Watchmen 40th anniversary: German celebration

Reddition n. 83 celebrates Watchmen 40th anniversary with a collection of essays and an exclusive interview with Dave Gibbons. Published by Edition Alfons. German language.

 

More details here. 

 

https://www.reddition.de/reddition-magazin/reddition83 

2000AD & the comic career of Alan Moore

Excerpt from a profile posted at Comic Scene.

Read the complete piece HERE. 

[...] In the nerve centre of modern storytellers, few figures loom as large as Alan Moore. With his long beard, occult rings and voice that sounds as though it has been steeped in pipe smoke and centuries of folklore, Moore has cultivated an image somewhere between a Victorian mystic and a punk-era radical. But the mythology around him risks obscuring something simpler and more astonishing: Alan Moore is arguably the most influential writer comics have ever produced. That’s why ComicScene readers voted him the Best Comic Writer ever in the ComicScene Awards 2026, alongside Jack Kirby as your favourite artist of all time. [...]

Alan Moore’s legacy is both immense and deeply paradoxical. On one hand, he elevated comics into a form capable of literary complexity and cultural critique. Without Moore, the modern graphic novel might look very different. On the other hand, he remains one of the most vocal critics of the industry that celebrates him.

He has denounced the corporate exploitation of characters, distanced himself from adaptations of his work and eventually announced his retirement from mainstream comics altogether. [...]

Nearly forty years after Watchmen, the comics industry is still grappling with the implications of that insight. And somewhere in Northampton, the bearded magician who started the argument continues to loom over the medium he transformed as a reluctant comic legend.

Mina and Mr. Hyde by Bruce Timm

Art by Bruce Timm

Above, a stunning illustration by phenomenal Maestro BRUCE TIMM featuring Mina Harker and Mr. Hyde from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Enjoy!

Totems & Taboos

From ‪Stephen R Bissette‬, posted few days ago on his Bluesky account: 

Finished this book 6 years ago; still haven't published it. Too many misgivings, but a lot of time has passed, so maybe this year. Cover art by me (painted in 1984 for Kim Thompson, AMAZING HEROES interview w/Alan issue); cover design, logo Cayetano "Cat" Garza, Jr. 

I'd love to read it!

The Unquotable Trump

Above, page from The Unquotable Trump by American artist R. Sikoryak, published in 2017 by Draw & Quartely. 

The absurdity of his pre and post election speeches form the source material for The Unquotable Trump, a limited edition publication by satirical artist R. Sikoryak. Real quotes are blended into faultless reproductions of classic comic book covers, perfectly mirroring the original source material while framing Trump’s hubristic comments as the ramblings of a solipsistic supervillain. [from Broken Frontier]

Silent Pictures by Kevin O’Neill

From Gosh! site: 

“One of the finest and most original talents ever to emerge from the comic industry.” – Alan Moore, from his introduction.

Silent Pictures by Kevin O’Neill is the capstone to an extraordinary career in comics – two ferocious new books that flicker through the very dreams of art and imagination. Without words, O’Neill conjures an astonishing pair of feverish stories, brimming with detail on every page, packed with some of the most exciting, twisted artwork ever put to paper. Gorgeously painted in luminous colour, no fan of his work can afford to miss out.

In Feartreland we tag along as the son of Dick Whittington flits through a series of pantomime tableaus, splash pages and tortuous punning images. Crocodiles gambol with giant apes, and genies promise adventures on the high seas. An explosive entertainment, bright and bold as the stage that it draws its inspiration from. Meanwhile, The Balaclava Kid invites us into the dreams of the artist’s youth, as his imagination gives him escape from the bullies of a bombed-out London into a dreamscape built of Wild West iconography and Tex Avery action. Demonic cowboys and infernal machines populate shimmering mesas and haunted mines. An adventure like no other!

Presented as a slipcased set of two luxurious hardback volumes, each with a new introduction by frequent collaborator and friend Alan Moore, a total of 800 copies of this stunning duo of books are available from both Knockabout’s retail website, and Gosh! Comics of London, online and in store, kicking off a year of celebrations for the shop’s 40th anniversary.

This is a fantastic must-have work and a final gift from a legendary creator whose incredible Art will remain forever in the hearts of readers. 

 

More info at DownTheTubes.net, here.

Review at The Comics Journal, here.  

