Prose vs comics

Excerpt from an interview published on Entrainment Weekly site the 3rd of January.

You can read the complete piece HERE. 

The imagery in The Great When is so arresting and vivid. Did working with great artists over the years, like Kevin O’Neill in League, influence your descriptive writing?
Alan Moore: Yes, I've certainly learned from some of the creators that I've worked with, but you have to remember that I had described those pictures for the artist. I've got the visual imagination, but I just didn't have the artistic chops to realize it as beautifully as I saw it in my head when I made the shift from cartooning to writing comics. My descriptive passages that were intended only for the artist are famously long-winded, and sometimes go on for pages for a single panel. Generally speaking, one page of comics would be about three pages of my script, because I was trying to describe everything that I could imagine in a particular scene.

So working in straight prose fiction, it's always been using the same sensibility and using the same descriptive of abilities, but just shifting the register up so that you are not just writing practical descriptions for an artist. You are actually writing literary descriptions that are meant to entertain and hypnotize the reader.

But it's basically the same process I have. I became very conscious around the time when I was writing Jerusalem, that yes, alright, I'm well-known for being a comics writer, and people have come to expect illustrated narratives from me. So in my prose, I want to really make up for that. If anything, I was being more keen upon generous descriptions to try and compensate for not having an artist like Kevin O'Neill or Melinda Gebbie or any of the other great artists that I've worked with.

And since I happen to be lucky enough to be married to Melinda, she has been very, very useful coming up with colors. If I want to talk about blue, and I've already used ‘blue violet’ and ‘indigo’ and ‘sapphire,’ she'll say, what about ‘lapis’? Oh, that's a lovely word. So that has been very handy.

Read the complete piece HERE.

Ozymandias by Carlos Dearmas

Above a phenomenal Ozymandias portrait by Argentinian artist CARLOS DEARMAS.

 

For more info about the artist: Instagram - Facebook

Taboo 2: From Hell and Major Arcana

Art by Alan Moore

Above, Major Arcana: The Lovers and the Star, a great illustration by Alan Moore published on the inside back cover of Taboo n.2 (Spiderbaby Grafix, 1989).

Below, selected excerpts from From Hell - being a melodrama in sixteen parts intro written by Moore, also published in Taboo n.2, page 121-122.

[...] “From Hell” is a post-mortem of an historical occurrence, using fiction as a scalpel. All the characters who populate the story once existed. The motivations I have attributed to them and the words I have placed in their mouths are based whenever possible upon exacting historical research. I have also relied upon guesswork and conjecture which, if not accurate. is at least informed. So far as I know, none of the facts stated in the story contradict those previously reported, and no pertinent fact has been ignored. Theoretically, the events detailed in “From Hell” could have unfolded just the way we describe
them.

But it isn't history. It's fiction. [...]

Indeed, it's worth remembering that all history is to some degree fiction; that truth can no longer properly be spoken of once the bodies have grown cold. The side that wins the battle decides who were the heroes and who the villains; and since history is written by those who survive it, their biases often survive with them.
This is not to diminish the importance of traditional history: it is vital to the continued
well-being of both ourselves and our culture that we understand the events that have
shaped the world that in turn shapes us. [...]

There is no hanging at the climax of “From Hell.“ The verdict remains open, the history books silent, the noose empty. All we have been able to deduce is recorded in these sixteen installments. It is a fiction, a mosaic of tracings and jottings, an enciphered communication from another age. It is a scarcely-legible note of terrible significance.

From hell.

Alan Moore

Dr. Manhattan by Marco Santucci

Art by Marco Santucci

Above, a recent commission featuring Dr. Manhattan by Italian comic book artist Marco Santucci.

 

For more info about the artist, visit his Instagram page HERE.

Bits of Magic

Art by Steve Parkhouse

As you know, I am writing a series of articles about The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic. They are serialized on the Italian web-magazine (Quasi) and so far four episodes are available.

In writing the pieces I contacted some of the contributors to get, if possible, behind the scene info about the book's making-of. 

In the following you can read what I got from Steve Parkhouse, who drew the amazing In the Morning of the Mind comics, and Rick Veitch who created some great illustrations for the first part of "Things to do on a rainy day" section.

