French Alan Moore

Gonzaï n.18.

Above, cover of Gonzaï n.18, a French magazine about pop culture. The issue include an article about Moore and the French transcript of the famous Brian Eno interview conducted by the Northampton writer in 2004.

Pages from Gonzaï n.18.

Alan Moore by Daniel P. Carter

Art by Daniel P. Carter.

Above and below, two great Alan Moore's portraits by Daniel P. Carter used as covers respectively for Part I and Part II of a long interview with the writer realized for Carter's Someone Who Isn’t Me series.

Art by Daniel P. Carter.

The 21st century hasn’t started yet

Excerpt from an interview conducted by shocko (aka seamas o'reilly) an posted in September on his site, here.

Alan Moore: [...] The thing is, counter cultures are assimilated by the prevailing culture, but obviously if you assimilate anything, if you eat anything, it’s going to have an effect upon you, and if you can make a counter culture that is either toxic enough or psychedelic enough, then the prevailing culture is going to be altered by ingesting it. And I think this is the way that culture works, this is the way it changes, and renews itself.

I would say that where we are now, 2016, is more or less where were in 1916. At that juncture of the 20th century, the modern world was about to happen. There was the First World War, arguably the first modern war, where you had prototypical tanks alongside bows and arrows. In Lost Girls, me and Melinda incorporated Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring which was completely changing our perception of music, at the same time Einstein was completely changing our perception of physics, you had the modernist writers starting around then, Eliot writing about a broken country during World War 1, Joyce – all of these people, they emerged around then. I would hope that there is where we are in our current culture because it seems to me, that after skipping hurriedly through the 1950s, 60s and 70s, with our automotive tail fins that looked like rocket ships, with our science fiction, we were kind of hurrying through those decades trying to get to this promised, Jetsons future and then, around 1990-95, when the internet was starting to become a reality, we suddenly realised that we had arrived, and this was now the future and we froze.

As a culture, we froze, we had no idea what would be appropriate to this new era that we found ourselves on the brink of. So culturally, we decided, it seems to me, to mark time. We marched upon the spot. We started recycling the culture of the previous era that we were most comfortable with. Obviously that’s a sweeping generalization, there’s always committed artists and musicians and writers who are trying to break into new territory, of course there are, but the dominant mainstream of culture seems to be paralysed and anxiously repeating itself because it can’t think of what else to do; it can’t think of a culture that would be adequate to this new century.

I’d say that in cultural terms, the 21st century hasn’t started yet. We are hopefully seeing its beginnings in this current period of turbulence that we’re going through, just as they were going through a considerable period of turbulence a century ago. [...]

[The complete interview is available here]

Alan Moore by Luis Fernando

Art by Luis Fernando.

Above, a magical Alan Moore portrait by Mexican artist LUIS FERNANDO. 

The illustration has been published as variant cover for issue N. 14 of Mexican comics magazine Comikaze: here you can admire the making-of.

Art by Luis Fernando.

More info about the artist here. 

Luis Fernando and his Moore portrait.

Cometh the moment, cometh The Mandrill

Alan Moore is... The Mandrill.

Excerpt from an upcoming interview to be published by Post-Nearly Press in January 2017.

More info here (for enquiries/orders here).

Alan Moore: [...] We’ve all got our apocalypses in our heads haven’t we? And in times of a political vacuum, that’s when you get monsters emerging. Tyrants. Dictators. So if it’s a cultural vacuum, maybe you can have some sort of totalitarian art fascist emerge. And it would probably be a mandrill. The mandrill is the most beautiful and terrifying thing in creation; a baboon with a devil mask. I saw some footage of a leopard stalking in the long grass, creeping up on a mandrill that was sitting with its back to camera. The leopard must have made a noise. The mandrill suddenly turned round, and you could see the moment when the leopard realised it had made a really huge mistake. The mandrill was after it, with those beautiful blue flashes on its face, the teeth bared. So the dictator I imagined would be a mandrill. [...]

Watch Moore's performance here.

Alan Moore by Juha Veltti

Art by Juha Veltti.

Above, a dark portrait of Alan Moore drawn by Finnish artist JUHA VELTTI included in his 50 Writers project. 

For more info about Veltti and his works visit his site here.

