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Underground > Comic Books >

Hey you, yeah you, this is about Alan Moore

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00:27 / 14.04.03

I know I'm a minority when I go "why do you people go on about alan moore like he's so great?" but this is only because I've only read watchmen and top ten 1-7, and I'm just posting this to ask for some recommendations so that I can understand why most of you like him so much. I didn't like the characters in watchmen so much, it is a great book, but the characters didn't really do it for me. I didn't like top ten, it just seemed really dorky to me that everyone was superhuman and dressing up in capes and shit. so then what books should I go and read that would change my mind? your opinion of the five best.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

01:29 / 14.04.03

1 - Saga of the Swamp Thing
2 - From Hell
3 - "For the man who has everything" Superman Annual 11
4 - Miracleman
5 - Halo Jones

01:42 / 14.04.03

Promethea and League of Extrodinary Gentlemen. Fun and beautiful. That's only two, but everyone else with cover the rest...

Enjoy.

01:53 / 14.04.03

Answered previously here.

02:45 / 14.04.03

From Hell is not only my favourite comic book, but my favourite book *period*.

Matthew Fluxington

04:02 / 14.04.03

(Moderator hat: This thread would be well suited by a clearer, more concise title and an abstract which read "Alan Moore" rather than just Moore.)

The only Alan Moore comics which I have read which I've enjoyed have been Batman: The Killing Joke, that one issue of Superman he did before Crisis, and Watchmen. Everything else has either done nothing for me or hasn't seemed interesting enough for me to bother with. I respect Alan Moore a lot, but his style and interests/subject matter leave me cold. Especially Promethea - I'm glad that it's out there, and that it speaks to a lot of people, but I honestly can't imagine a comic that could bore me more thoroughly.

The Photographer in Blowup

11:03 / 14.04.03

What i think are his top 5:

From Hell
Swamp Thing
Watchmen
The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen
V For Vendetta

13:11 / 14.04.03

1) From Hell
2) V for Vendetta
3) Watchmen
4) Miraclema: Apocrypha
5) Batman The Killing Joke

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

13:15 / 14.04.03

I think part of the problem with people looking for Alan Moore's stuff now is that they have read so many watered down rip-offs of his writing that it loses its impact.

His Swamp Thing hit like a bomb because no one had gotten than inventive with such a concept, introduced elements of true horror in a comic (rather than ripping off DC) and elevating supporting characters like Moore did. For YEARS afterward, people in comics tried to do what he did, but only grasped the surface of it. Same with Watchmen, his Superman stories and his other work. I'm still thinking of "Powers" as Top Ten by someone who reads crime novels.

It's funny that someone mentioned Killing Joke, because that's one of the few misfires Moore has done, IMHO. It should have just been a Batman annual instead of a "Big Deal". I like aspects of it, but on the whole, it left me feeling that he couldn't quite get the overall tone right.

Matthew Fluxington

14:06 / 14.04.03

I seriously believe that the Killing Joke is the best Batman comic ever. I'm not sure what's so "misfire" about it - I'm very suspicious that a lot of the people who latch onto that assessment are just parroting the feelings of its author.

I haven't read any Batman comics published since around 1993, but I can't imagine that a better Batman story has been published since. I never liked The Dark Knight Returns, personally, but I dislike Frank Miller in pretty broad and general terms.

15:04 / 14.04.03

I think I'll go with;

Watchmen
From Hell
V For Vendetta

as the big 3. Seriously about the best comics ever created, a cliche though it may be to say so.

and;

The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Promethea

as by far the best recent stuff.

Heretical as it may be to say so, I'm not sure that Swamp Thing has aged very well.. I can understand how it must have seemed great when there weren't many comics of that kind around, but it these post-Gaiman, post-Vertigo days a lot of it seems frightfully dull and pompous. I do love the artwork though.

15:13 / 14.04.03

Just as a point of pedantry but Miracleman: Apocrypha was not written by Alan Moore, rather it was a selection of short miracleman stories by various authors.

Alan Moore *did* write the first three volumes of Miracleman however, which were quite fun.

16:09 / 14.04.03

Method Man, if you didn't get into Watchmen then I don't think Alan Moore is for you.

