BIOGRAPHY:
Alan Moore (1953- ) is the best writer to
ever grace the comic page and he lives in Northampton, UK.
There seems little point offering more biographical
details here when there are some superb publications available
that have already done a very comprehensive job of it:
 Egomania #2
contains probably the best interview with Alan Moore ever to
appear in print, conducted by Eddie
Campbell, Alan Moore's collaborator on From
Hell, The Birth Caul and Snakes & Ladders.
 Alan
Moore: Portrait Of An Extraordinary Gentleman contains
a 12 page biographic, an extensive discussion between Alan
Moore and Dave Sim on the subject of From
Hell, and tributes from 145 top comic creators.
 The
Extraordinary Works Of Alan Moore features an extensive
interview with Alan discussing his life and works, containing
lots of rare pictures and comics, and a comprehensive bibliography.
 Comic
Book Artist #25 focuses on the ABC comic line and
Alan Moore in particular with a comprehensive interview with
Alan and artists from the ABC comics line, including Kevin
O'Neill and Chris Sprouse.
 The
Pocket Essential: Alan Moore is a thin, yet comprehensive,
overview of Alan's writing career. Visually, it is a little
unappealing as it contains no artwork, yet it is a very useful
guide if you're new to the life, times and teachings of Mr
Moore.
 For
a detailed guide into the world of The
League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, you will need a copy
of Heroes & Monsters - page
by page, panel by panel annotations for all the obscure references
contained in the comic.
Interviews:
The Independent (2006)
The Beat Pt1 (2006)
The Beat Pt2 (2006)
The
Independent (2005)
Alan Moore vs
Brian Eno (2005)
Chain Reaction Transcript (2005)
Comic Book Resources (2005)
ComicWorld
News Pt1 (2004)
Comic
World News Pt2 (2004)
Ninth
Art (2003)
Suicide
Girls (2003)
Engine
Comics (2002)
The
Onion (2001)
The Comics Journal
#231 (2001)
Blather
(2000)
The
Idler (2000)
The
Jack Kirby Collector #30 (1999)
The Comics Journal #152 (1992)
The Comics Journal
#139-140 (1990)
The Comics Journal
#116 (1987)
The Comics Journal #106 (1986)
Resources:
Recommended by... Alan Moore
Arcade: Too Avant Garde
For The Mafia?
Alan Moore at Comicon
Alan Moore at 2000AD
The
Alan Moore Fan Site
4
Colour Heroes
Annotations:
Enjolras
World
Marvelman
V
For Vendetta
Watchmen
Reviews:
Time.com:
Promethea
Time.com:
From Hell
Indy
Magazine: Voice Of The Fire
Graphic
Novel Review: Voice Of The Fire
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ESSENTIAL
READING: |
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with Eddie Campbell
Top Shelf, 1991 - 1998
In Victorian London five prostitutes were brutally murdered by the notorious
Jack The Ripper, a mysterious criminal who eluded police and defied explanation.
In From Hell, Alan Moore performs a post-mortem of
this historical event, using fiction as a scalpel and implicates the Royal Family
in a cover up - the Queen's truant nephew, Prince Albert Victor, who masquerades
as a peasant, has secretly fathered a child with a common streetwalker. From
Hell is an evocative portrayal of Victorian society - of it's hypocrisy,
it's corruption and it's evil. Essential reading.
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with Kevin O'Neill
DC/ABC, 2000-2003
A Victorian adventure story set in 1898 starring a cast of familiar characters
from Victorian literature - Mina Murray (Dracula),
Allan Quatermain (King Solomon's Mines), Captain Nemo
(Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea), Dr.
Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Invisible Man and Professor
Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes).
"The sole idea we'd started out with was that a Victorian
super-hero team of previously existing characters might be something
fun to work on. Then we thought it might be interesting if we
worked some of the era's architectural fancies and fictions,
or its technological wild ideas into our fantasy environment..
from that point on, all characters or names referred to in the
strip would have their origin in either fictions written during
or before the period in hand, or else in elements from later
works that could be retro-engineered into our continuity by the
invention of a father, grandfather or other predecessor."
Alan Moore, from the introduction to Heroes & Monsters |
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with J.H. Williams III & Mick Grey
DC/ABC, 1999 - 2004
What initially looks like a mainstream superhero character quickly becomes a
vehicle for Alan Moore to explore magical concepts and explain them to a mainstream
audience. The first few issues introduce the broad concepts of magic, but then Promethea moves
in to an exploration of the tarot, the Kaballah... and tantric sex!
"Magic isn't some unfathomable and archaic new territory
so much as something which you've been dealing with all you're
life in various forms, but have never chosen to see in those
terms."
Alan Moore, speaking in Egomania #2
"Utilizing my occult experiences I could see a way that
it would be possible to do a new kind of occult comic, that was
more psychedelic, that was more sophisticated, more experimental,
more ecstatic and exuberant."