Supernatural powers

Excerpt from the fantastic interview entitled "The Craft", conducted in two part by Daniel Whiston in 2002 and published on the Engine Comics website. It is now available HERE.

Daniel Whiston: [...] A couple of creative people, one a musician, the other a writer – Steven King and Shane MacGowan – have both made very similar comments about the fact that they discover what they do rather than create it from within themselves, necessarily. I think Stephen King's talked about writing as archaeology, finding things together and dusting them down, Shane MacGowan's talked about: “songs are floating in the air, and it's my duty to grab them before some cunt like Paul Simon does”.

Alan Moore: Ha-ha, good point Shane. R.A. Lafferty, when I asked him: “Where do you get ideas from?”, and he said: “Ideas are like pumpkins, they just float through the air, and hit people on the head”. It's a similar idea. I've noticed – and this is an experiment that perhaps a lot of other writers could try: start writing upon a subject upon which you don't know very much, or about which you have no opinions. Start writing. You will find that you've not got something perfectly planned in your head and you're writing it down, you'll find that the words are forming practically at your fingertips on the keys of the typewriter, the ideas are forming, ideas that you never had before. Juxtapositions are occurring to you. Your mind goes into a very different state. If you actually notice this – you can write certain different types of prose, which can leave your mind in a state every bit as altered, as say psychedelic drugs.

Because our entire universe is made up of consciousness, we never really experience the universe directly we just experience our consciousness of the universe, our perception of it, so right, our only universe is perception. All of our perceptions are made up of words. You alter the words, you alter the perception, you alter the universe. And if you actually look back you come, as I did, to a point where craft no longer really cuts it, where you want something more than craft. Yes, you know skilful ways of persuading people to your argument or things like that, but that's not good enough. That is when you come up against a point like I did. Where I started to look at the archaic notions of writing. Not writing theory as it is now – let's look at what writing used to be. And of course, if you start looking at it, after a while it's obvious that writing must have had its origins in magic, in that anyone who'd got command of written language, would have had supernatural powers.

Alan Moore by Sudario Brando

Art by Sudario Brando.

Above, Alan Moore portrayed as a sort of Doc Manhattan on Mars by Italian enigmatic comic book artist SUDARIO BRANDO.

For more info about Sudario Brando: Blog - Facebook - Twitter

Alan Moore by Antonio Nonnato

Art by Antonio Nonnato.

Above, a gorgeous portrait of The Man behind the mask by Italian comic artist and illustrator ANTONIO NONNATO.

For more info about Antonio Nonnato: Facebook page

Alan Moore by Piallo

Art by Piallo.

Above, a vibrant pencil portrait of Alan Moore by Italian indie comic artist and illustrator PIALLO (aka Gianluigi Concas). 

HERE you can also view another coloured Moore portrait by Piallo.

For more info about Piallo: Blog - IperPlasticol

Alan Moore and Malcolm McLaren

Excerpt from the introduction written by Moore (dated "Northampton, June 14th, 2013") for the Fashion Beast collected edition published by Avatar Press.

Alan Moore: [...] While I confess that I had no ambitions or genuine creative interest in the world of cinema, I had always idly wondered what it would be like to write within that form. More persuasively, I was keen to meet and if possible work with Malcolm McLaren, to my mind one of the most effervescent pop-culture intellects of the twentieth century. Thus it was that a week or so later I found myself rendezvousing with this self-consciously Mephistophelean figure in the lobby of the London hotel he was staying at. Arriving a few minutes early, I walked in on the last few shots of a photo-session for the avowedly sensationalistic Sun. A cheerily salacious newspaper photographer was coaxing Malcolm into a variety of poses to accompany a feature on the previous day’s multi-million pound court settlement with members of the Sex Pistols. “Fantastic. That’s fantastic. Now, can you turn your pockets inside-out and look miserable? Lovely.” Always with a touch of the uproarious English pantomime tradition in his carefully composed patchwork persona... perhaps Aladdin’s uncle proffering new lamps for old... Malcolm was gleefully playing along with this, although not for a moment could anyone have the impression that, in this encounter with the tabloid press, he was the one being manipulated.
When the photographer was gone we talked, and I was able to gain an impression of him in repose, between performances as the public Malcolm McLaren, the knowingly Dickensian loveable-villain cartoon that he himself had engineered for popular consumption. At least as tall as I am and considerably better-dressed, he had a bird-like quality... most probably the magpie mentioned earlier, but certainly some manner of ingenious corvid... and when standing he resembled nothing more than an anthropomorphic candle, with that orange blaze of cerebral combustion rising from the human wax. [...]

