Alan Moore 72 by Massimo Giacon

Art by Massimo Giacon

In this special day, last but not least... an exclusive new portrait of our beloved birthday boy by the terrific MASSIMO GIACON, acclaimed Italian comic book artist, musician, painter and designer.

For more information about the artist, visit his website & his Instagram page.

 

AUGURONI, Alan! HAPPY B-DAY!

Grazie mille, Maximus!

Alan Moore 72 by Onofrio Catacchio

It's that time of the year again! So... AUGURONI! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Alan! 

 

Above, another brand new portrait gift... by ONOFRIO CATACCHIO, Italian acclaimed comic book artist and illustrator, who has generously contributed (again) to this little celebration!

 

Big Italian hugs, Bearded One! And... grazie ancora, Onofrio!  

 

For more info about Onofrio Catacchio, visit his website HERE and his Instagram page HERE.

Alan Moore 72 by Guido Masala

Art by Guido Masala

Remember, remember the 18th of November! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Alan! AUGURONI!

 

Above, a fantastic portrait drawn for the occasion by the great GUIDO MASALA, a well-known Italian comic book artist and illustrator currently at work on Bonelli Editore's icon Tex Willer. Grazie mille, Guido!

 

For more info about Masala: Instagram - Wikipedia 

Business of education and the perfect art form

Excerpts from The Face n.91, November 1987. A gorgeous George Michael was on the cover. 

We were in the midst of the Watchmen phenomenon, of course! 

[...] Back in Northampton the career of the Watchmen maker has followed a curious parallel lo Dr Manhattan’s - a junior lab technician who accidentally steps into an Intrinsic Field Generator, to be instantly transformed to a superman. Beginning his literary life - according to his biography - at the Co-op Hide and Skin division hacking up sheep carcasses, Alan Moore is now all too accustomed to badgering journalists (to whom he is very polite) and TV teams. They come, lured by his six foot, hair-filled features and his unique literary offering to the comic book audience - a moral interpretation of their world. However, fame has effected little change on his outlook. 
"In many ways I see myself in the business of education, there's a huge, hungry audience out there — particularly kids — looking for knowledge that the education system just isn’t providing. Children are maturing faster now because they have to, it's a survival trait in this day and age. I think that parents will soon stop looking misty and forlorn saying ‘Oh they grow up so fast these days’ and accept we're heading into the most rapidly transforming period in human history. Industrial society is now on the way out and something new is coming in. We must have the mental apparatus to deal with it." 

After some brief forays into the media apparatus, including Fashion Beast, a screenplay for Malcolm McLaren, Moore now seems fully redeemed to the comic strip as his genre. There is talk of more novels. 
"The comic seems to me the perfect art form for the Eighties. It's a very small package, and information tends to come in smaller and smaller packages these days. Comics combine the best of novels and films in that they have an engaging, involving visual track, but are capable of greater density than a film. A complex film may require several viewings to pick up all the details, but a comic is in the hands of the audience: you can enjoy it at your own speed." [...] 

D.R. & Quinch by Simon Davis

Art by Simon Davis

Above a sketch portrait of our favourite alien delinquents by the amazing painter and comic book artist Simon Davis realized during Lawless Comic Con in 2024.

 

For more about the artist: 2000AD page - Facebook

On Fashion Beast, deities for the 80s and celebrity

Below, selected excerpts from Fear magazine, issue n.3, November-December 1988.  

Alan Moore: [...] I did write a screenplay recently [Fashion Beast]. It was an enjoyable enough experience but I didn’t get anywhere near the same control in working in the movie industry that I do producing comics. Control is the most important thing, so I think the prospect of any films in the near future is a slight one. But that's not to say that I mightn’t mess around in various media.

[...] I don't know if it will ever be made. Hollywood, to some degree, is like a Bermuda triangle for screenplays — a lot of them go in and are never seen again. I don’t know what the odds are of any film being made. The Watchmen film might be made or might not. The same goes for Fashion Beast.
The idea, as presented to me by Malcolm MacLaren, was to do a reworking of the Beauty and the Beast fable but to tie it in with the life-story of the designer Christian Dior and to come up with something aimed at a very young teenage audience. Malcom said he wanted the film to have the depth, power and dark resonance of a film like Chinatown and the youth appeal of a film like Flashdance.
I don’t know whether the thing fell through or not. It's something I did for the artistic experience of writing a film, to see what it was like, and I was satisfied, I got out of it what I wanted and I was paid really handsomely.

[...] you mentioned how interested you are in mythology, but in Superman, Batman and the Swamp Thing you've taken individual mythologies and twisted them around; and with the Watchmen you did this to the whole superhero genre. Why?
Alan Moore: Because the old ones don't work anymore, because mythology, as a pure thing in itself, is powerful nd potent—but not as much as it was. We can imagine the power that those myths had when they were more current and contemporary.
Doctor Manhattan [from the Watchmen series] is an attempt to portray a quantum god in much the same way that Swamp Thing was an attempt at portraying an environmental god. They owe a lot of their aura, if you like, to the gods and legends that I read about as a child. 
At the same time they're expressed in a way which is wholly modern. Before the atom was split you could not have had a quantum god; quantum thinking is a modern phenomenon. In the last book of Miracleman I explored that very thoroughly, in that we have a super-heroine who is taking on the role of a modern Aphrodite. She runs a cable porn network. As devotional objects she distributes pornographic videos of herself and Miracleman. She has a computer network which is basically a global lonely hearts network which works at 100 percent efficiency and, basically, she’s trying to heal the sexual and emotional problems of the entire planet.
It's deities for the Eighties, and if you're working in the superhero genre, it’s important to remember that the actual root of the superhero stories is in mythology.

[...] I don’t think there's any need for me to be a big celebrity. I think the only real need for me is to be a better writer and I don’t see that the two things are connected in any way. So I'm much happier sitting behind a typewriter than sitting in front of a set of lights in some studio. I've got a blissful home life with a wonderful family, I've got my work which is a tremendous source of pleasure and I've got friends, so I don't really need to be on the Jonathan Ross show. 

Italian Sussidiario di Magia

Above and below, some pics I took of my Italian copy of the Bumper Book of Magic that I bought few days ago. The book has just been published by Panini Comics. 

It seems they did a good job on it. Viva la Magia!