Steve Parkhouse: I'm sorry to disappoint - but I have no background stories for you concerning Morning of the Mind. Bear in mind that I drew the strip sixteen or seventeen years ago so it's not really fresh in my mind. I appreciate your kind comments, but the story contains no revelations that I could discern. Since none of us were there at the time, the events depicted were obviously speculative. All the usual problems for an artist were predictable: where to find reference for giant deer, neolithic communities, credible landscapes etc. In other words, how to make the story come to life. 

I was never entirely sure of Alan's intention for the story itself. I formed my own interpretation: that everything in the universe is a fractal of the universe, and consequently natural forms tend to echo each other. That'll have to do.

Rick Veitch: I drew my illustrations over fifteen years ago and all I got to read at the time was the chapter I was working on. So no stories about the rest of it. I really loved finally reading it though. 

Veitch also mentioned The Bumper on his True-Man The Maximortal N.1 book released in August 2024. See the picture below:

The Bumper Book, TGW, aliens and Glycon

Ave, Glicone!

Below, selected excerpts from an excellent interview by Séamas O'Reilly, posted on his site few days ago. You can read the complete piece HERE.

Alan Moore: [...] Well, The Bumper Book is about magic, whereas The Great When has got some magicians in it, but it isn’t really anything that is traditional magic — I was prepared to just make most of it up. The Bumper Book is an encyclopaedic history of magic and all sorts of other things as well, but we’ve got characters like Austin Osman Spare, Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune in both.

So, there’s a tiny bit of overlap, but the intents of both books are different. One is to explain magic as it is and as it has been, and the other is an attempt to try and create something new in fantasy, without relying upon all the magical tropes you get reiterated so often in fantasy novels. [...]

I mean, the book is me and Steve but if there’s a third contributor it would have to be John, not only for his own beautiful art but his design of the entire book, and making all the other artists fit into it so beautifully. It was him who decided to have the cut-out and assemble temple at the back and the puzzle pages with the goat of Mendes as a join the dots picture, that was him. We thought as well as the immense amount of information in the book, we should have some fun as well. Something that reminds me of an old British annual like the Beano. [...]

[...] with the sequences in Long London I thought I want these to feel as disorienting as it would do if you were suddenly in another world. One of the things about this book is I’m really tired in current fantasy about how the kids go through the back of the wardrobe in Narnia and it’s not really a big deal. Y’know, people go into these worlds as if it was visiting Milton Keynes. [...]

Any time any of my characters enter The Great When, they’re vomiting, weeping, fainting, because that’s what I figure ordinary people would do, if something even slightly fantastic happened. If something happened that challenged your whole ideas of reality, you would fall to bits. Any of us would. We certainly wouldn’t be acting like action heroes. I wanted to get the alienness of this other world, I wanted to establish that. So I thought when we get to the Great When, we shift to italics, because italics makes everything seem more urgent, and shift to the present tense to make it more immediate. [...]

[about alien existence] Let’s act as if we’re on our own. If we do find some nice aliens at some point, that’ll be a treat, but let’s act as if we’re on our own and actively try and sustain life on this planet. Let’s not have these science fiction wank dreams that people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson seem to be having, this cosmic circle jerk. Let’s not talk about terraforming Mars, because anyone who knows about that stuff knows it’s impossible. First we’d have to work out what turned Mars’ electromagnetic field off in the first place, because it hasn’t got one, and then turn it back on, if that’s even possible. [...]

[about Dennis Knuckleyard's name] Well, it was the first time it’s ever happened to me where it came to be semi-conscious, and I suspect a name like that can only come to you when you’re semi-conscious. I was drifting off to sleep and I was in that hypnagogic wilderness between awake and asleep, where there’s just a load of nonsense going through your head. Just a word salad, a stream of connected words and thoughts that don’t really connect but become a narrative you’re telling yourself as you’re drifting off to sleep.

I was just on the verge of sleep when the internal narrator said “so then Dennis Knuckleyard went…” and I sat up in bed, laughing. I just thought that is the most ridiculous name I’ve ever heard, I’m going to write that down. I did have a pen and pad by the bed for writing down dreams but I’m undisciplined when it comes to that so I don’t generally do it. I’d never written an idea down in the middle of the night before, but I put the light on, wrote “Dennis Knuckleyard” and then went off to sleep. It’s a great name, I did a little piece for the local Arts Lab magazine, an experimental piece where I actually tried out the name, not the character, but it wasn’t very satisfying. When it came to The Long London books, I thought that’s the one, isn’t it.

