Vital stats on Alan Moore 1999

Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore at Cheltenham Science Festival in 2011.

From Wizard Wildstorm special, 1999, "Vital stats on Alan Moore" box at page 54.

OCCUPATION: Comic book writer
BORN: Nov. 18, 1953 in Northampton, England
BASE OF OPERATION: Northampton, England

Frame from Insignificance.

FAVORITE MOVIE: "Insignificance", directed by Nicholas Roeg. "It's based on some tenuous real-life connections between famous people: Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, Joe DiMaggio and Joseph McCarthy. Apparently, Monroe once said the person she'd most want to sleep was Einstein. Of course, DiMaggio was married to Monroe. McCarthy apparently had a sexual fixation with Monroe, and he also investigated Einstein at one point. These are the real-life connections. What the director did was imagine that they all meet one night at a hotel. There are all these coincidences that bring them all together. It's wonderful."
FAVORITE AUTHOR: Iain Sinclair [*]. "He's probably my biggest influence at the moment, and has been for a couple of years. There is stuff he can do in writing that I've never seen anybody attempt before."

Harvey Kurtzman's cover for Mad N. 1, 1952.

FAVORITE COMIC: Mad Comics. "Nothing has been able to touch that in terms of originality, experiment, sheer quality and the cleverness of the writing and the drawing."
MOTTO HE LIVES BY: "Keep in the dry place, and stay away from children."
HIS TAKE ON PEOPLE SEEING HIM AS A COMIC BOOK LEGEND: "I'm not one. People like to build up these big, imaginary pantomime figures in their heads. I say, 'Why not?' It's fun for them. It just doesn't have much to do with me."

[*] In the actual box the name is misspelled as "Ian Sinclaire".

ABC house ad art by Gene Ha

Art by Gene Ha.

Above, America's Best Comics house ad, dated 1999. Gorgeous art by Gene Ha, featuring Promethea, Tom Strong, Greyshirt and Toybox (from Top Ten).

Orphans of the Storm, Fellini and Ed Wood

Excerpt from Orphans of the Storm's Mission Statement. 

The complete text can be read here.

 

"[...] We promise you carefully themed and considered extensions of an idea rather than shamelessly strip-mined franchises. We promise you Fellini at Ed Wood prices. We promise you new concepts that are sufficient to their times, and not merely the reanimated corpses of light entertainment past, although we do have some of those as well. We promise you an antidote to the toxic amusements you’ve already thoughtlessly ingested, and we hope to God it’s not too late." [Orphans of the Storm]

The Extraordinary Gentlemen by Ricardo Venâncio

Art by Ricardo Venâncio.

Above, a great portrait of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen members created by Portuguese artist Ricardo Venâncio, originally published on Fistful of Fanart blog, here.

The original art is available here.

For more info about Ricardo Venâncio visit his blog: here.

Art by Ricardo Venâncio.

Watchmen pirates

Art by Joe Orlando, from Watchmen N. 5.

Above, illustration by JOE ORLANDO from Watchmen N. 5 (DC Comics, January 1987): it is the only page in the book not drawn by Dave Gibbons. Lettering by Todd Klein.

Warchild and... Farmageddon!

Above, an advertisement, dated 1995, promoting a Warchild miniseries (for Rob Liefeld's Maximum Press company) which was never published.

An interview - posted on OC Weekly which is not available any more on the Web - revealed some details:

Liefeld goes on to describe a comic book pitched to him by Moore that he still owns the rights to, entitled Warchild. Written shortly after Moore saw Pulp Fiction for the first time, it's a knights-of-the-round-table concept set in a Tarantino-esque inner city gangland setting.
 

"I have him on tape for 4 hours just talking about it; it’s my most cherished possession.

You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Alan describe the heroes – this is in the near future – getting trapped in an amusement park in Compton, where one of the rides you go on is a drive-by shooting.
 

A couple of the artists I gave it to handed it back. The first ten pages is some of the most difficult, visually, it’s hard to crack. We’ll probably publish it in script form. I can’t crack this, life’s too short.
 

