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| Detail from the portrait by Nicola Testoni |
I'm a kind of writer, performer, magician... and a kind of urban legend who has lived in Northampton all of his life and has clearly not seen very much of the world but has written a lot about it.
- Alan Moore, interviewed by Michaela Blackburn in front of his house in Northampton, 2020
WE ARE ALWAYS HERE
Here I am again. After twenty years.
Maybe, if you are reading this, I’d better say… here WE are again. After twenty years.
Time flies, doesn’t it?
Or we’d better say, THIS time has always been HERE, if we accept the idea of Eternalism and the block universe, two concepts that Alan Moore has embraced and shared.
So, we are always here celebrating Moore’s 70th birthday. As we are always here celebrating his 50th birthday. It’s just a matter of being at the right point in time. Sort of.
Well, these concepts are mind-blowing, aren’t they?
Trying to simplify, we are here to celebrate Alan Moore with words and pictures conjured by a variety of talented contributors. As it happened for the Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman book in 2003, it all started with a simple thought: ‘It’s 2023… let’s do something for Uncle Al’s 70!’… and it ended as you know. And you know it because, right now, you are holding this book in your hands. I just tried to maintain a little control over it, avoiding exponential growth as it happened for the Portrait. (Gary, do you remember?)
Also note that at the time I am writing this, I am not completely aware of the final form of this book.
Time is a bit of a mess, at least from a human perception point of view.
However, I am sure this book is full of love and appreciation for our beloved and admired Magus from Northampton and for his creations. Obviously, it is not meant to be a comprehensive portrait. Could it ever be? It just offers an investigation of some aspects of Moore through short (maybe not always so short) essays and memories written for this occasion by his collaborators, friends, and scholars.
For the visual part, we have, well… a series of awesome, bearded portraits drawn by different artists from all over the world. These are mostly from my personal collection which has grown steadily over the years. (Yes, I know that it sounds like some sort of ‘perversion’, but the incredible amount of Moore’s portraits available on the web can demonstrate I am not alone in this, and that The Man is a real, contemporary icon. Yes, He is!)
Furthermore, we have some portraits drawn specifically for this celebration.
So… a big ‘GRAZIE’ to all the contributors – both writers and artists – who generously answered this call.
We are all here to celebrate Alan – Alan, can I call you by name? Can I? After all, I collected all those portraits of yours… – wish him ‘Happy birthday!’ and say ‘Thank you for all your stories, especially those yet to come’. We all hope you, Alan, would enjoy this little gift. We put a lot of genuine passion into it and had a lot of fun doing it, I must admit.
I also need to mention that, in these complex times we are all living in, the net profits generated by this book will be donated to Doctors Without Borders, a necessary and praiseworthy NGO.
Last but not least: very special thanks to my extraordinary friends and comics lovers Omar Martini, Gary Spencer Millidge and Angelo Secci, always ready to support me, and whose contribution and expertise were fundamental to have this project materialized from the Idea-Space into the real, tangible world.
Grazie, bros!
So… It’s party time, now.
AUGURI, Alan! A chent’annos!
smoky man,
Sardinia, August 2023
If you prefer to read the intro in Italian, I translated it for the friends at Fumettologica.
You can find it here.