Alan Moore, speaking in The Extraordinary Works
Of Alan Moore |
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with Ian Gibson
2000AD, 1984-1986
"If I had to sum up as succinctly as possible what makes
a classic 2000AD series, I'd probably
boil it down to these three words: Guns, Guys and Gore (and maybe
a few giggles thrown in for good measure). Curious, then, that
when asked for the first time to design a series from the ground
up for that erstwhile publication I should opt for Ships, Squeezes
and Shopping exhibitions. All I can say in my defence is that
it seemed perfectly logical at the time… I didn't want to write
about a pretty scatterbrain who fainted a lot and had trouble
keeping her clothes on. I similarly had no inclination to unleash
yet another Tough Bitch With A Disintegrator And An Extra Y Chromosome
upon the world. What I wanted was simply an ordinary woman such
as you might find standing in front of you while queing for the
check-out at Tesco's, but transposed to the sort of future environment
that seemed a prerequisite of what was, after all, a boy's science
fiction comic… Naturally, given its nature, the strip wasn't
really for every one. Some found our decision to dump the reader
straight in at the deep end with a totally alien society and
let them figure things out for themselves to be merely confusing
and irritating. Then, of couse, there were those readers who
complained that very little happened in the strip. Personally,
I think that what they actually meant was that very little violence
happened in the strip… In short not everyone liked Halo
Jones… But we did.
And the people at 2000AD did. And
if you've paid out good money for the volume you hold in your
hands, then the chances are that you do too. As for everyone
else, I really only have one question: What's the matter? Don't
you like girls?”
Alan Moore, from the
introduction to The Ballad Of Halo Jones
“Alan Moore and Ian Gibson's The Ballad
Of Halo Jones is
just the kind of comic we need… a first class tale of friendship,
loyalty, love, war and shopping.”
Frank Miller
“Alan Moore and Ian Gibson have taken one girl's
life and dragged it face first through a sewer pipe.”
Bill Sienkiewicz |
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with David Lloyd
DC/Vertigo, 1989
Forgive the clunky future setting - 1997 was the future back in 1981 - and immerse
yourself in Alan Moore's bleak and frightening vision of a Britain struggling
to survive in the grip of a nuclear winter, turning to a fascist totalitarian
leadership to survive but at the price of individual freedom and identity. Alan
Moore creates a world of despair and oppressive tyranny so terrible that you
almost forget that it all came true.
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with Oscar Zarate
Avartar, 1991
The future looks bright for Timothy Hole. His steady rise in the world of American
advertising has been meteoric, but well deserved considering his commitment
to commercialism. Now he's about to get a crack at the big one, taking the
company's best selling account - Flite, the diet drink sensation - to the consumer
product starved USSR. He has come a long way from the dreamy working class
boy who grew up in the English Midlands. Only one thing clouds an otherwise
rosy horizon. Somebody is following Timothy Hole. Somebody who wants him dead.
"... I still think A Small Killing was
one of the best things I've ever done. And one of the most beautiful
books I've ever been part of."
Alan Moore, speaking in The Extraordinary Works
Of Alan Moore |
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with Steve Bissette & John Totleben
DC/Vertigo, 1984 - 1987
Deep in the Louisiana swamp-lands a dying man's consciousness is absorbed by
his surroundings. The result is a creature - an earth elemental - with the
power to descend to the very depths of hell and battle the forces of damnation. Swamp
Thing is an epic tale of demons, monsters, love and resurrection. Alan
Moore not only redefined the title character, but also the entire genre of
horror comics and created a truly frightening book.
"Innovative, literate - quite simply stunning! Swamp
Thing is leading us all into new territory."
James Herbert
"... One of the finest works of contemporary horror fiction
in any medium."
Ramsey Campbell |
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with Dave Gibbons
DC, 1987
"Collossal and intricate clock of a comic, thoroughly calculated on every level,
using only the ingredients of the American superhero comic"
Eddie Campbell
"Moore's writing is remarkable. He catches the rhythms of speech
so naturally, presents his world so seamlessly, that the whole
seems effortless… Gibbon's art has never been better. Each panel
a semiotician's heaven… undoubtedly the most ambitious work of
science fiction since Gene Wolfe's Book Of
The Sun, and the most
ambitious and, in my opinion, most successful graphic novel ever."
Neil Gaiman
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| SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY: |
Independent/Personal Work:
A Small Killing
Brought To Light
From Hell
Lost Girls
Maxwell The Magic Cat
Snakes & Ladders
The Birth Caul
The Bojefferies Saga
The Mirror Of Love
Voice Of The Fire
Performance CD's:
Angel Passage: William Blake Tribute
Brought To Light
Snakes & Ladders
The Birth Caul
The Highbury Working: A Beat Séance
The Moon & Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre Of Marvel
ABC Titles:
Forty Niners
Promethea: Vol 1 to 5
Smak: Vol 1
The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman: Vol 1 & 2
Tom Strong: Vol 1 to 4
Tom Strong's Terrific Tales: Vol 1
Tomorrow Stories: Vol 1 & 2
Top 10: Book 1 & 2
Swamp Thing:
1: Saga Of The Swamp Thing
2: Love & Death
3: The Curse
4: A Murder Of Crows
5: Earth To Earth
6: Reunion
2000 AD Stories:
Alan Moore's Shocking Futures
Alan Moore's Twisted Times
DR & Quinch
Skizz
The Ballad Of Halo Jones
Superheroes:
Across The Universe: The DC Universe Stories Of Alan
Moore
Captain Britain
Miracleman
Superman: Whatever Happen to The Man Of Tomorrow
Supreme 1: Book Of The Year
Supreme 2: The Return
The Killing Joke
V For Vendetta
Voodoo: Dancing In The Dark
Watchmen
WildCats 1: Homecoming
WildCats 2: Gang War
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