The Recent Works of Alan Moore

[Mr Light]

I'm talkin' post Watchmen and all that, from the past decade or so. I've recently been catching up on all the various sundry series he's worked on since then. What are your favorites and least favorites?

My favorite is definitely League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Great characters, great art, so much detail in every panel, great story. I did find the 2nd volume a little lacking in plot/villain though. It's too bad he didn't do an entire run of these characters. I haven't read Black Dossier yet though, I'm weary of it given the team's dissolution at the end of the 2nd volume.

I also read his run on Wild C.A.T.S which wasn't exactly Shakespeare but it certainly managed to make an Image book actually seem interesting.

I read the Smax mini-series which I enjoyed. I haven't gotten to its parent book Top Ten yet but I'm interested in it.

I've gotten a smattering of the Tom Strong and America's Best Comics trades. I enjoyed Tom Strong as a retro Indy type book. I enjoyed half of ABC but I didn't care for Greyshirt or the purple faux-lesbian lady.

I forget how old From Hell is but I did enjoy reading that. Again, the attention to historical detail is astonishing. And the whole Masonry conspiracy and flash-forward to the future to prefigure serial killers was all fascinating stuff.

I do wonder though; after making Watchmen, why hasn't he ever done something in a similar vein? Everything I've recently read from him is basically just a tongue-in-cheek parody of superhero comic books with not as much symbolism or depth. I'm still waiting for a similar amazingly deep and meaningful opus.

 

[Ben Sisko3]

My favorite is definitely League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Great characters, great art, so much detail in every panel, great story. I did find the 2nd volume a little lacking in plot/villain though. It's too bad he didn't do an entire run of these characters. I haven't read Black Dossier yet though, I'm weary of it given the team's dissolution at the end of the 2nd volume.

*snip*
I'm still waiting for a similar amazingly deep and meaningful opus.

Black Dossier is fantastic, and 2009's follow-up, Century, looks to be incredible.

And if you want something that's as meaningful as Watchmen, give Lost Girls a look. And no, I'm not kidding. Holy. Jesus. Incredible, incredible book.

 

[Ultimale]

My favorite is definitely League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Great characters, great art, so much detail in every panel, great story. I did find the 2nd volume a little lacking in plot/villain though. It's too bad he didn't do an entire run of these characters. I haven't read Black Dossier yet though, I'm weary of it given the team's dissolution at the end of the 2nd volume.

*snip*
I'm still waiting for a similar amazingly deep and meaningful opus.

Black Dossier is fantastic, and 2009's follow-up, Century, looks to be incredible.

And if you want something that's as meaningful as Watchmen, give Lost Girls a look. And no, I'm not kidding. Holy. Jesus. Incredible, incredible book.

You mean Lost Girls, a pedophile's fantasy about the female characters of fairly tales engaging in obscene sexual activity? That Lost Girls? How can you possible recommend such filth?

 

[Thrall]

My favorite is definitely League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Great characters, great art, so much detail in every panel, great story. I did find the 2nd volume a little lacking in plot/villain though. It's too bad he didn't do an entire run of these characters. I haven't read Black Dossier yet though, I'm weary of it given the team's dissolution at the end of the 2nd volume.

*snip*
I'm still waiting for a similar amazingly deep and meaningful opus.

Black Dossier is fantastic, and 2009's follow-up, Century, looks to be incredible.

And if you want something that's as meaningful as Watchmen, give Lost Girls a look. And no, I'm not kidding. Holy. Jesus. Incredible, incredible book.

You mean Lost Girls, a pedophile's fantasy about the female characters of fairly tales engaging in obscene sexual activity? That Lost Girls? How can you possible recommend such filth?

Yeah. Moore's become a parody. LOEG is awful. It's a well-written, clever idea that got dragged down into his world view of non-stop and overbearing deconstructionism, disgusting and out-of-place violence that would offend even Garth Ennis and Frank Miller, and unapologetic sexual perversion. I understand that he obviously finds younger women erotic. All straight men do. But it just seems like he's trying to live out his fantasies through is writing, and it's a bit unsettling and quite frankly pathetic. And add that to all the various glorified rapes and sexual assaults of strong female characters his works are just filled with, well you have a guy who obviously has serious issues when it comes to women.

I figure he's probably still pissed his wife left him for another woman, but whatever. If he really needs to get laid that bad he should take a bath and get a haircut so he'll quit looking like the frickin' Una-bomber.

And for a guy who bitches and whines about how Hollywood is always butchering his works, I wonder how Robert Louis Stevenson or Bram Stoker or Jules Verne would feel about having their characters take part in a story where The Invisible Man tries to rape Mina Harker and then Mr. Hyde rapes him to death in an act of retribution. I'm thinking they probably wouldn't approve.

 

[Kryton]

I enjoyed some of his more retro-innocent stuff like Tom Strong and (the more sophisticated) Promethea. Top 10 was fun...I liked several of the ABC titles he did, but I haven't picked anything up in probably 5 years or so now, so I'm not sure if any of those are even still available outside TPBs.

 

[God Magnus]

Out of all the ABC comics "Tom Strong" is my favorite series. It's fun, has some nice nods to other genres and good art throughout its run (not something all comics can say).

I really got into Promethea but towards the end it just got a bit annoying. It started as a neat supernatural/superhero type book and the next thing I know I'm reading about religion over and over again. When a comic book begins to feel like a textbook, I begin to lose interest. What I will say however is that you wind up caring enough about the characters that you see the series through to the end regardless of whether or not you like the religious/spiritual aspects of the book.

"LOEG Black Dossier" was a big disappointment to me. I wanted something more in spirit with the original LOEG series but instead got some trippy tale with barely any adventure at all. The last bit of the book just felt like one big acid trip, which isn't what I want from an LOEG story.

I agree Alan Moore has some great writing chops and skills, but I definitely don't agree that every single thing he writes is gold.

 

[Kryton]

Heh...Moore's Swamp Thing story where Abby ate a trip-inducing tuber off of Alex was one of my earliest appreciations of his work. Seems appropriate.

 

[Mr Light]

Ah yes I got the first few trades of Promethea from the library. It was interesting but didn't blow me away. I should go looking for the rest of the Tom Strong trades.