You silly person:-)

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

17:19 / 14.04.03

Ehhhh. I quite like Alan Moore. But in the same way that I quite like Star Wars, silly action movies, Buffy and Spider-Man. It just seems like entertaining fluff to me. Well crafted, but fluff all the same.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

18:10 / 14.04.03

1. Watchmen - Even if you've read it once, read it again. Last year, I read the book for the third time, taking it extremely slow, and looking at every single word, and object in the comic, and it was incredibly rewarding. And it's not like there's no emotion, the final Rorshach scene, and the assault on Hollis Mason juxtaposed with his silver age self were some of the most powerful moments of comics writing.

2. V for Vendetta - Great political commentary, done with a lot of style and flair. This is up there with Brazil and 1984 as showing what too much governmental power can do.

3. Miracleman - I read this last year, and it lived up to the hype. Totelben's art on the last book is simply incredible, and even on crappy 80's paper, it was some of the best art I've ever seen.

League and Promethea are also strong books, but for me, it's those three works that are the best of Alan Moore.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

18:17 / 14.04.03

The misfire (IMHO) is the final sequence where Batman shares a laugh with the Joker. I don't know what Moore thought about it, but it was too jarring, after the very brutal violence that came before, it felt wrong.

I'm not one who says it should have been a more violent ending, but I can't see Batman laughing at that joke with what had happened before. Still a great story (although I think "The Laughing Fish" is the best Batman Story ever...or "No Hope In Crime Alley" or...the one by Alan Brennet in Batman 300....), but that part still doesn't work for me. I don't know if it is because of the art, or the transition wasn't handled correctly, but it always seemed out of place to me.

Regrettable Juvenilia

19:33 / 14.04.03

I find it staggering that none of you peons find it as self-evident as I do that Moore's best work is Violator/Badrock.

VIOLATOR.

BADROCK.

Read it again. And if you don't like it, read it again, and try to understand it properly. Stop reading other comics until you have done so. Sell your television. Throw out your records. Study magic until you can hurl fireballs from your palms. Burn your house down (with the fireballs). Meantime, just keep reading VIOLATOR/BADROCK again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again, until you have understood it properly. Then you will realise that it is not only Moore's best work, or indeed merely the best work ever done in comics, but the greatest single human achievement in any art medium ever.

19:45 / 14.04.03

PAH!

Nothing can top LOST GIRLS, the most pretentious stroke-book ever!

20:51 / 14.04.03

...A stroke book that has as yet failed to reach its climax...

20:56 / 14.04.03

and I'm shocked, shocked i tell you that no-one yet has mentioned Maxwell the magic cat...

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

21:36 / 14.04.03

Y'see, I read Watchmen again the other day, and I too read every single word. And parts of it just bored me to tears. Oh great, another bit with the pirate comic when we can see all these parallels, like, cos... I didn't get it already! Christ. I just wanted to slap it around a bit and say "stop trying to be so fucking clever!" because it made for tedious reading at times. Also; I thought it was so much cooler when I was younger. (And really, I think it is a comic for kids, well teenagers, y'know?)

Don't get me wrong, I quite like Watchmen. But I think it's only praised in such a way because comics are judged unlike any other medium, and an intelligent comic is such a rare thing to so many people that it suddenly becomes some sort of masterwork.

Having said that I keep a copy of Violator/Badrock under my pillow and hail it as the pinnacle of human achievement. I don't care how crumpled it is now, because it means I get to rub up against it's glory. And I have another copy in a little plastic sleeve, that I keep in a box under lock and key. In a room. On it's own. Guarded by motion sensor activated lasers. In a safe.

Matthew Fluxington

03:01 / 15.04.03

You're not alone, Suedehead. I think Watchmen is a brilliant comic, but those pirate sequences bore the living fuck out of me.

You're also right about Moore (and particularly The Watchmen) being overrated because of common ignorance about comics in general. He's great and all, but there's just so much more to offer that I never fail to get a little sad when folks try to make him (or Grant Morrison or Neil Gaiman) out to be some kind of be-all, end-all of the field.

Jessica Abel's La Perdida stomps all over every Alan Moore comic that I've ever read, but almost no one gives a damn about her. And that's the way life is, I guess.

07:12 / 15.04.03

flyboy I find your thoughts interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter
now I have to fucking scour for violator/badrock
or not
either way violator/badrock will be mine

yawn - thing's buddy

08:04 / 15.04.03

Its so funny the way these threads deteriorate into, 'Alan Moore's actually pretty lame', or, 'Grant Morriason's full o shit', doncha think?

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:52 / 15.04.03

And you know they're only doing it to get attention, because nobody could seriously believe that...

