Watchmen 2: they did it!

from nerdreamer

The 1st of February, DC Comics officially announced (after several unofficial rumours) the Before Watchmen project to be published during this summer. It will be composed by 35 issues focused on events happened before the original Watchmen. More details about BW can be read here.

As reported online by the NYT, Alan Moore's reaction has been very direct and clear, as expected. “I don’t want money,” he said. “What I want is for this not to happen.”

On the contrary, Dave Gibbons was more "diplomatic". He said in a statement: “The original series of Watchmen is the complete story that Alan Moore and I wanted to tell. However, I appreciate DC’s reasons for this initiative and the wish of the artists and writers involved to pay tribute to our work. May these new additions have the success they desire."

The only member from the original Watchmen creative team involved in BW will be colorist John Higgins who will draw some issues. Furthermore, original Watchmen editor Len Wein will contribute as writer.

League: Century N.3 - 2009

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Vol III): Century #3 - 2009 has a release date: June 2012 (co-published by Top Shelf Productions & Knockabout).

In CHAPTER THREE, the narrative draws to its cataclysmic close in London 2009. The magical child whose ominous coming has been foretold for the past hundred years has now been born and has grown up to claim his dreadful heritage. More here.

20th Anniversary Watchmen tribute: Adrian Veidt

Art by Luca Enoch

In 2006 I edited "Watchmen 20 anni dopo", an Italian Watchmen tribute book which was basically a collection of 12 brand new essays by well known comics experts analyzing Moore & Gibbons masterpiece in the occasion of its 20th anniversary. The volume was published by Lavieri with all net profits donated to AIMA, the Italian Alzheimer organization. 

The book also contained a 24 illustration gallery: above you can admire a very intense portrait of Adrian Veidt, the man behind Ozymandias, drawn by the amazing Italian author LUCA ENOCH.
So enjoy and...  many thanks to Mr.Enoch for his permission to post his illustration here!

Luca Enoch is one of the most well-known and popular Italian comics artists and writers. Some info, in English, about Enoch can be found in Lambiek Comiclopedia. He is currently working on his sci-fi series Lilith for SBE and on several other projects and stories.
More news and info about Luca Enoch at his Italian blog: here.

AM Portrait: Master of Reality

Master of Reality by T. Faraci (story) and P. Frisenda (art)

As I previously wrote, the Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman tribute book also contained some comics short stories. 

Some contributors played with Moore-related characters and concepts but others had Moore himself as "special guest" of their story. The last one is the case of Master of reality (with an obvious reference to the Black Sabbath's album too), the 2page story shown here, created by acclaimed Italian artists Tito Faraci (writer) and Pasquale Frisenda (art).

It's a silent story full of "Easter eggs" in each panel. For example in the opening one you can see a lot of characters from the ABC line such as Promethea and some LXG members (on the left), Tom Strong (on the center) and Top 10's Toybox and Smax. Have fun trying to find them all! :)

The story can be read at page 100 of the sold-out volume and it appears here on AMW with the artists' permission. Again, many thanks to Mr. Faraci & Frisenda for their great contribution to the Alan Moore: Portrait.

Master of Reality by T. Faraci (story) and P. Frisenda (art)

Tito Faraci is one of the most appreciated, popular and prolific Italian comics writer. He worked for Disney Itay and penned stories for best selling series such as Diabolik, Dylan Dog and Tex (Sergio Bonelli Editore). He also wrote a bunch of Marvel superheroes stories and his Daredevil/Capitan America one, titled Dead On Arrival, was also published in the USA market. Recently his horror novel, Oltre la soglia, has been published in Italy by Piemme. 

Pasquale Frisenda started his career in the 90ies. Then he became part of the art team at work on Sergio Bonelli Editore series such as Magico Vento (he also provided covers for the series) and Tex, drawing in 2009 the acclaimed annual Patagonia.

Alan & Glycon wish you a Happy 2012

Art by  Frank Quitely (via Bleeding Cool)

From BBC Radio 4's Thought For The Day slot (Dec 31, 2011).
I discovered the transcript at Forbidden Planet blog.
You can hear it, directly from the voice of the Bearded One, here. :)

And, of course... HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hello everybody, my name’s Alan Moore, and I earn a living by making up stories about things that have never actually happened.

