John Coulthart interview!

Below, selected excerpts from a great interview with the legendary JOHN COULTHART, posted on Retrofuturista.com few days ago. 

You can read the complete piece HERE. Highly recommended!

[...] You have a lifelong creative relationship with Alan Moore and have illustrated multiple works with him. How did he influence the way you physically construct layouts and book covers? Can you share an anecdote about a collaborative creative process that produced unexpected and surprising results?
John Coulthart: I don’t think Alan has influenced any of my approach to book design or cover design but I find his philosophical attitude very appealing, especially his insistence that art is magic. I started to think about this more seriously after some long conversations we had in the 1990s.

The only things that are surprising about any of the projects we’ve worked on have been odd coincidences that continued to surface over the years. Most of these are too slight to be worth recounting but in the mid-90s there was a striking one that occurred when we were working on a project (subsequently cancelled) about Aleister Crowley. Part of the brief required me to draw a room infested with insects, and it was while doing this that my bathroom was inundated for an afternoon with honey bees. I think a new colony had just hatched somewhere and got into the room through a crack in the wall. I wouldn’t say the Crowley project prompted the invasion but it certainly seemed that way at the time.

Working on “The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic” required translating decades of Alan Moore and Steve Moore’s dense, practical, and philosophical ideas about magic into a physical, visual artifact. What were some of the most challenging abstract concepts you had to render as a concrete graphic layout?
I didn’t find any of the occult material difficult to deal with since it was all very familiar, and the descriptions of the required artwork were very clear. One reason I’ve been involved with the Moon and Serpent productions is because of my long-standing interest in occult matters. The biggest challenge with the book was getting all the material into a presentable shape. I was given a folder filled with old Word documents, some of which were unfinished drafts, together with a table of contents that was out of date as a result of decisions to drop parts of the book as it had been planned originally. I was having to work with all this as a designer, typesetter and illustrator which is uncommon for a book of such size and complexity. I didn’t mind having to juggle so many tasks but doing so meant that it took me about three years to get everything finished. [...] 

Read the complete interview HERE! 

Watchmen 40th anniversary: German celebration

Reddition n. 83 celebrates Watchmen 40th anniversary with a collection of essays and an exclusive interview with Dave Gibbons. Published by Edition Alfons. German language.

 

More details here. 

 

https://www.reddition.de/reddition-magazin/reddition83 

On creating, Long London tv series & Dennis' fate

Below, selected excerpts from an interview published last week on Syfi.com.

The complete interview is available HERE.  

Alan Moore: [...] I experience my own creative processes as being something like a particle collider, where thousands of half-baked, half-finished or entirely forgotten concepts whiz around invisibly at unsafe speeds until, inevitably, one unworkable idea will smash into another, quite by chance, and in the often-beautiful ensuing mess of particle decay trajectories is sometimes to be found a stage performance, poem, film, or series of peculiar urban fantasies. [...]

By the 1950s and I Hear a New World, we can see London, and to a degree the world, attempting to update itself by dressing up in noisy, flashy, hard-edged Brutalist modernity, with genuine innovators like Joe Meek attempting to invoke the new world by imagining its music and, in doing so, making the technical advances which that new world would depend on. [...]

Over this last couple of decades, the emergence of the long form, high quality television series has made lots of things seem suddenly more possible, and when asked if I might consider making the Long London books available as possible film properties, my answer was a cautious yes. [...] To this end, when I was approached by Playground, the production company behind the marvelous adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, I gladly acquiesced. I know enough about the world of television and its uncertainties to manage my expectations, but I’m optimistic and, whatever its eventual fate, confident that my work is in the very best of hands. So, fingers crossed. [...]

I can promise readers that my reluctant protagonist [Dennis Knuckleyard], despite his clear lack of enthusiasm for my plotting abilities, will be allowed a happy ending. He probably doesn’t deserve it, given his rather lackluster and timorous performance, but he’ll get it because that’s the kind of generous-spirited author and employer of imaginary people that I am. 