There’s standing atop a building, looking in through the window at a certain angle, while the person is sitting doing their hair looking at themselves in the mirror...and the panel descriptions, you go, how do I shoot this? I could shoot it with a camera, but like all the storyboards? It’s just very difficult."

More information about Moore's unpublished works can be read here.

Titus Andronicus' last album and... Miracleman

Miracleman sketch by Barry Windsor-Smith.

Excerpt from an interview with American band Titus Andronicus focused on their fourth studio album titled The Most Lamentable Tragedy. The complete interview is available here.

"My biggest literary influence on this album was the comic book Miracleman, by Alan Moore. Miracleman, and Watchmen to a lesser extent, was an introduction to me for a lot of Nietzschean concepts. He was my other biggest influence, but I came to understand most of his ideas and how they applied to my own life through Alan Moore. Alan Moore was my Nietzschean interpreter. That's really pretentious.

They've led me on a journey. . . to discover the concepts that I find that pique my interest, that are relevant to my personal concerns. That whole übermensch thing, and the fact that the Miracleman comic talks about it — it would create a lot of fucked-up situations if it were real. That, to me, became an allegory for myself when I am a maniac. That's when I did every good thing I've ever done: write all the songs that everybody likes; put on a wild, entertaining show; deliver a boisterous, outlandish interview — all this stuff. I can do that stuff when I'm way up, but it's not the whole story of my life. That's the part that everybody likes, and yet, in my personal life, it's the part that everybody hates. It makes for a very annoying situation at home, because I can't turn it off." [Titus Andronicus leader Patrick Stickles]

Alan Moore by Michael Hacker

Art by Michael Hacker.

Above, a Lovecraftian portrait of Alan Moore drawn by Austrian illustrator, comic and gigposter artist MICHAEL HACKER for my personal collection.
Below, the preliminary sketch.

For more information about Michael Hacker visit his site (here).

Art by Michael Hacker.

San Diego 1985: an embarrassing afternoon

From American Comic Book Chronicles Facebook page.

Entry dated 1 August 2015:

"August 1-4, 1985: There were giants in those days. Fifteen years after the San Diego Comic-Con was founded, the legends that shaped the comic book industry mingled with the up-and-comers who were reshaping the present. For many, the highlight of that year’s show was its first annual Kirby Awards, honoring the best of 1984 and named in honor of pioneer and hit-maker Jack Kirby. The beloved comics icon was present to announce each winner, frequently sharing the stage with Alan Moore, whose Swamp Thing—in collaboration with Stephen Bissette and John Totleben—was the overwhelming favorite of the night. In his first—and, as it turned out, only—U.S. convention appearance, Moore was captured on stage alongside Kirby in a famous photograph by Jackie Estrada.

Sponsored and promoted by Fantagraphics’ Amazing Heroes, the nominees were chosen strictly by people already in the industry. Of the 238 ballots that determined the winners, 98 came from comic book creators, editors, and publishers while 140 comics retailers and distributor personnel accounted for the rest. Regrettably, the Kirby Awards were discontinued after the 1987 ceremony when a dispute over ownership of the awards resulted in two new awards: the Eisners (named after Will Eisner and overseen by former Kirby Awards manager Dave Olbrich) and the Harveys (named after Harvey Kurtzman and overseen by Fantagraphics)."

Moore won as "Best Writer". While accepting the award he said: "This is probably one of the most embarrassing afternoons of my life." [from The Comics Buyer’s Guide N. 615].

From The Comics Buyer’s Guide N. 615.

Alan Moore and his first wife Phyllis in a photograph from The Comics Buyer’s Guide N. 616.

Alan Moore and Basil Wolverton

Cover by Alan Moore.

In 1987 Dark Horse published Basil Wolverton's Planet of Terror! reprinting some classics tales by the well-known American cartoonist and illustrator and... Alan Moore drew the cover paying homage to Wolverton’s characteristic style.

But it was not the first time for a Wolverton-Moore connection! In Weird Tales of the Future N. 2, an anthology published by Key Publications, cover dated  June 1952, Wolverton drew a short sci-fi tale featuring... Alan Moore, space adventure!

More info here where you can also read the complete story.

Art by Basil Wolverton.