May 31, 2024

Mad Love for The Mandlebrot Set

Below, selected excerpts from an article published in Speakeasy no. 86/87, June 1988, page 14. 
In that occasion Moore talked about his Mad Love Publishing and the upcoming The Mandlebrot Set project. We all know that later on the series changed his title in Big Numbers and in 1990 MPL published two of the planned twelve issues. Then MLP closed and the project remained unfinished
[...] The fist major work to be published by MLP after AARGH! is the cryptically titled The Mandlebrot Set, a twelve issue, 28 page black and white limited series to be released sometime toward the end of 1988, or early 1989. Concerning the building of an American style shopping centre in provincial British town, the series promises a major 'piece of fiction', the aim being to bring '... something of... and what an American shopping mall is all about. So it's also about skateboards, mathematics, shopping, history, sex, computers, all human life is here.'
Bill Sienkiewicz is handling the art chores and this is the first time the two have worked together on a project. [...]
Experimentation has become something of a watchword for both creators, and The Mandlebrot Set is bound to alienate some of the faithful. 'I'm aware that the majority of those Alan Moore fans out there are in fact Alan Moore superhero fans,' admits Moore, 'and I'll be pleasantly... interesting than a superhero.
'If I was to try to pin it down,
' continues Moore, 'it takes the spirit of what J. G. Ballard said, that 'Earth is the last alien planet'. It's reality treated as if it is science fiction, so there'll be stranger characters, concepts, events and the like without there being one jot of SF. It's a completely uncompromised comic, but that's not to say that it's not going to be entertaining. [...] with The Mandlebrot Set I'm trying to go as far as Watchmen moved on from Swamp Thing. I'm going to try different storytelling techniques to get away from what's become Alan Moore cliches. It's going to be more sophisticated, more human, more personal.' [...]

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