Alan Moore by Armando Rossi

Art by Armando Rossi.

Above, a dark and psychedelic Alan Moore portrait by Italian comic book artist, illustrator and painter ARMANDO ROSSI.

From Rossi's Official Facebook page: "I have been working professionally as a comic artist for over 15 years for national and international publishers and I consider myself a storyteller. All my works are tales I wish to tell. That’s why I depict people, in all their moods and frames of mind. Because everyone represents a unique story. My repertoire of media includes pencil and china ink drawings and paintings in acrylics or oil on canvas or on board."

For more info about Armando Rossi: Website - Facebook

Alan Moore by Dany&Dany

Art by Dany&Dany.

Above, a magnetic Alan Moore amazingly portrayed by DANY&DANY. 

Dany&Dany (Daniela Orrù and Daniela Serri) are an Italian comic creator studio, active since 2002. Their books are published in Italy, US, Germany and Spain, in both printed and digital format.

For more info about Dany&Dany: Facebook - Blog.

Alan Moore by Massimo Perissinotto

Art by Massimo Perissinotto.

Above, a powerful and irate Alan Moore drawn by Italian comic book artist, writer, essayist, horror movie connoisseur and everything "indie" (and much more) MASSIMO PERISSINOTTO.

For more info about Massimo Perissinotto: his Facebook page.

Alan Moore by Teresa Ennas

Art by Teresa Ennas.

Above, a stylish Alan Moore portrait drawn by TERESA ENNAS, an Italian-German artist based in Germany.

For more info about Teresa Ennas:

Facebook - Instagram - Tumblr - Twitter

Alan Moore by Manuelle Z. Mureddu

Art by Manuelle Z. Mureddu.

Above, an intense and solemn portrait of Alan Moore by Sardinian comic book artist and illustrator MANUELLE Z. MUREDDU.
The black and white version of this same illustration is available here.
(Thank you, Manuelle!) 

For more info about Manuelle Z. Mureddu visit his Official FB Page. 

Happy 63, Alan! by Onofrio Catacchio

Art by Onofrio Catacchio.

Above, an amazing portrait by Italian well-known comic book artist ONOFRIO CATACCHIO realized specifically on the occasion of Moore's 63th birthday!

Best wishes to the Bearded One! "He is a Scorpio boy!"

You can visit Onofrio Catacchio website here. 

(Thank you Onofrio!)

Jay Stephens: ABC and Alan Moore

Art by Jay Stephens.

Above an illustration by Canadian cartoonist JAY STEPHENS featuring several characters from Alan Moore's America's Best Comics; also below a short homage text by Stephens.
The pieces were both published in May 2001 on Ultrazine.org special dedicated to Moore. 

       I was fifteen years old when WATCHMEN hit comics like an ice age. Now there would always be a before and an after. By that time, my friends and I had graduated to reading Love and Rockets, Mr.X, and Yummy Fur, but we still managed to find time for our old favourites, the superheroes. Suddenly, we were struck by a single comic that gave it to us all at once. The comic that blew up the genre. WATCHMEN.
    
In hindsight it's no longer my favourite work of Alan Moore's (though it still holds up very well). Anybody with a sharp knife can cut something to pieces. Elegantly, meticulously, it doesn't ultimately make a difference. Diced is diced. A good surgeon, however, learns to use a sharp knife with great skill to repair and heal. To build instead of destroy. It is the fantastic surgical skill that Mr. Moore has displayed recently that so impresses me.
       
FROM HELL is a stitched together work of art the likes of which comics had yet to behold, and the incredible ABC books... who among us had NOT uttered the phrase " It's all been done.", in connection to superheroes? Proven wrong again by one of the medium true masters.
He's no longer tinkering with the bowels of corpses, but constructing strange, new Prometheans that walk and breathe with life of their own. And it is a thing of wonder to behold.
       
Thank you Alan Moore.

