eureka (Prog 325) 5 pages Script: Alan Moore, Artist: Mike White)

Jerusalem does sound rather fun. I'm all for batshit crazy.

That Google street view stuff puts me in mind of City of Glass, when Stilman Sr attempts to physically map a new prelapsarian language by walking the streets of the city, spelling letters out by his route as viewed from a top down view. I've not read the novel (probably too verbose for me) but the Mazzucchelli and Karasik adaptation is well worth a look.

[Frank]

I'm not quite done and I'm seriously considering starting again

That would be well fucking meta:

[CalHab]

That Google street view stuff puts me in mind of City of Glass, when Stilman Sr attempts to physically map a new prelapsarian language by walking the streets of the city, spelling letters out by his route as viewed from a top down view. I've not read the novel (probably too verbose for me) but the Mazzucchelli and Karasik adaptation is well worth a look.

The Paul Auster short story is excellent, and he's certainly not a verbose writer. There's some complex ideas in there, but the form and language are straightforward. You can see why the comic adaptation worked.

[JOE SOAP]

Speaking of Moore's larger works, I had some email exchanges with director Michael Bassett about 17 years ago when he was developing the unfinishedBig Numbers as a TV series. He had done some audio recordings with Moore while he laid out, in great detail, the outline of the whole series and what happened to the main characters. When I showed some interest in it he put up transcripts of the tapes on his old website - long since gone but still available on the Internet Archive.


https://web.archive.org/web/20001207133500/http://homepages.enterprise.net/bassett/bignumbe.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20001208145500/http://homepages.enterprise.net/bassett/BigTranscripts2.htm

[JOE SOAP]

^^^^^incomplete post^^^^^

Speaking of Alan Moore's larger works - I had some email exchanges with director Michael Bassett about 17 years ago when he was developing the unfinished Big Numbers as a TV series to be produced for Channel 4.

He had done some audio recordings with Alan - who related the outline of the whole series from beginning to end detailing what happened to the main characters. When I showed some interest in it Michael kindly put up all transcripts of the tapes on his old website - long since gone but still available in the memory hole Internet Archive.


Intro

Part One

Part Two

A mini pull-out version of the story/character-map Alan refers to in the transcript is available in the book Alan Moore: Storyteller.

[JayzusB.Christ]

The Paul Auster short story is excellent, and he's certainly not a verbose writer. There's some complex ideas in there, but the form and language are straightforward. You can see why the comic adaptation worked.

It is, and I haven't read the comic adaptation.  There's nothing complex or fancy about the writing style, but the weird, multilayered puzzle of events it describes still haunt my mind about 15 years after I read it.

And Tordelback - reading Jerusalem with Google maps is a ridiculously good idea.  I honestly believe James Joyce would really, really appreciated the idea of his readers using Google Maps to assist with Ulysses, Dubliners and Finnegans Wake.