When I found out that there had never, in the history of the world, been anybody or anything called Knuckleyard then, rather than be discouraged, I thought let’s make him part of the story; that both Dennis and his mother have no idea where his now deceased father got the name from in the first place. Did he make it up as a joke? Is it a misspelling of some foreign name? They’ll never know. It was something of a gift. [...]

What I’m enjoying about Dennis is that in the first book he’s 18. The book I’m writing now he’s 28, he’s not grown up a huge amount but he’s grown up some and he’s doing some of that in the course of the book. At 28, you’re only just out of your adolescence, we don’t get out of adolescence until we’re 25, 26, so you’re not quite settled into adult life — you’re having to pretend that you’re an adult, but you’re not quite settled into what feels like an adult identity yet. That’s where Dennis is at the moment, and it’s interesting. One of the things about writing these books, one’s in 1949, 59, 69, 79 — twenty year gap — 1999.

So, characters like Dennis, you can show their development up through fifty years and you can also do that with the book’s main character, which is London. [...]

[about Glycon] Glycon, in various forms, is in the room with us. He’s on a bunch of Romanian postage stamps and money, that I’ve been sent over the year that have images of Glycon on.
It’s still a very big part of my life, even if he was a glove puppet. Especially because he was a glove puppet. [...]

The complete interview is available HERE.  

Highly recommended! 

The Book of Magic: The Soul's evolution

The Soul. Art by John Coulthart.

As you know, I am writing a series of articles, diving into The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic section by section. They are serialized on the Italian web-magazine (Quasi) and so far four episodes are available: the last one is Ben Wickey's interview, in Italian; more to come.

 

In writing the pieces I contacted some of the contributors to get, if possible, behind the scene info about the grimoire. In the following you can read what the amazing John Coulthart revealed about... The Soul's evolution!

Special thanks to Coulthart for his availability and for the permission to share his answer on this blog!

I highly recommend to visit Coulthart's official site and to follow his amazing { feuilleton } entries! 

Let's talk about The Soul. It was originally a series intended for the ABC line, wasn't it? Was any story or page fully realized, in comics form I mean? I think that back in the day they described it as "a decadent, partly computer-generated occult strip". Then it was "transformed" for the Bumper Book. Can you talk about The Soul's evolution? :)
John Coulthart: The Soul was one of three new series slated to appear in ABC Cascade, a title which Alan described as being based on the DC Showcase comic of the 1960s. The other two stories would have been Pearl of the Deep, an undersea adventure to be drawn by John Totleben, and Limbo, a story about a dead character to be drawn by Shane Oakley. Alan wrote an 11-page outline of the proposed stories for the ABC/WildStorm people; I did a few sketches to rough out ideas for the character, I think Shane did something similar for his story but the Cascade title never materialised.

Showcase #61, 1966. Cover by Murphy Anderson.

The Soul in her original incarnation was named Isla Pascal Lamb, a woman who would have been a female equivalent of the occult detectives who flourished for a while in the written fiction of the Edwardian era, characters like John Silence and Thomas Carnacki. The idea was for the writing to be a combination of detective fiction and weird tales, while the art would be an amalgam of my interest in Art Nouveau, Decadent culture and the illustrators of the years from 1900 to 1925. I was getting heavily involved in computer art and design at the time, hence the interest in pursuing this in the new story but I never developed things to a stage where the amalgam of hand-drawn art and digital art was working to my satisfaction. She would have been slightly older than she is in the book, probably mid-40s, and looking like a silent film star or one of the flamboyant aristocrats of the era, women like Ida Rubenstein and Luisa Casati. Isla was definitely more of an aristocrat than she is in the book. Alan wanted her driving around in a huge luxury automobile like a Duesenberg, with a decorative scarab beetle on its bonnet.

Luisa Casati in 1922.

