Warrior n.6: Alan Moore replies

Alan Moore replies to a fan from the letter column of Warrior n. 6, October 1982.

The Warrior Team,
I have just bought and read Warrior 1 and must congratulate you on an excellent British comic - one which can hold its head high among the best of the U.S. competition. The variety of the stories and the quality of the artwork were exceptional and the whole thing was a long and satisfying 'read'. I hope that Warrior will continue and find the appreciation it deserves.
I do however have one serious complaint, one which attaches itself to the script-writing of Alan Moore. I am a Christian, as well as a comic fan, and I find his constant use of the name of Jesus as a swearword very upsetting. Apart from this his writing is superb. I would simply plead with Alan to bear my feelings in mind (I am sure many other people would find the stories more enjoyable without the constant blasphemy) and reduce or eliminate these references.

I trust that Warrior will develop into a great comic not only in plot and illustration but also in a sense of moral respect.
--- M.L. Evans, 9 Church Street, Rhondda, Mid. Glam.

Alan Moore replies: The Comics Code Authority. Right. I remember that while I was growing up I found it curious that the characters who populated my four-colour reading material, upon being hit by an Ultra-Beam, Theta-Blast, or just-plain-old-fashioned hail of machine gun bullets, would respond with nothing more spirited than an exclamation along the lines of 'Great Scot!' or, a personal favourite, 'Sockamagee!'
Comparing these to the less restrained exclamations that I heard from my tousle-haired playmates made a couple of facts very plain. Firstly, whatever an Ultra Beam was, it didn't hurt much. Secondly, that these splendid characters in the tights and capes were not in the least bit like the real people of my acquaintance, and thirdly, that nothing they said or did mattered very much in the long run as a result of that. They weren't meant to be real people. They were cut outs.
Now that I have, arguably, grown up and find myself in the enviable position of being paid for something that I would probably do as a hobby anyway, I'm in a position to change that situation a little bit. As a script-writer, I want readers to care about my characters, and to care about what happens to them. I believe that the only way to do this is to make them as real as my meagre talent allows ... real in the way they think, real in the way they act, and real in the way they talk. If they are hurt then they feel pain, they bleed, they need time to recuperate. They don't grit their teeth and say 'It's okay, Sarge, that armour-piercing devastator bullet only grazed my scalp.' If they are in love, they might, on occasion, feel the need to express that love physically. Real women and men don't express their affection for each other by trying to uncover the secret identity of their paramour. If they get hit by an Ultra-Beam, or even get one dropped on their foot, they are liable to sum up the situation in language a little more forceful than 'Holy Broken Bones'.
The Warrior audience, as I see it, is made up of adults of all ages. From the moment a child starts school he, or she, is likely to become rapidly conversant with language far stronger than anything likely to appear in the pages of Warrior. To imply, by means of strict censorship, that there are words or concepts that are just too grown up for the feeble little minds of children is both patronising and insulting. I won't be a party to that, and I imagine my creative colleagues on Warrior feel the same way.

The question of whether the usage of words such as 'Jesus' or 'Christ' is permissible is a slightly more complicated one and deserves a serious answer. I think my position is this: That while I respect the right of anyone to follow their own particular faith, it is not realistic to portray a world in my writing which is only populated by Christians and Christians alone. Surely, a knowledge of the way people speak needn't be seen as an instruction to speak that way yourself? Surely, it doesn't affect your faith one way or the other to know that there are people who do not share it, people to whom words like 'Jesus' and 'Christ' are merely to be used as exclamations with little thought for the ideology behind them? I would have thought that in all Christian literature, the Bible included, there are examples of anti-Christian behaviour of a far more serious nature than that of taking the name of the Lord in vain. I notice also that you voice no objection to the wholesale killing of several human beings throughout the various stories in Warrior 1. Surely this too is anti-Christian behaviour, and, as a Christian, upsetting to you?
Like I said, I respect your sentiments entirely and was very pleased by the polite and civilized way in which you raised your objections. Unfortunately, I don't see what I can do to make you any happier about the situation and remain true to my intentions as an artist to portray reality in the way that I see it. Perhaps other readers may have some thoughts on this issue which might be helpful?