Alan Moore by Claudia Corso Marcucci

Art by Claudia Corso Marcucci

Above, a cool "saint" Alan Moore by Italian illustrator Claudia Corso Marcucci.

The image is available as t-shirt and sticker. 

For more info about the artist: RedBubble shop - Instagram - Link tree

Illuminations: Moore in conversation with Stewart Lee

Guardian Live Event

Monday 3 October 2022, 8pm–9pm BST

Legendary comic book writer Alan Moore will talk to comedian Stewart Lee about his first ever short story collection, Illuminations.

Ticket will give access to the livestream event and the on-demand recording.

Details HERE.

Alan Moore by Carlos Amadeu

Art by Carlos Amadeu

Above, a dark Moore portrait by Brazilian comics and illustration artist Carlos Amadeu.

More info about the artist HERE.

Gentleman Moore by Rachele Aragno

Beautiful A. Moore by Rachele Aragno

Above, a gorgeous portrait of our beloved Writer from Northampton by uber-talented Italian graphic novelist and illustrator Rachele Aragno.

Aragno is the creator of the best-selling Melvina series published in Italy by Bao; this October, Dark Horse will publish her Leonide The Vampyr one-shot, written by the legendary Mike Mignola. And I can't wait to read it!

So... Grazie Rachele for your... amazing bearded portrait!

For more info about the artist: Facebook - Instagram - Twitter

Preliminary digital sketch. By Rachele Aragno.

Preliminary pencils. By Rachele Aragno.

Alan Moore by Gustav Örn Samuelson

Art by Gustav Örn Samuelson

Above, Alan Moore going grocery shopping, an illustration by Swedish artist Gustav Örn Samuelson.

For more info about the artist: Twitter - Prints gallery

AI vs Moore

DALL·E: Alan-Moore anchoring Fox News with lion-headed serpent drawing.
Well, not the best Moore portrait I've seen, I confess...

On Rubik's Code they tried to recreate The Killing Joke book - well... just the first page - by using the script written by Alan Moore as prompt for Dall·E 2, an AI system that can produce images from a description in natural language.

Skipping the process steps, the final result of this experiment is... pretty rude (see below). So, Brian Bolland you have nothing to worry about these rising AIs!!!

For the details, READ HERE.

The Killing Joke page 1 produced by DALL·E. It's just a joke!

The Killing Joke, page 1. Gorgeous art by human Maestro Brian Bolland

Rubik's Code writes: "There are two major thoughts I have here. The first one is – there will definitely be a niche of AI-generated comic books, both scripts and illustrations. My feeling is that their style will be similar, at least in the beginning. Transferring a specific style from one panel to another is going to be tricky, but that might be solved sooner than later. [...] For now, I can see this as a tool that might assist authors to visualize their scripts better, and for illustrators to shorten their work by generating some details for each panel.

The second one is [...] I can see a future where comic book author uses tools to generate script based on a few keywords (take any GPT-3, T5 or whatnot) and then use another tool to generate illustrations, like Dall-E for example. Looking even more into the future, the author itself might be made obsolete and an infinite amount of content might be created in this automatic loop."

The complete article is available HERE.

The street where He grew up

Excerpt from an article published on Northampton Chronicle & Echo: Alan Moore shares memories of the house he grew up in... 17 St Andrew’s Road, Northampton.

The complete text is available here.

Alan Moore: "[...] There we were, unknowingly: my family; Fred and Ada Goodman with their irritating dog; a convicted fraudster from four doors down and all the rest – in dirty heaven without even being dead."

Alan Moore by Rafa Mata

Art by Rafa Mata

Above, an intriguing portrait of Alan Moore by Spanish multimedia illustrator Rafa Mata.

Furthermore, it's always great to find "my" Sardinian mask in a picture (well, I gave it to Alan in 2002... omg, it's 20 years ago!)! Read about it HERE and here.

For more info about the artist: Official site - Twitter

Nemo and Hyde by Otto Gabos

Art by Otto Gabos

Above, a gorgeous illustration featuring Mr. Hyde & Nemo by Italian well-known graphic novelist and illustrator OTTO GABOS.

In 2003 Gabos created an apocryphal 1page story of The Leaguers published in Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman book. You can read it HERE.

Also, more Gabos and Moore here.

Grazie, Otto! 

UKAC 1987: The Mobbing of Alan Moore

Art by Iskander (IzzY World) Islam

Excerpt from The Mobbing of Alan Moore, an article by Iskander (IzzY World) Islam remembering the events of The UK Comic Art Convention (UKAC) in 1987; published in 2018 in Fanscene n.2. You can read the complete article downloading the fanzine HERE, page 33-34. 

Iskander (IzzY World) Islam is part of the Avengers UK fan project and writer/artist of Defenders UK series. More info here.

You can also enjoy the whole Fanscene archive HERE. Also check the amazing project by editor David Hathaway-Price HERE: a digital repository for UK Comics Fanzines!

Iskander (IzzY World) Islam: [...] The man running up the stairs was Alan Moore.

Now, as I said, at that time you didn't really know many faces of creators unless they were superstars, Legends or you followed their work - but at this time Alan Moore was at the height of his fame. V for Vendetfa, Swamp Thing and the recently released Watchmen had made Moore a [reluctant] Super Star. He was also very distinctive, all in black with huge hair and a beard. He looked like a cross between Roy Wood and John Lennon.