Read the whole interview HERE! 

The Cloak is back!

Australian publisher Comicoz has teased the forthcoming publication of The Collected Cloak by Mike Higgs, introduced by Alan Moore. Comicoz is Nat Karmichael‘s publishing imprint. 
More details & info here, at DownTheTubes site.

Furthermore, directly from Comicoz site, April's entry:

[...] I have spent the past two days trying to find a UK printer for my most recent publication, The Collected Cloak by Mike Higgs. The files are ready to print, even though we have had other difficulties in the process over the past few months. It's been a dog's breakfast trying to get someone from Rebellion -- who say they own the copyright to the property -- to contact me about the works. So much so, I am giving up on them! (Until they get back in touch with me at least..!) Mike has drawn a brand-new pin-up page for the volume, and we are overjoyed with Alan Moore's Introduction. Initially we said we would be happy with a 25-word introduction: but we were give many wonderful pages! (And that is all I am going to say for now!) We're presently looking to lock in a printer (which we hope to do in the next few days) and -- all being well -- we are also hoping to have Diamond UK distribute the book. There's a few ducks to line up first, but (as always) I am ever hopeful that it won't be long before all is ready...! Ryan McDonald-Smith has done an absolutely outstanding job with the design of the book and it would be remiss of me not to mention his contribution here because he just as much a part of this team! [….]

Long London, Magic, comics and dystopias

Art by Carlos Dearmas

Excerpt from an interview published on the Observer the 1st of May. 

You can read the complete piece HERE. 

What is the idea behind Long London?
Alan Moore: I had an urge to investigate shadowy London, the horse tipsters, gangsters, record producers and other lowlife characters. I’ve created a narrative that could include them, which collides happily with the idea of another London hidden behind our own. There’s a wonderful short story called N by Arthur Machen that suggested our London was a flimsy curtain hung before a blazing, eternal paradisal London.

A sort of Platonic shadow of London?
Exactly. It starts in 1949, when London had been physically and psychologically reduced to rubble. I was born in 1953, and it took me decades to realise that the adults I was growing up among were suffering from PTSD. [...]

You are ‘divorced’ from your earlier works like Watchmen and V for Vendetta, but they are powerfully predictive, rather than histories.
They were never meant to be predictive. Friends want me to write something nice. Why do I have to keep doing these terrible dystopian stories that then actually happen? [...]

You have become a magician, and not the rabbit-out-of-a-hat kind. Do some ideas have magical properties?

When I became a magician at the age of 40, I took it very seriously, and it has transformed my life. There’s no difference between magic and creativity. One part of magic is changing the consciousness of other people. Writing has always been the best way of doing that. [...] I think a lot of us have forgotten what art is for. It’s an engine of human progress. Art and culture stay with us. It’s the wars we’re ashamed of.

The complete interview is available HERE.

Un Nuovo Mondo (bis)

Fanucci will publish the Italian edition of I Hear a New World at the end of May, basically at the same time as the English-language edition. 

The Italian edition had previously been announced for March, as a sort of... world premiere! 

Non ci si può più fidare. You can't trust anyone any more (maybe March/May... that was a typo! Maybe...)

But that's not all. 

To my great disappointment, the Italian edition won't feature Nico Delort's stunning cover illustration (which was in their March announcement), but a "variation", certainly a bland one, imho (to use a mild adjective), attributed (I quote the internal credits) to "© Darren Hendley - stock.adobe.com (elaborazione)".
I suspect it's a matter of economic optimization dynamics. Nuff said!

Male molto male. 

 

You can find all the info: here. 

NPR N.6: Alan Moore is IN!

Portrait art by Tom Harding

Northampton Poetry Review ISSUE 6: Rejuvenation includes a great interview with Moore (pp. 85-93) mostly focused on his poetry interests, writing and... more!!!