I think Maxwell the Magic Cat is probably Moore's most accessible and one of his best works; it takes a while to find its voice, but by about halfway through the strips collected in the first book it hit stride and absolutely kicked ass from then on. I'd also rate "For the Man who Has Everything" very highly. Watchmen and V for Vendetta I loved when I was younger, and they still hold up very well, but they do indeed suffer every so often from jumping up and down and shouting "LOOK! LOOK! It's a clever stylistic device! Just like a REAL book!" Miracleman, at least for "a dream of flying", semed much less prone to bum notes.

I'm tempted to start a "better than Alan Moore/Grant Morrison?" thread, to mirror the late, lamented, special Planet of Sound's "Better than Will Self? Can such a thing there be?"...

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

12:08 / 15.04.03

I've never managed to read the section about birds in Watchmen - can anyone tell me if I am missing out on anything important or insightful?

16:09 / 15.04.03

I meant
Miracleman: Olympus
I've never even read Apocrypha. Number six would've been Batman Annual 11. Dark Knight Returns read like turd to me.

16:09 / 15.04.03

The birds bit was excruciating. You only missed being bored.

16:41 / 15.04.03

I've never managed to read the section about birds in Watchmen - can anyone tell me if I am missing out on anything important or insightful?

The narration is a bit overdone, but the entire pirate/bird storyline is pretty fun on its own, and the connections with the real book are incredible. If you've already read the book, it says a lot about character motivations and such, and provides a nice juxtaposition for some of the stuff going on. It is a bit showy/pretentious, but I'd rather see someone doing something pretentious that works with the narrative than just catering to the lowest common denominator.

Matthew Fluxington

16:49 / 15.04.03

Right. Because there is absolutely no vast middle ground between ostentation/pretention and the 'lowest common denominator.'

17:06 / 15.04.03

On Watchmen: I reread it recently for the first time in a while, and I can see how modern-era comic readers might be somewhat underwhelmed by the book, particularly given all the "greatest comic ever!" hype surrounding it. But the comics field nowadays is very, very different from the mid-80s backdrop against which Watchmen first appeared. Reading Watchmen monthly as it came out after a decade-plus diet of old-school silver age comics was pretty mindblowing (it may also have helped that I was in my late teens at the time). For some perspective (I'm stealing this idea from some forgotten message board poster, but it's a good one), try to forget every comic you've ever read. Now go read a few Marvel Essentials volumes, or really any superhero collections from the 60s and 70s. Let those form your total impression of what comics are like. Then read Watchmen, and you'll have some idea of the impact that book had on the readers of the time.

That having been said, Miracleman is actually the Moore book I'd place at the top of my recommendation list, one of his best and also among the most generally accessible. From Hell and Promethea are certainly on the same level qualitatively, but your mileage may vary with these depending on your own interest or lack thereof in the subject matter.

22:18 / 17.04.03

I don't think Watchmen will fail to live up to anyone's hype for at least another ten years. I read it in 2001 and had been hearing praise for three years. I read Dark Knight at around the same time and purposely read it before Watchmen because I knew it would be dated. DKR doesn't read too well for a modern audience I think. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone now. I thought it was the writing was plain awful. Ok, I’ll quit bitching about DKR now. Miracleman on the other hand was disappointing until I got to Issue seven I think. Uneven writing and a lot of stuff is just cheesy but Moore makes up for every mistake in his last two issues. The first three issues aren’t really any good.

lord nuneaton savage

23:05 / 17.04.03

I know it was basically Eddie Cambell illustrating one of his performances but 'The Birth Caul' is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read, period.

The Natural Way

09:29 / 18.04.03

Yes! Sheer fucking excellence. Puts paid to all this "Moore isn't all that great" shit.

I just think the man writes really good stories and really good PEOPLE. Bulk Meat once descibed Moore as being "acutely aware of our nakedness beneath our clothes", and that, for me, sums up everything I love about his writing. It's thunderous and beardy, but, also, so human. The Birth Caul (words and pics) really taps into the commonality of human experience and is incredibly moving and powerful for it.

22:44 / 01.04.04

well you can say what you want about Watchmen but i think it's the best comic i ever read, it changed my life when i read it and that was only about 6 months ago, as for other alan moore titles i'd recommend Promethea, Top Ten, Tom Strong and Halo Jones.

p.s. i hope to read From Hell sometime soon

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