On celebrity and teen idols

Excerpt from Out on the perimeter, a conversation with Eddie Campbell. 

Published in Escape n.5 in 1984.

Eddie Campbell: How do you feel about being considered a celebrity?

Alan Moore: I know it's a bit wingey and whiny but sometimes I wish I didn't get quite the scrutiny that I do. When I started out writing, nobody expected me to be any good, so any good stories I did were seen as being really miraculous. But now if I do a story that's average or dull, then I'm sure most people see it as the beginning of the end. In that respect the relationship between the reader and the artist gets a bit twisted. It's no longer straight communication. It's probably something you've got to put up with.

E: But would you have been happier to remain in anonymity as Curt Vile?

A: Probably not and that just exposes my basic dishonesty! I may bitch about all this, but there is something wrong with the medium at the moment. If there were more good strip creators around, there wouldn't be so much unhealthy importance attached to personalities like Frank Miller or on one level me and on another you. There wouldn't be that Messianic glee and fervour and people would be able to look at the work more honestly and judge it independently of the hype surrounding it.

E: I think that's unavoidable, that's human nature.

A: But it's not the same in literature.

E: But it's not so exciting is it?

A: No. It's the youth of the audience that makes what we're doing closer to pop music. Popular culture.

E: Then you have to accept that this is the way it's got to go.

A: Yes, we can be teen idols!

More about Escape, HERE.