 

On Joe Hill's King Sorrow

A short text to praise Joe Hill's new novel, King Sorrow.  

With King Sorrow, Joe Hill gloriously resurrects the doorstop horror blockbuster for a startling new century - ALAN MOORE, author and creator of WATCHMEN

Giant of the Attic

Below, the opening sentences from Giant of the Attic: On the Majesty of Alan Moore, a long-form profile by Alexander Sorondo for The Metropolitan Review. 

An interesting reading. 

The complete piece is available HERE. 

Alan Moore is 72 years old now. Since the 1980s, he’s been celebrated as the greatest writer in comics history. But he’s done with all that. Full-time novelist now. Finally. Spends his days at home just writing, reading, and smoking “frightening,” “staggering,” “saturating” amounts of weed.

“I use it to work,” as he told Alex Musson. “Always have done.”

Except these days he does it without the weekly deadlines, the phone always ringing, questions and chitchat with illustrators, coauthors, publishers, press — none of it.

Life of a novelist now. Solitude. [...]

Just a number! [2]

Breaking news! The blog has recently surpassed the threshold of... 2 million visits! 

 

In February, we reached 1.5 million visits, meaning we've added half a million visits in just nine months! 

 

I'm not sure what happened, but in the last two or three months I'd already noticed that visits had increased compared to the usual, reaching an average of 100,000 per month: simply incredible!!! 

 

So... this is just a little celebration. 

See you here, alligators! (For as long as it lasts.)

Caparezza's Orbit Orbit

On the 31th of October acclaimed Italian rapper Caparezza released his latest work, Orbit Orbit, which is both an album for BMG and a graphic novel published by Bonelli.

The graphic novel, available as both hardcover and softcover, written by Caparezza (his debut as comic writer), is drawn by an incredible ensemble of well-known artists: Sergio Gerasi, Riccardo Torti, Nicola Mari, Marco Nizzoli, Renato Riccio, Stefano Tamiazzo, La Came, Yi Yang and Matteo De Longis (cover).

The story features Caparezza as a cosmonaut who embarks on an interstellar journey in search of creative inspiration after a period of isolation. The antagonist is a character named Darktar, clearly inspired by DC Comics' Darkseid.

Caparezza has always been a comic book fan and the album, Orbit Orbit, is crammed with comic book references, including Swamp Thing and Watchmen.

 

Track 4: Darktar

«Nella palude come Swamp Thing»

Track 12 – Pathosfera
«Sono quello freddo della ganga, Dottor Manhattan» 

You can find out all the references on Fumettologica, HERE (in Italian).

The key track of the album is titled A Comic Book Saved My Life. 'Nuff said!

Peter Thiel on Watchmen

The Guardian reported that billionaire Peter Thiel has recently hosted a series of four lectures in San Francisco about...  well, the Antichrist and Armageddon.

Thiel also did several references to pop culture including One Piece and... Watchmen! 

We definitely live in interesting times.
You can read the complete article HERE.

[...] He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.  

Read the complete article HERE.

Rorschach by Mike Kaluta

Art by M. Kaluta

Above, a Rorschach illustration penciled by the great Mike Kaluta back in 2002! 

For more info about the piece, visit the Romitaman gallery: here. 

Dr. Spock, Gorbachev and Reagan

Above, a hilarious ad promoting the collected ed of Q.R and Quinch. 80s were funny times, weren't they? Enjoy!

Rowan's assignment

Excerpt from a 2020 interview with Alan Moore, originally published in French (read HERE) and  reprinted in English in Metal Hurlant n. 1 (2025), recently released (read HERE and check HERE). 

What are your artistic projects for the future?
Alan Moore: Well, I’ve written a couple of short stories that I thought were interesting, and I believe that the illustrative component of The Moon & Serpent Bumper Book of Magic inches towards completion.

My main focus at the moment is the forthcoming feature film The Show, directed by my Northampton counter-cultural affiliate Mitch Jenkins, which will be released whenever it becomes possible to release films again. As for what I’m working on right now this afternoon, that would be the second episode of a thus-far-imaginary five season television series that is also, lazily, titled The Show. 

And I’ve been given an assignment by my second-eldest grandson, Rowan, to present him with a story that is four words in length, so we’ll see how that goes.