Jay Stephens
[December 2000]

Alan Moore Simpsonized

Alan Moore Simpsonized by Mike Iverson.

In 2007 Alan Moore appeared in Husbands and Knives, the seventh episode of The Simpsons' nineteenth season (Art Spiegelman and Dan Clowes were the other guests).

Some days ago, artist Mike Iverson published on his Blind Squirrel Props site the action figure he created and related kit reproducing Alan Moore in amazing 3D Simpsons' style! 

 Making-of HERE; the Alan Moore Simpsonized kit HERE!

 

The Sopranos, The Simpsons and South Park

Excerpt from an interview published in Wizard magazine N. 130, July 2002

What about American television?
Alan Moore: "The Sopranos" is the best thing that's come out of American television that I can remember. Most television I can't stand it... I don't watch hardly any television at all. Sort of "Ally McBeal", "Frasier", "Buffy the vampire Slayer", "Dr. Who", "Star Trek", "Babylon 5" --- all of this stuff I just cannot be bothered with it. "The Sopranos" on the other hand is actually well-written. It gas wonderful characterization. The episodes, for the most part, are incredibly well-directed. I think over these three seasons, the standard has been maintained wonderfully. Since "Twin Peaks", it's the first American dramatic show that I've enjoyed. That's not to say I haven't enjoyed "The Simpsons" or "South Park" or some of the generally very, very good American cartoon shows.

I wouldn't have associated you with "The Simpsons" or "South Park".
Alan Moore: Oh well, you know it's not all gloom and doom at Moore Mansion [chuckles]. I think "The Simpsons" is very good because it is kept at a wonderful standard of craft and comedy for a very, very ling time. And it is subversive. I think sometimes because it has been around for so long, we forget how subversive [it is]. "South Park", I've got to say, my hat's off to them as well. I mean, considering it is mainly fart jokes and sort of gay jokes and all the rest of it. I think they manage to really push the line quite seriously for American television. They take the stories into all of these really uncomfortable areas. You're certain they're not going to be able to get away without severely embarrassing themselves, but they do.

Alan Moore and... Timothy Leary’s shin

Timothy Leary

Excerpt from the amazing "Ode to the Eternalist" interview conducted by David Erdos and published on International Times site. The complete piece is available HERE.

Alan Moore: Hey, did I tell you, I’ve actually got a bit of Timothy Leary on my altar at home?
David Erdos: Really? Which bit?
Alan Moore: Its actually a small part of his shin. Apparently, some of his ashes were blasted into space, by which we mean blasted into Nevada, because most of those things don’t have enough escape velocity,so they tend to end up in the desert. But some of the remaining ashes were given to friends including Brian Barrett who wrote ‘Whisper’ and who was told to scatter them on Stonehenge and allow anyone who caught them to give them to anyone who they thought deserved them. My friend John Higgs was there for the ceremony and at the end he noticed a tiny flake of bone left on the altar, so he gave it to me in this little reliquary and I put it on my altar. And so I asked my ‘gentleman supplier,’ ‘Do people actually do acid these days?’ I’m not sure I want to do any myself but I wanted to know and he came through with two little sugar cubes, so I put them in the reliquary with Tim, because I think that’s what Tim would have wanted! And if I ever do get round to taking the acid I’m sure it will be infused with the spirit of the counter culture in its purest form!

The complete interview can be read HERE.

Essential Alan Moore interview about Jerusalem (and more)

Alan Moore. Photo by Dominic Wells.

Excerpts from the excellent interview conducted by Dominic Wells. You can read it HERE.

 

[1986]

Alan Moore: “It’s about time people stopped debating whether comics are art [...] and just get on with making good art.”

[2002]

Alan Moore: “This planet has a physical geography with which we have already familiarised ourselves [...] But since the dawn of the first stories, there is a fictional geography, where the gods and demons live. We have created this big imaginary planet that is a counterpart to our own; and in some cases these places are more familiar to us than the real ones.”

[afternoon of July 9, 2016]

Talking about Jerusalem.  

Alan Moore: “Nearly everything is historical fact. [...] I’d take all the angels and demons with a pinch of salt. A lot of it is actually 100 per cent materially true, but I think all of it is emotionally true. And also we are not just our bricks and mortar, we are not just our flesh and blood, we are not just our material components. Everything in our world has got an imaginary component. As individuals, we’re always telling people the legend of us. The same goes for our houses, our streets, our towns, our country – there is a huge imaginary component to human life and if in the interests of scientific realism you ignore that, you are not describing reality.”