You can find all the info HERE. Pdf of the whole issue is available HERE for downloading.

Northampton Poetry Review returns with the theme of Rejuvenation. We’re rekindling old energies, awakening deep roots, and sustaining ourselves through strange and wearing times—with hope for renewal.

We offer poetry from voices both near and far. And we are honoured to present a deep and wide-ranging conversation with Northampton’s own Alan Moore—a giant, a guru, and a guiding light in these dark and mysterious times.

Below, some selected excerpts from the interview! Highly recommended!

Q&A with Alan Moore
The following is an interview with Alan Moore— Northampton notary, master, magician, guru and guide; a leading luminary and multimedia Renaissance man of our times. Alan generously gave us this interview back in 2022. Due to the buffeting winds of independent publishing, it finds its way to you only now.
He shares his thoughts on a wide array of cultural, political, and creative concerns—and we are truly honoured he took the time.

Alan Moore is a legendary comic book writer, novelist, filmmaker, and boundary-defying artist. Known for seminal works such as Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, his work has shaped the landscape of modern storytelling and continues to be an uncompromising artistic force across a variety of mediums.

Alan Moore: [...] I'm continually drawn back to Blake, Clare, and, with his very recent death, to Brian Catling’s magnificent The Stumbling Block. Also, if I ever again locate my copy, I want very much to re-immerse myself in Mervyn Peake’s The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb, which I remember as having Stanley Holloway rhythms and a marvellous idiosyncratic grandeur. Oh, and Chris Torrance’s The Magic Door always rewards a reopening. [...] 

[...] if it’s an idea, it will most probably emerge at some point as part of a story, whereas if it’s a tenuous soap-bubble impression, and if I can get a few words down before it pops from memory, it will more likely end up as a poem. [...] 

[...] Trying to define one’s own thought processes is always slippery, but it might be as if each project is a separate Memory Theatre in some by-now sprawling and overgrown multiplex.
Many of those theatres I need never visit again, although they still remain standing, obsolete warehouses rusting in some bleak, industrial-estate outpost of my awareness. There are a few abandoned palaces amongst them – works that for various reasons remain uncompleted or will never see daylight, like my John Dee opera or the detailed five season outline for The Show television series – that I find slightly haunting and will more often return to in idle moments. You shouldn’t, however, be misled by this talk of Memory Theatres into thinking my mental processes are anything like neat or orderly. In practice, it feels like some sort of cloud-chamber, and I have no real idea how it works. [...] 

[...] A key difference between prose and poetry lies in the ways that they engagé with time. [...] Poetry can dispense with time altogether, and allow us to see what is left when time is gone. As for the importance of time in my own work, I feel that along with space and consciousness, time is one of the three fundamental elements that a writer has to work with, so I like to get as much fun and meaning out of it as possible. [...] 

[...] I’m sure I’ve been a multiplicity of people in my time, but from my own perspective it feels very much like an unbroken continuity of self. The biggest shift of personality came, probably, with my decision to engagé with magic, back in 1993, but this seemed more like an expanded comprehension and intensification of ideas and processes that were already there than it did a huge psychological change. When I think back to previous incarnations of myself, I find that they’re all still me, only stupider, better looking, and with more intimidating physical energy. [...] 

[...] tend to enjoy works that are a few paces beyond my personal boundaries, that will entail a little bit of personal effort, which will therefore expand those boundaries. I believe that the most affecting kind of art is one where the audience does part of the work, making the experience almost a collaboration between reader and writer. To that end, I try to make my work as understandable as I can, while also subscribing to the idea of literary difficulty, whereby you are prepared to potentially alienate part of your readership in the knowledge that those who remain will have been made to engage with the work on a deeper and hopefully more rewarding level. I always try to pitch my work at a level that won’t be beyond the reach of an averagely intelligent person. [...] 

More info HERE. Pdf of the whole issue available HERE.

