AM Portrait: SandokAlan

SandokAlan by D. Barzi (story) and Oskar (art)

The Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman tribute book I co-edited in 2003 with Gary Spencer Millidge contained a wide variety of material - such as essays, appreciation texts, memories, homage illustrations, interviews, and so on - to celebrate the 50th birthday of Alan Moore.

There were also some comics short stories included in. Some contributors were thrilled by the idea to play with Moore-related characters, so the book was enriched by a bunch of comics that paid homage to characters created by Moore, moments from Moore's stories or had Moore himself as the main character.

Italian artists Davide Barzi (story) and Oskar (art) created a very funny 2page story (titled SandokAlan) which did homage to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series featuring Moore himself. It's was a "strange" Moore because he has been mashed-up with Sandokan, a classic hero created by Italian writer Emilio Salgari.

The story can be read at page 38 of the sold-out volume and it appears here on AMW with the artists' permission. Again, many thanks to Mr. Barzi and Oskar for their great contribution to the Alan Moore: Portrait.

SandokAlan by D. Barzi (story) and Oskar (art)

Davide Barzi is a well-known Italian comics writer, journalist and critic. He worked for several Italian comics publishing houses and he is a regular collaborator of Sergio Bonelli Editore.

Oskar started his career as penciler and inker in the 90ies and worked on the popular Italian series Alan Ford. He collaborated with Barzi on several projects; currently he is a member of the art team at work on SBE's science fiction series Nathan Never.

The Honest Moore: OWS, Frank Miller & Politics

An amazing Alan Moore portrait by Diego Maia

From a recent interview appeared on Honest Publishing website.

Read The Honest Alan Moore interview: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

With the Occupy movement, it seems you and Frank Miller have conflicting views. Would you say that he’s against it and you’re for it?
Well, Frank Miller is someone whose work I’ve barely looked at for the past twenty years. I thought the Sin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny, 300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided. I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time. [...] 

It’s always seemed to me that the majority of the comics field, if you had to place them politically, you’d have to say centre-right. That would be as far towards the liberal end of the spectrum as they would go. I’ve never been in any way, I don’t even know if I’m centre-left. I’ve been outspoken about that since the beginning of my career. So yes I think it would be fair to say that me and Frank Miller have diametrically opposing views upon all sorts of things, but certainly upon the Occupy movement.

As far as I can see, the Occupy movement is just ordinary people reclaiming rights which should always have been theirs. [...] I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who’s too big to fail. It’s a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favour of it. We would definitely have to agree to differ on that one.

What do you think needs to change in our political system?
Everything. I believe that what’s needed is a radical solution, by which I mean from the roots upwards. Our entire political thinking seems to me to be based upon medieval precepts. These things, they didn’t work particularly well five or six hundred years ago. Their slightly modified forms are not adequate at all for the rapidly changing territory of the 21st Century. [...]

AM Portrait: The Comedian

Art by Roberto Recchioni

In 2003 Roberto Recchioni drew a great old style illustration of The Comedian as his contribution to the Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman tribute book (see page 283 of the sold-out volume, and obviously, the above jpg image.)

Roberto Recchioni is a well-known Italian comics artist and writer, creator of several series and characters and writer for the best-selling Italian comic book series Dylan Dog.

He is also a videogame and movie expert, a tech geek and a popular blogger. For more info about him visit his blog Dalla Parte di Asso (Italian only).

Again, many thanks to Mr. Recchioni for his contribution to the Alan Moore: Portrait and for the permission to post his illustration here.