Adeline Carr, The Soul in the Bumper Book, is obviously a scaled down version of Isla Lamb, a younger woman who lives in a flat above a bookshop. The story retains some of the earlier characteristics of the Cascade outline--the chapters and the story itself are all titled like weird tales--while the scarab-clad Duesenberg became Alban's smaller motor car. The original Soul had already had occult experiences whereas Adeline's story is all about her first journey into the world of magic.

The Illuminist Moore

Above, cover of The Illuminist book: a collection of essays on Moore's work by Kristian Williams published by eMERGENCY heARTS.

The Illuminist: Philisophical Explorations in the work of Alan Moore

Alan Moore changed the way we think about heroes, monsters, and the stories we tell about them. From Swamp Thing and Watchmen to Promethea and Neonomicon, he has continuously subverted genre conventions and expanded the range of the comics medium.

He has also, as Kristian Williams argues in the essays collected here, given us in these stories important tools for re-examining the possibilities for justice, the nature of our society, and the sources for value and meaning in our lives.

You can order a copy here and here. Read a review here.

Swampy by Greg Smallwood

Art by Greg Smallwood

Above, a stunning Swamp Thing commission art by the amazing Greg Smallwood. 

For more info about the artist, visit his Official site: HERE!

Naples Comicon poster by Jamie Hewlett

Art by Jamie Hewlett

Above, the stunning illustration created by the legendary Jamie Hewlett for Naples Comicon 2025 poster.

 

You can also recognize a Rorschach patch, sort of, on the girl's jacket. 

On Fumettologica you can find an almost complete list of all the references and homages, here. 

Ben Wickey: An Extraordinay Enchanter

Steve Moore & Alan Moore. From the Bumper Book of Magic.

I am extremely proud and honored to present here an exclusive interview with the amazingly multi-talented BEN WICKEY, the extraordinary artist of the "Old Moores' Lives of the Great Enchanters" stories contained in The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic. 

For more info about Ben Wickey visit: Instagram - Etsy - IMDB

 

Grazie mille, Ben, for your Art and for your kindness and availability! I can't wait to read your More Weight graphic novel!

 

All art included in this post is by Ben Wickey, unless otherwise indicated.

smoky man: Your name in the Bumper Book could be a "surprise" of sort for the readers. Of course, you did a fantastic work on those enchanters! So, could you present yourself? I mean, I know that you are from New England, an animator with a strong fascination for Edward Gorey and for weird tales. And that you are working on a graphic novel about the Salem witch trials...

Ben Wickey: I can understand how my name, previously included in small publications only, would appear a surprise to any comics fans picking up their copy of this long-awaited book. I could even say that no one was more surprised than myself! By way of introduction, I am an illustrator, animator, and writer from Cape Ann, a peninsula in Massachusetts. My stop-motion animated films include Ray Bradbury's The Homecoming (2017) and The House of the Seven Gables (2018). I was also an animator/animation assistant for the 2021 film Marcel The Shell with Shoes On. For the past ten years I have been the animator for Christopher Seufert's long-awaited documentary GOREY, focusing on the life of Edward Gorey. My illustrations can be found in books such as The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, written by Stanshall's widow and my close friend, Ki Longfellow, Supper with the Stars, a Vincent Price cookbook, and now Alan Moore and Steve Moore's The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic. My own 400+ page comic book, More Weight, which attempts to be a historically accurate depiction of the Salem witch trials and their troubling aftermath, is slated to be released by Top Shelf Productions in late 2025. 

Frame from Ray Bradbury's The Homecoming film.

How did you get involved with the Bumper Book? When did you start working on it?

In December 2019, I was 24 years old and in a state of discouragement with regard to More Weight. It was my first attempt at a long-form comic book, and I had hit a wall. And so, I wrote Alan Moore a letter, and sent it to him without thinking that I would get any response back. It should be noted that I did not send Alan this letter because I was working on a comic book, but because the book's main character, Giles Corey, was born in the Boroughs of Northampton, England. Corey was actually baptised in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which still stands today. Anyone who knows anything about Alan knows how important that small area is to him, and how it is the center of his magnificent novel Jerusalem. I even remember a small mention of Giles Corey in that novel, as well as in Providence later on. Giles Corey, who was pressed to death in Salem in 1692 after refusing to speak at his witchcraft hearing, seemed to me as the prototypical Northampton anarchist that Alan would be proud of. It can even be said that Corey's gruesome death, (during which he apparently shouted "more weight!"), was one of the first documented protests in American history. These were the things which I discussed in my small letter. A month later, an email appeared from Alan's marvelous assistant, containing Alan's reply: a longer letter than what I had initially sent him! It was also one of the most kind, generous, and encouraging letters I've ever received. In addition to some fantastic advice, he expressed a wish to read More Weight when it was ready. At this time, I had considered chopping the book into serialized zines.

