Alan Moore and... hamburger reading

Wired.com: How do you think comics should interrogate the post-civilization world, as you see it?

Moore: I have largely, completely given up on the comics industry. I really don’t believe it is going to do anything to address the modern world. Perhaps that’s a very pessimistic view; there are some great comics out there still. But for the large part I don’t think the comics industry has got any new ideas. I don’t think it’s had any new ideas for 20 or 30 years. 

Wired.com: It seems now to be more about the type of pure escapism you mentioned earlier.

Moore: That’s basically it. It’s so mannered these days. There are so few original voices, and it all seems to be stylistically the same stuff. It’s comfort reading. People are going to be getting the same stuff every month, and that’s why they like it. If you go out for a Big Mac, it’s going to taste exactly the way it did last month. It’s hamburger reading. I think the comics medium could play a big part in addressing our problems. It’s such a wonderful medium. You can talk about anything, and talk about it in a very powerful and informative way. I’d like to see comics become a medium in which new ideas could be expressed in new, compelling forms, but I don’t really see that coming from the industry.

Wired.com: Are there particular movements in comics that you still find relevant?

Moore: Where comics are starting to score heavily is in the documentary approach. People are starting to tell coherent stories that are autobiographical or documentary comics dealing with a particular situation. There has been a heartening surge of those, and they are largely coming from outside the comics industry. The comics industry, meanwhile, seems to be going down the tubes, as far as I can see. And it’s largely their own fault, that they did not embrace change heartily enough, that they didn’t have any new ideas, that they didn’t have a clue.

[Excerpt from Wired.com, 2009]