When it comes to my spiritual beliefs that’s perhaps why I worship a second century human headed snake god called Glycon, who was exposed as a ventriloquist’s dummy nearly 2000 years ago. Famed throughout the Roman Empire, Glycon was the creation of an entrepreneur known as Alexander the false prophet, which is a terrible name to go into business under.

A live, tame boa constrictor provided the puppet’s body, while its artificial head had heavy-lidded eyes and long blond hair. In many ways Glycon looked a bit like Paris Hilton, but perhaps more likeable and more biologically credible.

Looks aside, I’m interested in the snake god purely as a symbol, indeed one of humanity’s oldest symbols, which can stand for wisdom, for healing, or, according to etho-botanist Jeremy Narby, for our spiralling and snake-like DNA itself.

But I’m also interested in having a god who is demonstrably a ventriloquist’s dummy. After all, isn’t this the way we use most of our deities. We can look through our various sacred books and by choosing one ambiguous passage or one interpretation over another we can pretty much get our gods to justify our own current agendas. We can make them say what we want them to say.

The big advantage of worshipping an actual glove puppet of course is that if things start to get unruly or out of hand you can always put them back in the box. And you know, it doesn’t matter if they don’t want to go back in the box, they have to go back in the box.

Anyway, thank you very much for listening and from both me and Glycon, a very happy new year to you all.

AM Portrait: SandokAlan

SandokAlan by D. Barzi (story) and Oskar (art)

The Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman tribute book I co-edited in 2003 with Gary Spencer Millidge contained a wide variety of material - such as essays, appreciation texts, memories, homage illustrations, interviews, and so on - to celebrate the 50th birthday of Alan Moore.

There were also some comics short stories included in. Some contributors were thrilled by the idea to play with Moore-related characters, so the book was enriched by a bunch of comics that paid homage to characters created by Moore, moments from Moore's stories or had Moore himself as the main character.

Italian artists Davide Barzi (story) and Oskar (art) created a very funny 2page story (titled SandokAlan) which did homage to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series featuring Moore himself. It's was a "strange" Moore because he has been mashed-up with Sandokan, a classic hero created by Italian writer Emilio Salgari.

The story can be read at page 38 of the sold-out volume and it appears here on AMW with the artists' permission. Again, many thanks to Mr. Barzi and Oskar for their great contribution to the Alan Moore: Portrait.

SandokAlan by D. Barzi (story) and Oskar (art)

Davide Barzi is a well-known Italian comics writer, journalist and critic. He worked for several Italian comics publishing houses and he is a regular collaborator of Sergio Bonelli Editore.

Oskar started his career as penciler and inker in the 90ies and worked on the popular Italian series Alan Ford. He collaborated with Barzi on several projects; currently he is a member of the art team at work on SBE's science fiction series Nathan Never.

The Honest Moore: OWS, Frank Miller & Politics

An amazing Alan Moore portrait by Diego Maia

From a recent interview appeared on Honest Publishing website.

Read The Honest Alan Moore interview: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

With the Occupy movement, it seems you and Frank Miller have conflicting views. Would you say that he’s against it and you’re for it?
Well, Frank Miller is someone whose work I’ve barely looked at for the past twenty years. I thought the Sin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny, 300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided. I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time. [...] 

It’s always seemed to me that the majority of the comics field, if you had to place them politically, you’d have to say centre-right. That would be as far towards the liberal end of the spectrum as they would go. I’ve never been in any way, I don’t even know if I’m centre-left. I’ve been outspoken about that since the beginning of my career. So yes I think it would be fair to say that me and Frank Miller have diametrically opposing views upon all sorts of things, but certainly upon the Occupy movement.

As far as I can see, the Occupy movement is just ordinary people reclaiming rights which should always have been theirs. [...] I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who’s too big to fail. It’s a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favour of it. We would definitely have to agree to differ on that one.