Discussing V for Vendetta mask adopted by both the Occupy and Anonymous movements. 

Alan Moore: “I’m glad that they’ve got it, although – they didn’t get it from the comic, did they? They got it from the film, which I have never seen and which, from a position of complete ignorance, I am willing to describe as a total rat’s abortion. But I’m glad it’s been of use to these protestors, because generally I really admire what they do.”

[6pm, July 9, 2016]

Alan Moore: "[Jerusalem] is dedicated to Audrey. The whole book was an attempt… an attempt to rescue her? A particularly futile and belated attempt, but the best I could do. The only way that I could rescue her was in a fiction.”

The complete interview can be can read HERE.

Lobo and... Alan Moore!

Art by Kevin O'Neill.

Above, the first panel from page 11 of Lobo Convention Special, a Lobo one-shot published in 1993 by DC Comics with plot by Keith Giffen, dialogues  by Alan Grant, art by Kevin O'Neill, lettering by Todd Klein, coloring by Digital Chameleon.

Bob Dylan in Watchmen

From Watchmen - Chapter I: At Midnight, All the Agents...
Closing Quotation: "At midnight, all the agents and superhuman crew, go out and round up everyone who knows more than they do." - Desolation Row by Bob Dylan
Note: the quote doesn't appear at the end of the original serialized issue N. 1 because DC hadn't cleared the rights in time, but it was added in reprints. 

From Watchmen - Chapter X: Two Riders Were Approaching...
Closing Quotation: "Outside in the distance a wild cat did growl, two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl." - All Along the Watchtower by Bob Dylan

Cover of Watchmen N. 10. Art by Dave Gibbons.

Caio Oliveira and Moore's retirement

Art by Caio Oliveira.

Brazilian artist CAIO OLIVEIRA comments the recent announcement of Moore's retirement from comics: HERE.

More about Caio Oliveira on his Deviantart page and on Facebook.

Art by Caio Oliveira.

Miracleman by Kim Jung Gi

Art by Kim Jung Gi.

Above a Miracleman commission drawn by South Korean phenomenal artist Kim Jung Gi during the last New York Comic Con.

More info e detail about Kim Jung Gi at his site: HERE.

Kim Jung Gi and his Miracleman.

Alan Moore by Bobby Campbell

Art by Bobby Campbell.

Above a psychedelic portrait of Alan Moore by artist Bobby Campbell. 

More details about the illustration are available here.

Alan Moore by Danijel Zezelj

Art by Danijel Zezelj.

Above a fantastic and intense Alan Moore portrait by internationally acclaimed artist DANIJEL ZEZELJ.

Remarkably happy

Excerpt from an article by Nat Segnit published on the The New Yorker website the 8th of September 2016.

[...] A few weeks after our meeting, I asked Moore whether his own mental health had ever been a concern. “It probably should have been, but it hasn’t,” he said. “I am remarkably happy in my life. I don’t seem to have many of the conflicts that my ostensibly more normal and sane acquaintances seem to have. I’ve never been tempted by the idea of analysis or therapy.” [...]

The complete piece is available HERE.

Claudio Calia and Alan Moore

Art by Claudio Calia.

Above and below, some pages from CLAUDIO CALIA's Leggere i Fumetti, a sort of sentimental quick guide to reading comics published in Italy by Edizioni BeccoGiallo this September. 

Claudio Calia is an Italian comics artist, teacher and popularizer.

Art by Claudio Calia.

Joker by Tanino Liberatore

Art by Tanino Liberatore.

Above, painted cover by Italian superstar TANINO LIBERATORE for French USA Magazine N.36 on the occasion of The Killing Joke publication in 1988. 

Liberatore's illustration was based on a sketch by Brian Bolland, finished and inked by Fershid Bharucha.

More info about USA Magazine here.

Mike Mignola draws The League

Art by Mike Mignola.

Above an amazing drawing by Master MIKE MIGNOLA from actor Scott Adsit's art collection featuring Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Scott Adsit: "[...] I don't assign anything [...]. I just say it has to be a character that appears in the books and that it has to have red in it. That's all I say. [...]

