Lost CD-ROM project

Excerpt from an interview by Jay Babcock published in Sci-Fi Universe, 1996:

[...] Moore is also looking ahead to reuniting with Dave Gibbons, his partner on the landmark Watchmen project, for a proposed CD-ROM project based on all-new material.

"The CD-ROMs out there now are impressive in their own sort of way," says Moore. "Myst [for example] is good, but the imagery has a kind of airbrushed blandness to it. The Residents' CD-ROM is brilliant--they strike me as artists who are heading in the right direction.

"But what impresses me more is the stuff that's not being done. There's not been any real attempt to make use of the hallucinatory possibilities of computer art. You think: 'What would Magritte have done, or Escher have done--what would an artist have done rather than designers or illustrators? What would people with some real soul and passion have done?'

"To me, the CD-ROM, or 'virtual reality,' is just a gross physical representation of something we've had all along. A book is virtual reality, music is virtual reality. It's just that with electronic virtual reality you're more immediately wrapped up in it--you don't have to use your imagination so much.

"It strikes me that the only thing you can't do to someone who is in your virtual reality is to touch them. So therefore, most people have the illusion that they are completely safe in a virtual reality-- without stopping to think that most of the things that affect us most in life are not physical events. Most of them are events that occur within our heads, because of our experiences. Therefore, I think that with the right way of thinking about these things you could make a CD-ROM experience that could be quite genuinely moving, genuinely powerful, genuinely affecting.

"We want to do something as far above most CD-ROM experiences as Watchmen was above most superhero comics. Whether we'll achieve that, I don't know, but that's what we're aiming for."

And then, in a mock-spooky voice, Moore confides, "And I wouldn't be surprised if what we do is very spooky." 

The complete article can be read HERE.

Alan Moore and Glycon by Serhiy Krykun

Art by Serhiy Krykun

Above, Moore and Glycon drawn by Ukrainian artist Serhiy Krykun. 

The image is available as t-shirt, here.

 

More info about the artist HERE.

On Joe Hill and creating stories

Excerpt from "Mondo Moore: Questions from Hill, Diaz and more", a six-part interview by Zack Smith posted on Newsarama.com in May 2009.

Newsarama: Our next “bonus round” question comes from Joe Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box and the comic series Locke & Key.
Alan Moore: Another very, very good author. I read Heart-Shaped Box and thought it was a splendid book. I was very impressed with it.

NRAMA: Joe writes, “In a recent interview on the subject of episodic television, you said writers working on a continuing series ought to have an ending in mind, that they should know what they're building towards.
“With LoEG - or with any of your stories - do you work backward from a known ending then, or do the characters lead you naturally towards a conclusion you didn't expect? To put the question another way: you've sometimes discussed fiction as a form of magic. With that in mind, do you always get the demon you planned to summon, or are there sometimes surprise visitors?”
AM: Well, I think all of that is true. It’s like, yes, I do generally at least have a vague plan before I commence a narrative. Back in the day, when I was starting out, I used to have everything planned out and nailed down. With Swamp Thing, before I started writing every issue, I had an idea of what was going to go on every page and how it would all tie up.

As I did it issue-by-issue, I had an idea of where the overall narrative would be going. I can’t claim to have had the entire Swamp Thing story worked out from issue #1, but I had an interesting idea about redefining the character that I thought could take in into some interesting territory, so I left that fairly loose.

The other books up through Watchmen, From Hell and Lost Girls…I had everything in place, but that still leaves an awful lot that is open to change. Just because you’ve got a rough idea of where the plot’s going, that doesn’t tell you how you’re going to express those ideas, or what you’re going to make of them.

And so, with Lost Girls, I knew from my first conversations with Melinda that it was going to take place in a series of 38-page episodes, and that the plot outline would be building up to these three climaxes at the end of the three books that would end up with the First World War.

But in writing the book, so much rich material starts to emerge, so that as long as you’ve left yourself room to tie it back in, it will probably fit with your original conception of the book. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything where I came up with an ending that I completely hadn’t expected, but there have been plenty of times where I was pleasantly surprised by something that had been there potentially in my approach to the story all along.

