Comic Books Archives | Page 9 of 9

Slate on Alan Moore

December 18, 2003 / Klint Finley

Fair enough:

Moore is comics’ Orson Welles: a genius formalist with a natural collaborative impulse and a habit of taking on overambitious projects. His work is alternately groundbreaking and painfully lazy; he often coasts on his cleverness for a quick paycheck. The question of whether he’s a fountain of imagination or just bats has never arisen: He’s both, and his ability to see familiar ideas from an alien perspective is one of his best tricks.

Full Story: Slate: Please, Sir, I Want Some Moore

America’s Heroes: Freedom Force

November 9, 2003 / Klint Finley

Web site with a huge amount of information about the Marvel mutant team Freedom Force. Including a long document detailing every appearance of the character Pyro.

Freedom Force is a long-defunct U.S. government team originally made up of Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (plus Spiral). They later acquired other members along the way to eventually form a core group of nine in their heyday—which varied depending on who was straying from the team and who, unfortunately, was dead. They were more often than not used as villains. So why do I like them? Well, admittedly I prefer a lot of villains over the various heroes, but FF was an interesting bunch of characters in their own right. When written by Chris Claremont at least, they were complex and motivated people depicted in shades of grey—while they started out as villains, they became more sympathetic during their tenure with FF and many began to lean towards heroism.

EY! What the FUCK are you ON about, Sigmund?

October 4, 2003 / Klintron

I missed this interview with Grant Morrison when it came out a couple months ago… must have been moving, couch surfing, or running around naked and green at Burning Man.

The Architect scene in “Matrix: Reloaded” – that was hard to understand. I kept thinking where was Dane McGowan to say, “EY! What the FUCK are you ON about, Sigmund?”

Comic Book Resources: Catching up with Professor M: Talking with Grant Morrison

I actually wanted to say a few things before being booted off, then again I guess I haven’t been booted off because I’m writing this stuff. Think of me as the houseguest who just doesn’t have the sense to leave…

Earlier, I mentioned other blogs that were in Technoccult’s karass. But I forgot the fifth Beatle: Warren Ellis’ “Die Puny Humans“. What’s really thrilling about reading Warren’s blog is that it answers quite vividly “Where do you crazy writers get your ideas from?” Today, for example, he’s praising Hunter Thompson, who I’ve always thought Spider Jerusalem was based on. I’ve also been reading every thrilling issue of Global Frequency and it’s clear that the phonecam photos and videos are not accidents. He’s also been putting in a lot of the weird science stuff. My favorite was a recent episode which featured this machine:

Also check out his online fiction novel. Some of the best online prose that I’ve ever read. Here’s a snippet:

I necked a dexidrene and watched the morning fester.

Jarrow wanted me to come into his office to talk the job over. Having to talk to Jarrow in person is almost the worst part, as he has possibly the most punchable face I’ve ever seen.

It was getting hot outside. I dug out an old pair of combat pants I picked up from one of the US Army clearance sales, years and years ago. White and black and grey, urban camouflage, baggy and lightweight – probably what the well-dressed soldier was wearing when shooting city-gooks a decade back. Black and silver streetsocks, with the rubberised soles. A sleeveless black t-shirt I got given last year by a nullpunkt band from Hamburg called Biss. The only shades I could find were some crappy plastic CamoCam things I got on the way out of Narita Airport, first time I was in Japan. They have little cameras in the back of the headstrap that pick up what’s behind you and stream it on the shades lenses, so it looks like you have two big round holes in your head. But it was these or a sunlight headache, and I was in shitty enough condition as it was.

Sexy retro sci-fi comic

July 14, 2003 / Klintron

Draw says:

“Varla Dayne” is a web comic with a retro 40’s pulp sci-fi aesthetic to it, featuring art that is spot on for the golden age of comics. The plot and the dialogue are played innocent, but the characters are dressed as if they were from a John Willie comic. It comes off as perverse and innocent at the same time. Great stuff.

Varla Dayne

(via Reverse Cowgirl)

Alan Moore: Comic Book Genius Turned Magician

August 17, 2000 / Klint Finley

Alan Moore is the author of such acclaimed works as The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and is a magician to boot.

Initially Moore worked as both a writer and an artist on a detective strip called “Roscoe Moscow,” but he decided he was a poor artist and decided to focus on writing. From there he went on to work for 2000 AD and Dr. Who Weekly (as many British comic authors did…) and eventually began working on the anthology Warrior.

It was here that Moore created two of his most seminal works: Marvelman (later called Mircleman) and V for Vendetta. The former would be reprinted and continued by Eclipse, the latter would be reprinted by DC (it is now part of the Vertigo imprint).

Moore was then hired by DC to write Saga of Swamp Thing beginning with issue 20. Moore continued working for DC and produced Batman: Killing Joke and most notably, The Watchmen.

The Watchmen was a politically savvy and realistic portrayal of a super hero universe. Along with Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, Moore and artist Dave Gibbons revolutionized comicsand paved the way for future mature readers series (such as The Sandman, The Crow, Preacher and many more).

However, disputes over the royalties of the Watchmen caused Moore to leave DC and vow never to work for them again. He then began his own company, Mad Love Publishing. Under this imprint he published two issues of Big Numbers. Around this time he also began two series for Tundra’s anthology Taboo: “From Hell” and “Lost Girls.” From Hell continued as a graphic novel series published by Eddie Cambell Comics.

Moore began working with rogue publishers Image Comics in 1993 and where he created 1963 which was cancelled due to low sales. Moore also wrote Wild CATs and a large amount of Spawn related material, including WildCATs/Spawn

Moore then began his relationship with Rob Liefeld and his Image off-shoot company Maximum Press (later Awesome Comics) where he worked on Supreme, Warchild, Judgement Day and other titles before Awesome comics went bankrupt.

After Awesome went under, Jim Lee’s Image off-shoot company, Wildstorm Productions (now an imprint of, ironiccally, DC Comics) offered Moore his own imprint. Moore accepted and America’s Best Comics was born. Moore has continued to write a number of books under his own imprint as well as other titles under the Wildstorm banner.

Alan Moore Fan site good starting point.

Twilight of the Super Heroes a rejected series proposal to DC by Moore

D.R. and Quinch scan page tribute to Moore and Alan Davis’ 2000 AD stories. Includes scans of an entire segment.

Alan Moore @ comicon.com lots of info and a small collection of works. Includes some performance art stuff.

Italian page a page dedicated to Alan Moore’s music, in Italian

Salon Books: From Hell an excellent article on Moore’s From Hell

V for Vendetta Shrine V for Vendetta fan site

Alan Moore interview an interview from Another Universe

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen review

Watching the Detectives illustrated annotations.

1963 annotations

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen annotations