Trio of traitors and tricksters

Art by Oliver Pulumbarit.

Above, a "trio of traitors and tricksters" co-created by Alan Moore drawn by Oliver Pulumbarit, a Philippine newspaper writer-editor and occasional comic book-maker.

 

From left to right: Ultima from Top Ten, Ozymandias from Watchmen and TAO from WildCATs. The original drawing is available on Pulumbarit's Deviantart page, here.

John Constantine and Sting

Except from an interview published in the November 1993 issue of Wizard magazine. 

Alan Moore: But I can state categorically that the character only existed because Steve [Bissette] and John [Totleben] wanted to do a character that looked like Sting. Having been given that challenge, how could I fit Sting into Swamp Thing? I have an idea that most of the mystics in comics are generally older people, very austere, very proper, very middle class in a lot of ways. They are not at all functional on the street. It struck me that it might be interesting for once to do an almost blue-collar warlock. Somebody who was streetwise, working class, and from a different background than the standard run of comic book mystics. Constantine started to grow out of that.

 

2018: Sting will pen the foreword to the Constantine, Hellblazer: 30th Anniversary Celebration commemorative collection to be published this October. More HERE.

John Constantine aka Sting.

Alan Moore by Gianmaria Caschetto

Art by Gianmaria Caschetto.

Every now and then I received unexpected emails including an Alan Moore portrait.

Above you can see one of them, a nice sketch illustration by comics blogger Gianmaria Caschetto.

"[Alan Moore is] my favourite wizard", Caschetto wrote.

From Hell and... beyond

Excerpt from an interview published on EW.com on May 31, 2018.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Have you been in contact with Alan Moore at all about this?
Eddie Campbell: I’ve told Alan I’m doing it. I was like “Alan, if there’s anything you want to fix, you’ve gotta fix it now, this is your chance.” He hasn’t said anything so far. I might jog his memory by getting the stuff to him in the next week or two. If there’s any dialogue that’s wrong, now’s his time to fix it. He’s always talked about adding another appendix. When I spoke to him last month, he said “Eddie, maybe it’s time we do that other appendix, this is the only time we’ll be able to do it.” That’ll be a whole other dozen pages of illustration, but he wants to bring it up to date because in the last 30 years there’s been a lot of developments in Ripper-ology. Even though this was a crime that happened in 1888, every second year there’s a new book about it, where somebody’s found a new culprit. Five, six years ago, Patricia Cornwell went to huge expense buying Walter Sickert’s paintings to get DNA evidence from the paintings and compare it with DNA evidence from the murder site just to prove it was Walter Sickert. But since then somebody’s come out with another suspect. Everybody thinks they’ve got the last word on it. We did this 24-page appendix to the original From Hell called Dance of the Gull-Catchers, in which we ridiculed all the theories, including our own. It’s a grand piece of postmodernism, where you finish the book of “this is our theory, here’s why it’s right” by going “well no it isn’t, nobody’s right, it’s all baloney.” That was great fun doing that, we had a riot doing that in an almost comedic style. Alan wants to do another one where he brings it up to date. I’m not promising that, because we’ll probably have to beat him up to get it out. We’ll have to tie him to the computer and make him type it out. But we’ll see, it’s a possibility.

The complete interview is available HERE.

Read also Colourized From Hell.

Cthulu rules

Art by Kevin O'Neill.

Above, an Alan Moore "Cthulu" sketch portrait by Kevin O'Neill. From Central Comics Paris' Instagram page.

Gene Ha on Alan Moore

Excerpt from an interview I did, via email, in November 2004. 

Translated and printed in Italy on Vertigo Presenta n. 45 magazine (Magic Press).

Alan Moore, Gene Ha and Zander Cannon collaborated on books such as Top 10 and Top 10: The Forty-Niners.

How is not only working with but co-creating with a comics living legend such as writer Alan Moore?

Gene Ha: Intimidating. He's a bit like Gandalf, but he talks like a British plumber instead of a British professor. He's perfectly at ease with himself, and he makes you feel comfortable too.

He's full of wonderful stories, and he loves to hear a good stories. You really can't help but notice how good he is at understanding how to tell stories. He's always aware how any plotline will affect the story for 10 or 20 issues ahead. And something new always pops up on every page.

I'll feed him ideas, and I'm always surprised by which ones he'll use and how he'll change them. I had an idea for Superman as an alcoholic, with super-vomit. Alan took that idea, but applied it to a Japanese movie monster instead. That's how we ended up with Gograh [see picture above].

I'd love to meet him someday, but so far I've only exchanged letters and talked to him on the phone.