With the release of UNEARTHING, a spoken word/music/photograph multimedia project, Northampton legend Alan Moore has done a few interviews which are just as entertaining as the man’s work. At the Irish Times, he waxes lyrical about many things, and reaffirms his distaste for the current comics scene:
“Away from comics is certainly an accurate depiction of where I’m headed, but what it’s towards is perhaps a bit more difficult to define, because it seems to be heading towards several different areas at once. I mean, I will always love and continue to work in the comics medium. On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago I did tell an emissary of DC Comics that I didn’t want the rights to Watchmen back, so that’s pretty final.
“It’s largely disgust – I don’t think that’s too strong a term, disgust – that I feel with the way that the comics industry operates. But what I’m moving towards feels to me to be much more exciting.”
But he also talks about the project at hand:
“I just turned out this 26-page story and that would have been it. And then I heard from my friend Mitch Jenkins, a world-class photographer, who just happens to live around the corner, to say he was getting a bit tired of constantly retouching the irises of the latest American movie star. He asked if I had any fragments of texts that he might be able to get a few ideas for new images from. The only thing I’d got was this huge unwieldy document Unearthing . I said ‘obviously this is too big but you’re welcome to anything in there that inspires you’.
“He came back saying he wanted to turn this into this huge book of photographs and texts that were combined in unusual ways. I thought ‘well, that sounds wonderful, and also it doesn’t sound as if I have to do any work’, because I’d written the story already. The only bit of work I had to do, which was a pleasure, was to pose for a couple of pictures where I do intrude into the story. We’ve got somebody else playing Steve and the other characters, but apparently I’m very difficult to cast.”
Love him or hate him I think its great that he sets his bar of standards and sticks to it. Not many people would give up their rights to such a money generating book as the Watchmen. Let alone never taking the money from the movies.
Leaves one to wonder how long ago he wrote Neuronicon, now coming out through Avatar, and if the next League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is on schedule?
I revere Moore’s work, but the first full issue of Neuronomicon had 42 uses of “fuck” and variations thereon in its scant 18 pages of story. That seems rather unimaginative for someone with Moore’s facility for language.
I can totally understand and empathize with Moore’s “crankiness.” I’m every bit as cranky about comics due to the dumbshit comics industry and audience.
Sounds like fumetti to me. I’ll be lining up to get it. It’s also nice to know that he seems to have backpedaled on the whole ‘quitting comics’ business.
Oh, good night, enough already on this, please. In all these interviews over the past several years, Alan Moore continues to act as if DC Comics is the sum total of the comics industry, which is very silly for a very smart man. He certainly has earned the right to be cranky, but he’s become a bit sad, to me at least, when he mutters on like that about a medium that’s in far better artistic shape than he knows, or pretends to know. Or not know. Or whatever it is he’s on about these days. On top of that he bitches and moans about the boundaries of comics as art and puts out Victorian superhero fan fiction and Victorian fan porn-fiction. Okay, whatever. I’m not adding anything worthy to the pile but I also don’t condemn the medium for the crimes of the industry.
All fairness aside, Moore never condemned the medium. He says in the first paragraph of Heidi’s quote:
“I mean, I will always love and continue to work in the comics medium.”
In the next paragraph, he condemns the way the industry operates:
“It’s largely disgust – I don’t think that’s too strong a term, disgust – that I feel with the way that the comics industry operates.”
Big difference between one’s love for the medium and a condemnation for the way the industry operates and as a reader, I agree with him 100%.
I love the medium and still read comics — little to none of the new ones largely also out of disgust with the way the industry operates.
For a very smart man Evan, it seems silly that you ignored the most obvious quotes from Moore when making your own condemnation of the man’s view.
Say what you want about Alan Moore, but I bet he’d know when to use “was” and “were” regardless of the Green Lantern’s status as a pervert.
Put me in the category of those who have grown tired of what Moore has to say. Every headline is basically “Moore hates state of industry”. It’s not exactly “Man bites dog.”
I agree with much of what Evan stated. He seems either really ignorant as to what the industry has to offer or insists on driving home the fact he hates dc (and marvel) in such a way that he makes it seem like the industry has NOTHING to offer.
What bugs me about that is he isn’t really preaching to the choir. Im afraid that people who are skeptical of the medium anyway, yet recognize Moore’s name, will read what he says and dismiss much of what’s out there today.
For Neonomicon, you may be looking at the wrong bits. Watch how Moore creates panels out of the landscape, locations and props and the different levels within. Look at the use of speech balloons, especially FX balloons and how they delineate from each other (or not). Then look at how the alko-affected people can do things closer to Dr Manhattan… and what that means for their experience of reality. Moore is deliberately not using certain tools of his, specifically the juxtaposed dialogue, and finding new ones to replace them…
“Alan Moore Still Cranky”
In other news, water is wet.
— Rob
Funny how the man who subverted the Super-hero genre to his own ends AND who consistently slags one of the two major Publishers of that comics genre could engender such vitriolic attacks from the fanboys of that particular genre?
It’s almost as if by attacking him, they’re defending it. The fact that he’s LEFT writing about superheroes can only add fuel to their criticisms…
Or it could be that peoplea just tired of his bull, I mean he showed his ignorance when he talked about Blackest Night being based on one of his old throwaway stories. The guy has no clue about what is going on in comics good or bad but acts like he does. That makes him full of crap in my book, not to mention how much of a hypocrite he is truly how anyone at this point takes him serious is beyond me.
If Moore says the “Blackest Night” or whatecer concept is based on something similar he wrote for DC YEARS ago, how are you going to discredit that without any insider information?
I think the people who’re tired of his bull are people who don’t like the fact that Moore is dismissing work they enjoy. These people are most likely the ” Comic Book Guy” type of people. These people have a huge emotional investment in the current Marvel/DC paradigm.
“Moore’s name, will read what he says and dismiss much of what’s out there today.”
Most of what’s out there deserves to be dismissed. I think things are more stagnant than fanboys and fangirls would like to admit.
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