There were very, very nice bits in the bit I’m working on now, Jerusalem. There were elements I threw together into the original mix. But the original mix was basically 35 story titles! I’ve got a vague idea of what’s in each chapter, and a vague idea of the order the chapters would be appearing in, and therefore roughly what this vast novel would be about. But it’s only with this current chapter, 25, that I’ve comprehended the entire shape of this enormous thing, I’ve realized the scope of what I’m doing.
That, in itself, has changed the shape of these final 10 chapters. I didn’t know when I started out that I’d be writing a chapter in an approximation of James Joyce’s language, because it’s a story about his daughter. It wasn’t until I was halfway through this chapter that I realized the next chapter would be about the development of economic policy, since Isaac Newton was put in charge of the mint.

I think that the important thing is, in my experience as a writer, I’ve come to recognize a workable skeleton, just by sight. I can see that yeah, this story, it’s got four legs, it can stand up, it can move, it’s articulated in the right way. What the flesh will be like, and the eventual meaning of that flesh will be, that’s a surprise that I probably won’t know until the end. I won’t know what Jerusalem is exactly until I’ve finished the last page and the last revisions.

But it’s a mixture of those things. I do like to have enough of the story worked out so I can trust my abilities as a writer to finish the story in a way that is satisfying to me and the reader. But I do like to leave room open for serendipity, because it happens a lot, and it can be so wonderful. Leave yourself the space for that, but do it within a predetermined structure. It’s the best of both worlds, really. Leave room for nice surprised, but try to get rid of any nasty surprises before you commence the narrative.

Storyteller Moore by Alex Maclean

Art by Alex Maclean

Above an inspired portrait of Moore by acclaimed British director and designer Alex Maclean.

“Everybody talks about storytelling these days. Brands have stories and people need to know them, but to what end? Too often the audience is expected to be passive recipients of your latest viral. I’m interested in the lightbulb moment, when something in that narrative clicks. When the audience is inspired or empowered with knowledge or motivation to do something worthwhile. Stories can change behaviour as well as entertain. Alan Moore has been a favourite of mine since I was a teenager, captivated by his visual storytelling.” - Alex Maclean

Read the complete article HERE.

 

For more info about Maclean: website - vimeo page

Watchmen, 10 years later

From Wizard n. 62, October 1996.

Article Watchmen, 10 years later by Craig Shutt.

Watching the Watchmen box.

Here's a sampling of what other creators say about Watchmen 10 years later.

Neil Gaiman: "I was astonished by its sheer technical bravura as well as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' willingness not to make a big deal out of how impressive it was. If Watchmen has a problem, it's that they didn't realize how big it was going to be. Their rigid and brilliant structure didn't give them enough room to change, and the story outgrew its structure. They started off telling the ultimate superhero story, but it got bigger than that. As a result, it's ultimately less satisfying than it could have been."

Alex Ross: "It showed that something really epic and pure could be created in a multi-character, multi-part storyline. But its importance is not so much in its scale but in its execution and the intelligence with how it was created. It inspired a lot of my thinking today on superheroes. In fact, I went to some Halloween parties dressed as Rorschach."

Mark Waid: "Watchmen was a masterpiece of plot structure. Everything meant something, and everything advanced the story. It's lean and cuts right to the bone, which should be the ultimate goal of any story."

Kurt Busiek: "It raised the level of discourse because it was so well-made. It was thought through on a level that comics hadn't reached before. And we can't hold Alan and Dave responsible for their cheesy imitators. They did something new, interesting and clever, and writers who were inspired by that should have done something else that was new, interesting and clever."

Ron Marz: "Combined with Dark Knight, it reignited my interest in comics, because it showed the possibilities inherent the medium. There are a lot of children of Watchmen out there."

Chuck Dixon: "It was part of an era in which comics were raised to a new level of maturity, and I don't mean just nudity and graphic violence. There was a lot of subtext and deft characterization. We need another Watchmen, something to cut through the clutter." CS

Moore and his creations by Pedro Nascimento

Art by Pedro Nascimento

Above, an interesting work by Portuguese artist Pedro Nascimento featuring Moore surrounded by characters he put his magic mark on.

More info about the artist: HERE.

Qabalah, Mercury, humor and... the bogey-man

Mercury on a bronze coin

Excerpt from an interview published in Wizard magazine n.95 in 1999.

 

[...] So, what do you practice?

Alan Moore: Qabalah is one. It's part of the Western occult tradition. It includes all of the religious systems: Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Christian, it's all there. It's seen as a map of the universe on one level, but it's also seen as a map of you, the individual. I might do a ritual that involves the god Mercury. You can have a dialogue with that energy, that cluster of ideas we label with the name Mercury.

