Excerpts from an interview featured in
Off Centre n.1, October 1989, a British fanzine edited by Gary Pearce.
AN INTERVIEW WITH
THE EXCELLENT WRITER ALAN MOORE
WITH QUESTIONS BY STEPHEN POULACHERIS
[...] Are you still as disillusioned with the "super-hero" as you have previously stated, and does this mean, if so, that we should expect from you in the future less stories of an overtly "heroic" or "adventurous" nature. Aren't elements of adventure, such as moments of extremity and a sense of the exotic, major forces in all narrative art-forms, and isn't the larger-than-life "heroic" figure ideal as a means by which to convey these-dating back, as it does, to the Greek gods, and so on?
[...] No, there won't be any super-heroes or adventure-hero stories in the foreseeable future, I'm not just tired of heroes... I'm feeling limited by the whole adventure format.
Real life just isn't structured like an adventure story..or like a comedy, a pornography, a horror story or any other genre for that matter. Genres are reductionist things that force the creator and reader to trim down their perception of the world until it fits the traditional confines of one specific genre. In horror stories,everything has to be creepy. In comedies, everything must be funny. I don't know about you, but my life is exciting, boring, creepy, funny, sad, sexy, prosaic and mysterious, and if I want to talk about my life or your life then I want to talk about all those things.
That's not to say that I don t enjoy doing the Bojeffries, which is mostly funny, or that I might not decide to work in any of the above genres in future. I might, if I feel the urge. What I'm saying is that at the moment, I feel a need to do work that gets to grips with the wider world that exists beyond the ghettoes of genre.
Hopefully, this is reflected by what I'm doing in "From Hell","Big Numbers" and "A Small Killing" ,as well as the work I did in "AARGH" and "Brought To Light".
To answer your question, yes, the adventure tradition may stretch back unbroken to Gilgamesh and beyond, tut that doesn't mean it's the only tradition worth considering, or even the best. It can express part of human experience, but by virtue of being a genre it cannot express it all, which is what I'm aiming for.
Who's the greatest: Herb Trimpe or Don Heck? (Don't answer if you can't decide!)
Without wishing to adopt a lecturing tone, you really shouldn't take the piss out of people just for the sake of a very old comic fan gag that should have been put out to grass long ago.
One of the important dividing lines between fans and pros is a certain openness and humility that comes from realizing just how much fucking hard work goes into a Don Heck or a Herb Trimpe page or just how many pages those gentlemen have turned out in the course of their not inconsiderable careers.
For the record, both ere extremely competent visual storytellers and precise draftsmen. Herb Trimpe, after Alex Toth and George Evans, is one of one of the best aviation story artists ever to grace the comic book medium. Don Heck, during the 1950s and early sixties was one of the most accomplished stylists working within the mainstream field. For my part, I'd trade a dozen of the John Byrne copyists that have erupted over the past five years for either one of the above-mentioned pair.
If I'm honest, in terms of the originality of the work stylistically speaking, I'd probably also trade Mr. Byrne himself. Hey, c'mon you guys. Let's have some respect where respect's due, eh?
[...] Do you still welcome the new acceptance of comics,or do you secretly wish that your favourite ones could be hoarded away from the sullying hands of the masses?
I want comics to be for everybody, not just for en elite, so no, that aspect doesn't bother me.The only thing that does bother me about the sudden mass acceptance of comics is the way in which all the signs point to us becoming a more literary version of the pop music industry, with all the shit, image and
hype that entails. Although I must take some of the blame for instigating this situation, I personally want no more to do with that phoney,redundant pop star element of things. Hence I don't do interviews in the fan press as such. Hence I swear never to appear on "The Tube" or "Get Fresh again in my life. All I want to do is work on stuff that feels good. I don't want to be a celebrity. For one thing, celebrities spend far too much time answering interviews when they should be showering and cleaning their teeth and wondering which of their many beautiful and exotic pairs of shoes and socks they should wear this evening.
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