The Moores' scripts!

Excerpts from the Moores' scripts.

In February 2020, I moved to Los Angeles with my now-wife. We had just begun animation on Marcel The Shell with Shoes On when the pandemic hit. Stuck in quarantine, along with the rest of the world, I decided to compile the first half of More Weight into a small, self-published book. There were only about 10 copies made, and I sent one to Alan Moore, along with a copy of The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall. Apparently, Alan liked both books very much, but I didn't know just how much until March, 2021, when his assistant emailed me to ask whether or not I had the time or interest to illustrate the 50 Great Enchanters for the Bumper Book of Magic.

At first, I could not allow myself to believe that I had been given all 50 Enchanters, even though the email was far from cryptic in that respect. Somehow I thought, "oh, Alan's given me one of the fifty! Probably John Dee, considering how much of my work in More Weight contains bearded 17th century men and those post-medieval diamond-paned windows. How cool to have done ONE page of comics for Alan Moore!" Then I read the email again and realized (with great excitement) that I had in fact been chosen to do all fifty. I had been eagerly anticipating that book's release like everyone else, and had assumed that every artist had already been picked for it. Since I had first written to Alan while he was very publicly retiring from the comics medium, it never once occurred to me that he would actually give me a job!

Alan has maintained that the final League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Volume IV: The Tempest) was his last bow in the comics world. Of course, I have to respect that. Although this is not Alan Moore's final comic book, (indeed, not inherently a comic book at all), I can at least say that my comic book pages are among the last to be published in an Alan Moore book. In Beatles terms, I guess it's sort of an Abbey Road/Let It Be situation. In either case, it's been one of the top thrills and honors of my admittedly small career.

Making-of Lives of The Great Enchanters episode 2.

Did Alan provide you with full script for each one-page story or did you follow a different approach? I noticed that there are no speech balloons or sounds and that the whole narrative is dictated by captions...

Yes, I received a full script once my first two "demo" Enchanters were approved. These were "The Dancing Sorcerer" and "The Persian Magi." Once these were approved, Knockabout's Tony Bennett ( a lovely guy) sent me the subsequent 48 scripts as PDFs. Printing them out nearly broke my printer! For 50 pages of comics, there were about 250 pages of script, co-written by Alan and Steve. I can still remember giddily running home from the office supply store with a giant, purple three-ring binder to contain this massive script. Each panel was meticulously described, with additional reference photos for faces, clothing, and locations. Pretty much everything the Moores had in mind wound up in the script, which was immensely valuable and helpful for me. I rather prefer a lot of direction than not enough, especially with now only one Moore to answer to. Throughout the entire process, Steve Moore was very present in the script, and I hope my final illustrations were true to what he had envisioned. From about the 28th Enchanter to the 50th, the scripts included rough thumbnail drawings which Alan had done, which were also greatly illuminating. The only real challenge I had was figuring out where all the text boxes were going to fit! 

Making-of Lives of The Great Enchanters episode 12.

Lives of Great Enchanters covers, well, thousands of years of human history and tons of historical and mythological figures. I think you had to do tons of research... Which enchanter mentioned in the Bumper Book is your favourite, in general? Which one was more difficult to handle? Which one was more fun to draw? In general, how did it work?

Since the script for my Great Enchanters pages had been written by Alan and Steve prior to 2014, I realized that perhaps there was now information online which had been unavailable to them at the time.  An example of this would be the MacGregor Mathers page, which shows Aleister Crowley, (in a Scottish Black Watch uniform and Osiris mask), approaching W.B. Yeats at the entrance to the Golden Dawn's London headquarters. The Moores' script had asked for only a black-half mask for Crowley, but my additional research had revealed that he was wearing an Osiris mask. I tried to inject into every panel of  the "Great Enchanters"  pages the same love of research and historical accuracy which I had strived for in More Weight. To me, that was one of the most fun aspects to doing these pages, and one I never tired of. 