Joe Quesada and Watchmen

In his interesting investigation on The Invisible Language of Visual Storytelling, Part 11, Joe Quesada talks about "Reveal" and... Watchmen! 

You can read the whole thing HERE. 

I highly recommend reading Quesada's Substack! 

[...] Nothing Changed. Everything Did.

Before the reveal, the audience is assembling pieces.

After the reveal, everything organizes.

Cause and effect become clear.

And the audience feels the shift immediately.

Watchmen might be the clearest example of this in comics.

Throughout the story, every piece is already in place.

Ozymandias’ intelligence.
His resources.
His obsession with saving the world.
The missing scientists.

It’s all there.

You just haven’t connected it yet.

Then Ozymandias begins to fill in the gaps. 

You’re still processing what he’s saying.

Trying to understand the scope.
Still catching up.

Then comes the line that changes everything.  

“I did it thirty-five minutes ago.”

No buildup.
No countdown.
No chance to stop it.

The event is already over.

And suddenly it’s undeniable.

The plan. The scale.
Then the inevitability.

You weren’t waiting for it to happen.

You were already too late. [...] 

Read the complete piece HERE.

Magic, Comics and... Long London upcoming books

Art by Nicola Testoni

Excerpts from an interview posted yesterday on RetroFuturista.com. A great one! 

Highly recommended! 

Alan Moore: [...] My understanding of magic has evolved massively over the thirty-three years since I commenced my study and practice. For one thing, I have come to understand that magic and the arts, particularly writing, are to all intents and purposes synonymous. Thus, while magic is the way in which I see the world and therefore affects every area of my life, nowhere is this more true than in my writing. Indeed, these days, writing is pretty much my only form of magical expression. My guess is that this, writing being the most powerful instrument of magic, has been true for most self-identified magicians – and what other kind is there? – since the dawn of human consciousness. [...]

Nothing against middle-class people, of course. It’s simply that the comic strip form was originally conceived as by, for and about the working classes, who were its audience and, for my money, its very best creators. That is the comics field I’d like to see, brimming with new ideas and available to everyone, but, realistically, I don’t imagine that is ever going to happen, so I’ve chosen to put my remaining energies elsewhere. [...]

If you like, I see myself as a piece of language that is somehow generating other pieces of language. [...]

To be honest, I’ve never really thought about the audience’s reaction too much, as it’s something I have no say in or control over. The only audience I’ve ever been attempting to please is, perhaps selfishly, myself. [...]

I’m currently nearing the end of the third book in my Long London quintet, this being titled Blow Away, Dandelion and set in the late 1960s, whereas the next book, In England’s Dreaming, will set in the late 1970s. The final book, And No River of Fire, will be set in 1999, on the eve of the current millennium. I have genuinely no idea what I’ll be doing after that point, so we’ll all just have to wait and see.  

Read the complete interview HERE! 

The Mandrill is here!

Art by Bobby Campbell.

Above, Moore in the guise of his character from Mandrillifesto.

Art by Bobby Campbell.

Thanks Bob for sharing it! 

Ai Weiwei by Alan Moore!

Art by Alan Moore

It's known that Alan Moore draws special X-Mas cards to be sent to a his circle of friends. 

Recently one of them has been offered and immediately sold on eBay... featuring the acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (see below), dated 2015. It's simply... fantastic! 'Nuff said!

ALAN MOORE drawn Christmas card, printed on A4-sized card, folded in half. Front reads AI WEIWEI, IN A MANGER and has ALAN MOORE '15 in the lower right-hand corner.

Inside reads 'To Padraig + Diedre, have a great Christmas, with loads of love from Alan + Mel XX' written in black ballpoint pen in Alan Moore's distinctive handwriting. Received by me in December 2015, but has been living in a box for a decade now.

The card depicts Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei sitting in a straw-filled manger, with a golden halo around his head.

More details HERE.