I confess that I would like to know those four words and whether Rowan liked them or not. :)

Knuckle rings

Art by LRNZ

Below, final question from a fantastic interview included in the great Arthur No. 4 (May 2003). You can read the complete interview HERE. 

So, Alan, now to the really important question. What on earth are those knuckle rings? 

Alan Moore: My girlfriend Melinda Gebbie got me a wonderful piece of jointed finger armor. It looked wonderful, but completely stupid on its own. It looked like I'd damaged my finger and I'd got some sort of prosthesis. So I had to fill up the other fingers. It became an obsession. It's probably the Gothic flourish of a man in later life. You get to a certain age in life and you find that it pays to draw attention away from your face. [laughs] They look pretty good, and also, nobody messes with you. Not that they did anyway. My hands are registered weapons. They do weigh quite a bit, all that metal-I think it's slowly making my arms longer. [chuckles]
So, picture if you will: The cobbled back alleys of Northampton, as twilight settles, imagine me loping along the alleyways, my knuckles scraping against the cobbles and sending up bright,shearing swathes of sparks. A chilling image... 

 

All Arthur magazine issues are currently available HERE in pdf forms. 

So... download them all! There is a lot of Moore in:

Arthur No. 1 (Oct. 2002)

An interview with shamanic psychonaut/journalist DANIEL PINCHBECK, author of the just-released Breaking Open the Head. Artwork by Alan Moore.

 

Arthur No. 4 (May 2003)

ALAN MOORE gives Arthur a historical-theoretical-autobiographical earful on the subject of magic and art. Extra-long feature convo with Jay Babcock, with a portrait by John Coulthart and photos by Jose Villarrubia. Check out that finger armor! 

 

Arthur No. 5 (July 2003)

ALAN MOORE comments on what the US and UK governments have been up to lately

 

Arthur No. 17 (July 2005)

Kristine McKenna interviews BRIAN ENO on the eve of the release of his first solo album featuring vocals in decades. Illustration by John Coulthart. Plus, a celebration of the great domed one by Alan Moore

 

Arthur No. 25 (Winter 2006)

 “Bog Venus vs. Nazi Cock-Ring: Some Thoughts Concerning Pornography” by Alan Moore: a landmark eight-page essay/manifesto, with illustrations 

 

Arthur No. 33 (Jan. 2013)

How (and why) to lucid dream — a conversation with cartoonist RICK VEITCH by Jay Babcock. Plus “Cartographer of the American Dreamtime,” an appreciation of Rick Veitch and his work by Alan Moore

Swamp Thing by Marco Fontanili

Art by Marco Fontanili

Above, a great Swamp Thing commission by Italian artist Marco Fontanili. 

Below some preliminary art.

 

In recent times Fontanili published a fantastic Nosferatu book. He is currently promoting Steamboat Evil, his dark version of the classic Mickey Mouse's movie. 

 

For more info about the artist, visit his Instagram. 

Art by Marco Fontanili

Watchmen page zero... in color

In the past days, Dave Gibbons was in Munich as special guest at the local Comic Festival. (19-22 June)

For that occasion, Gibbons drew a brand new Rorschach image (above) printed as special coaster and... colored, for the very first time, that famous Watchmen page zero, available as limited print at the show (see below)!

Wer überwacht die Überwacher?

Watchmen by John Amor

Art by John Amor

Above and below, some great Watchmen art by Filipino illustrator/writer John Amor. Enjoy!

 

For more info about the artist: Instagram - Linktr.ee - CAF Gallery

Art by John Amor

A Big Numbers moment

As you can imagine, I have several archives full of Moore-related things. And it's a mess, I confess. :D

So, this time I share a little gem posted by a certain Tallestpurpl on his X account the 18th of November 2023, date of Alan's 70th birthday. It's a funny memory, imho. Enjoy!

My favourite story: knowing nothing about comics but knowing Alan from the pub I worked in, I was told by my comic fanatic friend to ask what had happened to the rest of Big Numbers. I did over a pint one night; there was a moment of silence before Alan asked if I wanted a fight. - Tallestpurpl

Illuminatus Moore

Above,  a comic page featuring Steve Moore, Alan Moore, Bryan Talbot, and Grant Morrison from Tales of Illuminatus! n. 2 by Bobby Campbell and Todd Purse. 

 

Check the related KS campaign HERE!