 

Since about half of the "Great Enchanters" require caricatures of people which we have some record of, whether from portraits, photographs, or film footage, I knew that it was necessary to apply that same caricatured look to people of the ancient and medieval periods too. I therefore designed specific faces for the early Enchanters, to provide a continuity once the faces become more well-known. For someone like Roger Bacon, who was born in 1214, my only references for what he looked like are either vague engravings or posthumous sculptures. So I'd cherry-pick noses, mouths and eyes from each depiction, and design composite likenesses to then caricature. My main hope was to make these historic figures seem real and specific. 

Making-of Lives of The Great Enchanters episode 26 focused on William Blake.

Also, the "Great Enchanters" pages strayed into areas in which I already had some interest. I had been drawing William S. Burroughs' face, for instance, since I was about 14, so I felt especially prepared for that particular page. I was already a big fan of Iain Sinclair's writing, so the Bumper Book gave me a great excuse to contact him. According to Alan and Steve's script, Sinclair was born a "blue baby" in Cardiff, Wales, during a 1943 air raid, and his first breath was apparently made possible by his father accidentally dropping pulp fiction crime novels on his head. Iain Sinclair not only corroborated the story, but gave me key details which the script lacked. The book which had fallen on his head was W.B.M. Ferguson's Crackerjack, and his birthplace looked over the Scott Memorial Lighthouse at Roath Park Lake, which still exists. These were personal details which I just HAD to get right, especially since Sinclair is the only living Great Enchanter in the book. Sinclair and I have collaborated on book projects since, I'm proud to say. 

 

I am interested in some technical aspects. Did you create the pages on paper, with an analog approach or digitally? Was it a mix? In case of analog, did you use acrylics, watercolors, or? How much time did you spent, averagely, on each page? Did you do the lettering too? I love it...

I would design the layout for each page on the computer first, so that I would know where and how the text would fit in each panel. All of the art for my "Great Enchanters" pages began as pen-and-ink illustrations with graphite shading and, occasionally, gray washes. I'd use a variety of pens on rough watercolor paper so as to give it that inky, "toothy" texture. Then I would scan each page and upload the art into a prepared Photoshop file. The coloring and hand-lettering were all done digitally by hand on a Wacom Cintiq. By lettering digitally, I could zoom into the page and write each word bigger than they appear on the page, so that my hand wouldn't cramp up or get sloppy from hand-writing all those small letters! The coloring was digital only because I'm nitpicky and enjoy making minor adjustments to brightness and shadows and highlights.

Script excerpt & layout for Lives of The Great Enchanters episode 37 focused on Aleister Crowley.

Only in the William Blake page did I use physical watercolors. I am a massive devotee of Blake's, and I tried to replicate the look of his coloring style for his page. All my Blake art books were out on the table as I dived into that world. I even inked everything in sepia just to make it extra Blakean. It was quite an adventure!

Also, in the Solomon page, I sculpted and painted a clay maquette of the demon Asmodeus. Since he shows up in Jerusalem as a demonic guide through the 4th dimension, it made sense to have a 3D depiction of him in a 2D drawing. I keep the sculpture locked away in a drawer of my drawing table, in case he tries to escape.

Making-of Lives of The Great Enchanters episode 40 focused on Austin Osman Spare.

What's about the feedback from Alan? Did you send him the wip pages or what? Did you discuss things before doing the pages or during the process? Did Alan ask for any correction or modification?

Aside from the encouragement relayed to me via his assistant every time I'd send out a new batch of pages, the best response from Alan came in the form of a Christmas card in 2021 when I was about halfway through the Enchanters. The card simply said: "PS: THE GREAT ENCHANTERS ARE ENCHANTING!" We've sent each other Christmas cards every year since, I'm happy to say. Alan really is one of the sweetest and jolliest collaborators —and friends— I could ever hope to have. 

Panel from a special page that Wickey created as a gift for Moore's 70th birthday.