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It's a cute commendation of Moore's writing that a post asking what his best work is is answered with a list of just about everything he's done.
Watchmen is the standard text, mcglinchy, which, along with Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, modernized the field of superhero stories. So yeah, it's a great place to start, but keep in mind that it's more timely than classic -- V for Vendetta & Swamp Thing are classics, I think -- and might be a little dated, what with a sort of counter-revolution happening against it now (and Moore himself one of said counterrevolutionaries). And, you know, in the broad scope of Big-C Culture, superhero stories are really a niche territory, anyway. Aside from the superhero stuff, it's a very good philosophical detective story, pretty well-layered and with some unforgetable characters. Personally, I think From Hell is a little advanced. I'd've said almost exactly the opposite as Big Talk, that From Hell takes some work, but Watchmen opens right up.
Random followups:
Doc Savage & Superman aren't that different, from a character-oriented POV. One has big powers & the other has... well, big powers, but more "realistic" ones. Anyway, Tom Strong is a decent gloss on both.
V for Vendetta is a little dated in some technical ways, but I think the examination of identity & moral action is pretty well timeless (though time will tell, I guess). I imagine there's a nice little paper for some lit critic in plotting a course from Ozymandias through V and John Constantine to Promethea -- heroes willing to destroy the world in order to save it. Not to mention Miracleman, whose utopia-built-on-the-bones-of-innocents popped up in another thread recently.
Sebastian, I think we'd need to know more about your reactions. As it is, it's hard to tell someone that no, Watchmen is not boring. I mean, if you're bored, you're bored. However, you could be reacting against the 'gritty realism' -- which is, of course, a total illusion. Think of Adrian Veidt as a magician. Both Moore & Gibbons put a lot of work into arranging coincidences throughout the book that you might find appealing, once you start finding them.
The "grimoire" aspect of Promethea can be a little tiresome, I think, though I love Promethea. I'm waiting for him to finish introducing us to his Big Ideas and get on with a story -- something that happens a lot with these Brit writers, actually. And the non-violent problem-solving of Promethea & Tom Strong, while commendable, does tend to rob the stories of tension (Grant Morrison does it, too). I no longer believe that any threat appearing in either story is really very dangerous. I mean, Watchmen featured a creative outside-the-box solution, too, but Rorschach still had to...
Well, that would be telling.
Anyhoo. I've never read Moore's Supreme, though I hear good things. Pleased to hear it's being collected. |
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