”A lot of emphasis has been placed on the cinematic quality of comic book storytelling. But if you’re using words, there’s got to be a literary element there, as well. I don’t consider myself a very good writer. Maybe I write pretty good comics, but in the broad arena I wouldn’t be anything special. But there’s no reason why comics should not achieve the same effect as the very best books. There’s nothing inherently inferior about the medium, but it will be held back until the scripters are asked to be good writers.”
Interviewed in ‘Comics Interview’ #12
In the history of comics, there have been those that simply serve the form, producing formulaic tales that merely continue a genre. But, rarely, there are those that evolve the form, taking existing conventions, genres and even characters and developing them into a new benchmark for the industry.
Will Eisner was one. Frank Hampson was another. Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis. These are just some of the names that chose to not merely replicate the styles and stories of before, but to explore how the tools of comics could be twisted, expanded and exploited to produce far more powerful and significant works.
Undoubtedly the most important of these trail-blazers in modern times is Alan Moore.
Moore developed his unique and genre-changing style from a foundation in traditional comics. Growing up with the Fantastic Four, Marvelman and the classics of the superhero genre, Moore had an innate understanding of what made comics tick – the ingredients that turned cheap fantasy into pop cultural icon.
Alan Moore :: Essential Works
- Skizz
(with Jim Baikie)
- DR & Quinch
- The Ballad of Halo Jones
- Marvelman
- V For Vendetta
- Captain Britain
- Doctor Who (with David Lloyd)
- Watchmen
- Swamp Thing
- Batman - The Killing Joke
- From Hell
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Alan Moore was one of the first of the new breed of comic writers to follow what was to become a common path for the comic pioneers of the last twenty years. If you were a boy growing up in Great Britain in the early Eighties, there was no escaping ‘2000AD’, the most successful comic ever published in the UK. This weekly sci-fi compendium offered up a variety of serialised comic visions from writers and artists given freedom to explore and play within the usual conventions of the fantasy strip.
British comics had always enjoyed a different personality to the American monthly four-colour tales. For one thing, there was a far greater breadth of genre available in Britain decades after the American market had nearly eliminated everything bar the superhero from the mainstream. Often these genres could be found within the same weekly title, with serialised sci-fi tales next to humour, next to romance. The British readership therefore grew to be more sophisticated in their expectations of what was possible.
Alan Moore stepped into this environment in the early 1980s, contributing ‘Future Shock’ short stories to 2000AD. The Future Shocks, short stories with a twist in the tail, were the established entry point for new writers and are responsible for many of today’s best. Moore excelled at this format, using five pages to create a unique idea that would provide genuine surprises to a readership used to all the clichés of comic sci-fi. Moving from the Future Shocks to longer serials, Moore developed a style that imbued original and evocative concepts with an emotional heartbeat. An early example of this would be Skizz, illustrated by Jim Baikie. Taking the alien stranded on earth scenario, later to be popularised by ET, Moore took a simple high concept and turned it into a very human story of recognisable people in a recognisable British suburb acting and reacting in a recognisable way to a fantastic situation.
This anchoring of the fantastic in the familiar would become a common thread through much of Moore’s work. The Ballad of Halo Jones snuck under the radar of most readers to become one of the biggest sleeper hits in ‘2000AD’ history. Moore crafted characters with real depth, inhabiting a future world that echoed our own.
Never predictable and often surprising and deeply moving, Halo Jones demonstrated the ability for modern comics to leave the nursery behind and earn a place at the big table of literature.
Alan Moore treated every comic script with a conviction of artistic worth that was not common among his peers. To Moore, comics were just as deserving of artistic merit as any other medium and he strove to demonstrate the power and flexibility of the form.
Moore began to attract mainstream critical acclaim with V For Vendetta. Tapping into the dystopian tradition of British sci-fi, V for vendetta was unlike anything else available in comics, with each instalment experimenting with new ways of using the comic format to tell a story. V for Vendetta is also unique in being probably the only film adaptation of Moore’s work to nearly capture the intelligence and dark vision of Moore’s work.
But the big elephant in the room was still waiting to be addressed. The superhero.
Alan Moore openly adored the superhero genre, likening them to the mythologies of gods. By approaching the superhero genre with the same post-modern approach he had developed in his previous work, Moore wanted to say something new in a format that hadn’t moved forward in decades.
Over the next few years, Moore took characters like Captain Britain, Marvelman and Swamp Thing and turned forgotten or third-tier characters and turned them into milestones on the path to modern comics.
The Marvelman strip, reprinted and completed in America by Epic Comics under the less litigious name Miracleman, still stands as one of the greatest superhero tales ever printed. Continuing the Moore trademark of combining the fantastic with the real, this treatment of the superhero concept was firmly anchored in human emotion and honest truth. How would you react if your husband was revealed to have superpowers? How would your worldview change if you could influence everything around you? This was a superhero with a god-complex.
Across the Atlantic, Swamp Thing was one of the first American comics to reject the Comics Code, producing comics clearly aimed at an adult rather than child audience. As such, Swamp Thing was the forerunner and the template for the revolution of adult comics in the 1980s and 90s, especially with the DC Vertigo imprint.
The title that cemented Moore’s reputation as the herald for a new, mature age of comics was ‘Watchmen’. Again, Moore revisited the superhero genre, coupled with the realism and literary structures he had developed over the years. Watchmen created a complete world for Moore’s superhero creations to occupy, with logical laws and consequences that allowed the scale of superheroics to cast new observations on human frailties and emotions. This was Alan Moore at his peek, taking a genre he adored and twisting it to serve his literary needs, producing something new. The gritty realism of Watchmen, coupled with Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, ushered in a new era of modern superhero comics that attempted to emulate the darkness, depth and substance.
Alan Moore :: Links
After a major falling out with DC Comics, Alan Moore spent many years working in the independent fringes of the industry. It was the independent sector that gave Moore the opportunity to create From Hell, a sprawling and highly researched literary piece following the documented and rumoured events surrounding Jack the Ripper. The Johnny Depp film a few years later took many dramatic licences with Moore’s work and, along with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen helped convince Moore that he should not be involved in film adaptations in any way.
In recent years, Wildstorm Comics, gave Alan Moore his own comics imprint – ABC Comics – providing him the opportunity to produce the comics he wanted to write. Promethea, Tom Strong, Top Ten – Alan Moore was able to produce a large output that reached a new audience of comic fans.
Many critics agree that no comic has yet been published to equal the importance of Watchmen. Others would say even Moore himself has not produced anything as groundbreaking as his first major works, with the exception of From Hell.
Regardless, all critics would agree, that Alan Moore has produced more work of importance than any other writer in the last twenty years. And with his output showing no signs of slacking, there could well be masterpieces still to come that will herald the next age of comics.