So there I was walking down the stairs and sort of didn't want to disturb him and was pretending to be 'cool' and not act like a fanboy even though inside l was screaming "THAT’S ALAN MOORE!"

I suddenly realised all was not well, he was being pursued up the stairs. All of a sudden on the area where the stairs double backed we crossed paths and he was mobbed by a whole bunch of guys - they literally cornered him on the stairwell... it was like something out of the Beatles era!

They were all talking at once and he backed up in the corner against the railings. He looked terrified then starting to lose his temper and looked quite taken aback. It was at this point I made a mistake - I turned to go back and as I had a ‘guest’ badge thought I might say something to them but I hesitated. I wish I had said something to the crowd but they probably would've said 'who the f‘**** are you?' or "Who is this kid?" and probably would have got shirty with me. As I was inexperienced at being at comic cons and was just not sure if this was normal, basically, I bottled it.

To this day I regret it. 

I did stay to see that he managed to talk them around to back off and give him space. But the damage was done.

Moore has mentioned this period in interviews and in particular the fact that he was once also cornered by fans in the toilets (Dave Gibbons was with him too as I understand). I didn't realise how much it still haunts him!

I believe that he avoids comic cons now after that year's experiences at UKAC. To be honest I don't blame him!!!

Alan Moore by MxDagger

Art by MxDagger

Above, Alan Moore portrait by Latvian artist MxDagger, with a quote from V for Vendetta.

More info about the artist HERE. 

Julius Schwartz, HPL and Alan Moore

Julius "Julie" Schwartz 

Below, excerpt from The story behind the stories, an interview by William Christensen, edited by Antony Johnston, investigating Moore's lost project Yuggoth Cultures which was inspired by Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth. Originally published in Alan Moore's Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths n. 3 (Avatar Press, 2003) and reprinted in the collected volume (Avatar, 2007).

Alan Moore: [...] The first poem in Lovecraft‘s cycle is called The Book, and as an example of the way I was thinking at the time, my first piece for Yuggoth Cultures was also called The Book. But in my case it was a couple of pages long, and was an account of me, on one of the first occasions where I’d met Julius Schwartz. Julie had been showing me this huge book of autographs and memorabilia that he keeps in his office to dazzle impressionable young Limeys with. I was looking through this book, which was full of pictures of Julie as a younger man in a long dark coat, with a dark homburg hat, standing on a wintery New York street corner and talking with some fresh-faced newsboy that actually turned out to be Ray Bradbury, and all of these other giants of science fiction and fantasy...

So Julie was showing me this, and l got to this small piece of paper that was fixed into the book where it just said, in this very spidery pen and ink handwriting, “I remain, Sir, your obedient servant— Howard Phillips Lovecraft."

l was stunned, and asked, “So this is from Lovecraft‘? You knew Lovecraft'?” And he said, “Yeah, sure, I agented a story for him.” I foolishly asked, “What was he like?” To which Julie replied, "Well, it’s funny you should say that, because I remember at the time thinking, “I'd better remember what this guy’s like 'cos in fifty years Alan Moore's going to ask me about it..."

So I basically expanded that anecdote as my version of The Book. And there were subsequent chapters of Yuggoth Cultures, also based on Lovecraft's titles, or the feeling of the individual pieces. But most of these were subsequently lost in a taxi cab in London—the only copies. [...]

More info about Lovecraft and Schwartz HERE. 

Lovebirds by Elsa Charretier

Art by Elsa Charretier

Above, a gorgeous illustration by French based comic book artist & writer Elsa Charretier, featuring Swamp Thing and Abby Arcane. I really like her drawing style!

 

For more info about the artist, visit her page HERE.

On counterculture

On the Bureau of Lost Culture you can listen to an amazing conversation with Alan Moore about... Counterculture!

*ALAN MOORE beamed into the Bureau for an afternoon conversation about counterculture - in his own life and work and in the past, the present and in the future.

 

*We also dig deep into the 60s, the 70s, Thatcherism, Britpop, the power of The Arts Lab, why he doesn’t watch the adaptions of his work, the power of limitations to foster creativity and much much more.

You can also download the audio file: HERE. 

Alan Moore by Steven Austin

Art by Steven Austin

Above an interesting Alan Moore portrait (with guest appearance by Swamp Thing) by Cambridge-based illustrator and 2000AD artist Steven Austin.

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

Mitch Jenkins knows the score too!

Photograph by Mitch Jenkins

Few days ago extraordinary photographer and filmmaker Mich Jenkins' posted the above photograph with the text note below, on his Instagram profile, HERE. 

I love that pic! Fantastica!

I was working at my local newspaper as a junior photographer when a call came in from Q Magazine, for their first edition they needed a shoot doing with Alan Moore and they offered me a £125 to go and shoot him. Thirty some years later we are are still the best of friends. He truly was a legend way before Watchmen and one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever had the privilege to know. - Mitch Jenkins

Alan Moore by Matt Soffe

Art by Matt Soffe

Above, an intense Alan Moore by Matt Soffe, freelance illustrator, comic artist and colourist based in the North-West of England. 

For more info about the artist: Official site - Prints Gallery