What do you think needs to change in our political system?
Everything. I believe that what’s needed is a radical solution, by which I mean from the roots upwards. Our entire political thinking seems to me to be based upon medieval precepts. These things, they didn’t work particularly well five or six hundred years ago. Their slightly modified forms are not adequate at all for the rapidly changing territory of the 21st Century. [...]

AM Portrait: The Comedian

Art by Roberto Recchioni

In 2003 Roberto Recchioni drew a great old style illustration of The Comedian as his contribution to the Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman tribute book (see page 283 of the sold-out volume, and obviously, the above jpg image.)

Roberto Recchioni is a well-known Italian comics artist and writer, creator of several series and characters and writer for the best-selling Italian comic book series Dylan Dog.

He is also a videogame and movie expert, a tech geek and a popular blogger. For more info about him visit his blog Dalla Parte di Asso (Italian only).

Again, many thanks to Mr. Recchioni for his contribution to the Alan Moore: Portrait and for the permission to post his illustration here.

Moore and... Frank Miller!

Moore from The Simpsons' episode Husbands and Knives.

In the past days Frank Miller generated a huge "controversy" with his opinion about the Occupy movement. So, it's not strictly related but it could be of some interest to read what Alan Moore said about Miller's 300 in an interview published in 2007 on Tripwire magazine (page 17, Tripwire Annual 2007, Tripwire Publishing Ltd.).

TRIPWIRE: Zack Snyder's directing Watchmen - he did Frank Miller's 300...

ALAN: "Jesus Christ..."

TRIPWIRE: Um, he did the remake of Romero's Dawn Of The Dead as well.
Actually, I didn't think it was bad at all...

ALAN: "Well, I am not interested in either of those films. I was invited to the premiere of 300 but I didn't even like the comics so... I think it's far from the best thing that Frank Miller has ever done. I got as far as the line where one of the Spartans is talking about the Anesthesias and says, "Huh, those boy lovers." I mean, Jesus Christ, the Spartans were famous for things other than being a bunch of tough guys. Possibly Frank should have read a book before he commenced that work... or, you know, more than one. I also don't understand why you want to make a film look like a graphic novel - what is the point of that? It's not a graphic novel, it's a film."

TRIPWIRE: Miller seems to have worked out how to handle Hollywood, though - be as hands-on as humanly possible...

ALAN: "... Or have material that is fairly simple. Sin City is based upon Mickey Spillane and noir films that Frank Miller has seen, so of course you can do something like that as a film. And something like 300 - this is not a complex plot. Three-hundred men defending a bridge against an invading empire - it goes back to the Dark Knight ethos of 'One good man can turn it all around' which I think is simplistic. But it's simplicity that works pretty well with contemporary Hollywood. Most of the stuff I do is intentionally complex - I'm not saying that complex is better than simple but complex you can't make into films very easily."

AM Portrait: 1963

Art by Massimo Giacon.

In 2003 Massimo Giacon contributed to the Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman tribute book with a very smart and funny illustration celebrating the 1963 miniseries. You can see it in its printed glory at page 94 of the sold-out volume, and obviously, in the above jpg image. :)

Massimo Giacon is a real Renaissance man, not only a well-known comics artist with a decades-long career but also a musician (see a video here), a painter, a performer and a designer. More information about him can be found at his colorful website: www.massimogiacon.com

Again, many thanks to Mr. Giacon for his generous support to the Alan Moore: Portrait!

AM Portrait: V for Vendetta

Art by Luca Enoch

In 2003 Luca Enoch contributed with a powerful homage illustration of V to the Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman tribute book, published by Abiogenesis Press. You can see it in its printed glory at page 188 of the sold-out volume. And, obviously you can admire it in the above jpg image. :)

Luca Enoch is one of the most well-known and popular Italian comics artists and writers. Some info, in English, about Enoch can be found in Lambiek Comiclopedia. He is currently working on his sci-fi series Lilith for SBE and on several other projects and stories.

Many thanks to Mr. Enoch for his generous support to the Alan Moore: Portrait, and to several other projects I asked him to contribute to during the past years. A billion thanks, Luca!

More news and info about Luca Enoch at his Italian blog: here.