You've had a conversation with the god Mercury.

Maybe. During the experience, you believe you are actually talking to a god. Who's to say if you are, or if you're not? I've tried to keep an open mind about it. I tell myself, "On one level, this is a hallucination. This is an element of my own personality, some subconscious element of myself." On the other hand, I also have to allow that this might be something completely beyond my personality, a higher entity. I mean, if it barks like a go and smells like a god, it's probably a god. [Laughs]

 

[Laughs] At least you have a sense of humor about it.

You have to. Most of this is a lot less dramatic than you'd suppose. It's reading a bunch f books, and every three months or so, doing a working. We'll do a proper ritual working, something peculiar will happen, and then we'll get our strength back in a few months and do it again.

That dispels the image some readers have of you--- that you're some kind of unapproachable "goth genius." I bet they get it from that black-and-white photo of you. You look dangerous.

[Chuckles] Ah, the photo. That's all [photographer] Mitch Jenkins. He always goes for the dark, scary look. I don't know. To me, my life is completely normal. I have no desire to have a dark allure. I have my hair like this because, frankly, I think it looks gorgeous. [Laughs] Those rolling, natural highlights, you know.

But I'm sure that looks dangerous to some people. And from experience, I know if they met me in some foggy circumstance, they'd find me a bit alarming.

You have a great "Alan Moore looks like the bogey-man" story, don't you?

[Laughs] I remember walking through a park here in Northampton --- a park notorious for its muggins and the like --- during a foggy night. I heard some guys coming, probably from the pub or something, and I knew our paths would intersect. They were loud and boisterous. We finally crossed paths in this fog, and they stopped dead in their tracks. I kept walking. Finally one of them gave this nervous laugh.

Did he say anything?

Yeah. He said, [in a fearful voice] "I didn't know what it was."

A for Alan by Juan Navarro

Art by Juan Navarro

Above, a strong Moore portrait by American artist JUAN NAVARRO.

 

More info about him HERE.

The Great Complexity of Moore by Carlos Dearmas

Art by Carlos Dearmas

Above a stunningly phenomenal portrait of our beloved Bearded One by Argentinian artist CARLOS DEARMAS. It contains references to Swamp Thing, Watchmen, Marvelman and... Glycon, of course.

Terrific work, Mr. Dearmas!

For more info about Dearmas, visit his blog and this page.

Alan Moore dreams by Brad Tuttle

Art by Brad Tuttle

Above, a great portrait of dreaming Moore by British tattooist and illustrator BRAD TUTTLE, published here as lonewolftattooshassocks.

You can recognize several Moore's characters and references: Marvelman, Tom Strong, Rorschach, Ernest Errol Quinch, Glycon and... more.

Find them all!

 

For more info about the artist, visit his Instagram page, here.

Big Numbers, reality and fiction

Excerpt from an interview about Big Numbers published in 1990 on Deadline n.17.

Alan Moore: "[...] On one level Big Numbers is trying to make comics' fans realise that they don't have to be bitten by a radioactive spider or born with a mutant X gene to be interesting, that everybody around them is much more interesting than any superhuman.
Superheroes are very flat characters who demand simple motivations, driven psychotic vigilantes can only have two dimensions, they are not as interesting as the person you'd meet at the bus stop. I've always been against the idea of escapism even when I was doing things like Swamp Thing. 

Now I'm asking - why have the superhero in the first place? Why not just talk directly? And that's where I am now. I've gone completely off fantasy and science fiction. I've got to the stage where the real world seems so fabulous and fascinating and intricate and marvellous, that it almost seems an insult to reality to invent anything."

Alan Moore by Jordi Ferrer

Art by Jordi Ferrer

Above, a fine sketch portrait of our beloved Magus by Spanish illustrator Jordi Ferrer.

 

More info about the artist HERE and HERE.

Almighty Moore by Luca Rossi

Art by Luca Rossi

Above, an intense, powerful portrait of Moore by Italian amazing artist LUCA ROSSI, who is also known to the American comics readers for his run on Vertigo's House of Mistery series, some years ago.

Grazie mille, Luca, my friend, for such a stunning illustration!!!

 

See also Rossi's homage to Watchmen, HERE.