[...] Variety is what I like. I like that I have Mike Mignola has a ballpoint, full page drawing that he did in a bar of Mr. Hyde and Nemo. Just ballpoint pen."

More details about Scott Adsit's art collection HERE.

Moore confirms his retirement from comics

Excerpt from an article published the 8th of September on The Guardian.

[...]  At a press conference in London for his latest work, Jerusalem [... ] Moore said he had “about 250 pages of comics left in me”.
[...] "There are a couple of issues of an Avatar [Press] book that I am doing at the moment, part of the HP Lovecraft work I’ve been working on recently. Me and Kevin will be finishing Cinema Purgatorio and we’ve got about one more book, a final book of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to complete. After that, although I may do the odd little comics piece at some point in the future, I am pretty much done with comics.”

[...] “I think I have done enough for comics. I’ve done all that I can. I think if I were to continue to work in comics, inevitably the ideas would suffer, inevitably you’d start to see me retread old ground and I think both you and I probably deserve something better than that.”

The complete article is available here.

Moore & Coulthart and... the lost Crowley

Detail from John Coulthart's illustration for the Crowley project.
The full illustration is available here.

In the past few days I found by chance on The Orphan site a reference to an Alan Moore's unrealized project to be illustrated by artist John Coulthart focused on... Aleister Crowley.

Surprised by the discover, I contacted Coulthart to know more about it. 

In the following you can read his feedback posted on this blog with the artist's permission. Thank you, John! :)

John Coulthart: The information about Alan's story that ended up on the web page was a little brief compared to the explanations I sent to Brendan via email. I've tracked down the details I wrote originally:

    This is something I was working on with Alan Moore in 1996 which Alan was forced to abandon. The impetus was that Creation Books were going to be doing an anthology of stories related to Aleister Crowley. Alan was happy to give me the opportunity to illustrate it since our planned Yuggoth Cultures collaboration (also for Creation) fell apart after he left the MS in a London taxi. I forget the title of this story (I'll have to check all these details), it was an odd phrase from Crowley's The Book of the Law but Alan had seven sections planned with each section to be divided into a set number of paragraphs. I forget the number but each paragraph would contain exactly 156 words since 156 was the occult number--derived from Dr John Dee, I think--which formed the basis of the piece. Oh, I remember now...there were seven sections because that's a number of Babalon, the Scarlet Woman; Crowley called all his wives and mistresses Scarlet Women so each section would examine Crowley through the experience of a different woman. We only did the first part which concerns Crowley first wife, Rose Kelly, and their experiences in Cairo in 1904. Alan leant me his Franz von Bayros books since he wanted the art style to be in the manner of what he calls Von Bayros's "fractal pornography". The image is from a reduced photocopy of the very large ink drawing I made which to date has never been published anywhere. There are many Crowley-specific references encoded into it. The original is so large I'm not sure it would have made a good illustration, much of the detail would vanish. But I like the drawing even though it lacks the elegance of Von Bayros's style. That's always the problem with pastiche: you often capture the details but miss the essence of the artist's work.

    [...]

    If you need more detail about Alan's side of the story, I think the whole piece was going to be called "The ill-ordered house in the Victorious City", from Crowley's The Book of the Law. Seven is a number of Babalon, so too is the number 156. The 156th section of The Book of the Law (chapter III, para, 11) includes that phrase. Alan used the number 156 as a basis for the entire story to the extent of writing it in paragraphs of 156 words each. I forget how many paragraphs there were. This was obviously a difficult task which is one reason why the story didn't get finished. The central part of the drawing is contained by a grid of 156 squares.

    Another point: the Rose Kelly sequence is a nasty one--Crowley assaults his wife then forces her to look at the rotting corpse of their daughter. Although Alan only wrote this one section he said the subsequent sections would treat the women better, for their sake, not for Crowley's. The intention was to turn the spotlight from Crowley onto the women who gave him so much yet received little thanks in return. Rose Kelly ended up in an asylum.

I still have a fax or photocopy of the text somewhere, I think, although it's Alan's copyright, of course, so I can't do anything with it.

Check also The Orphan page.

Rose Kelly and Aleister Crowley.