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Alan Moore books. What did you like? What didn't you like?

Started by james1miller,

109 posts in this topic

Ken Aldred

Ken Aldred

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Posted
I'm not sure how 'under the radar' any of Moore's work can fly.

 

 

- Axel Pressbutton by Curt Vile

- D.R. and Quinch

- Tharg's Future Shocks

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Ken Aldred

Ken Aldred

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I'm not sure how 'under the radar' any of Moore's work can fly.

 

 

- Axel Pressbutton by Curt Vile

- D.R. and Quinch

- Tharg's Future Shocks

 

Eh, I think that is scraping the bottom of the barrel, but you're technically correct.

 

All the obvious ones have been taken already, but not that obscure to Brits.

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ComicConnoisseur

ComicConnoisseur

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Miracleman, Watchmen, Swamp Thing - my favorites. I'm not sure how 'under the radar' any of Moore's work can fly.

 

I haven't cared for his more recent stuff near as much, but then I'm hardly alone in that. As an example, and in reference to a question you ask in your post, The Courtyard, and it's follow up, Necronomicon, had some interesting Lovecraftian roots, but other than I couldn't really say that it had much else going for it - I don't think I could strongly recommend it.

 

I think a lot of his America's Best Comics haven`t been discovered yet, and are under the radar.

Some brilliant stuff there.

Stock up now before the movie hype. ;)

 

 

I guess you may be right as far as that goes, but most of us are probably at least aware of that work, even if many of us haven't read it. I know I've been meaning to read Top 10 for many years now and still haven't gotten around to it!

That`s my point. Many of the old guard stopped reading Alan Moore in the 1980s,once this old guard starts to read the America's Best Comics work they will be quite amazed and pleasantry surprised at what Alan Moore has written since 1980s!

 

I would expect all the major America's Best Comics characters to have movies just like Watchmen, From Hell and V from Vendetta did.

It might take awhile, but they will be discovered.

 

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SquareChaos

SquareChaos

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I think the Pressbutton reference is a very good reference, but the others, while very good additions to the conversation... I don't know that I could personally get behind them, or even feel like they fit in to the same sort of category as a Miracleman, Swamp Thing, V, Watchmen, or even Pressbutton.

 

I had to look up Tharg's and, even more so, D.R. and Quinch, to even have a fuzzy recollection of reading them in the early internet days via some scanned work that was posted somewhere online. I guess I'd lean more towards calling those strips (unless I'm missing more knowledge about how they were produced and distributed) and just wouldn't consider them in the same sort of space, but to be totally honest, I'm not completely sure why I feel that way.

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Ken Aldred

Ken Aldred

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D.R. and Quinch has Alan Davis art, some of the Tharg's Future Shocks have Dave Gibbons art. Both appeared in 2000 AD.

 

Axel Pressbutton by Alan Moore, under his Curt Vile pseudonym, is something I remember reading in a British music paper called Sounds, circa 1980. The character later reappeared in Warrior magazine.

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Ken Aldred

Ken Aldred

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Tom Strong. Just good solid, smart storytelling, and characters.

 

I like Tom Strong, which has enjoyable and more straightforward super-hero stories, and nice artwork by Chris Sprouse. My favourite issue is the one where he goes to a funny animal parallel universe and meets his human-bodied, rabbit-headed analogue, Warren Strong. For years I found this absolutely hilarious - a bit less so now that I'm on medication, sad to say.

 

As a fan of Jack Cole's Plastic Man, I also enjoyed Moore's Splash Brannigan stories.

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Ken Aldred

Ken Aldred

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Wasn't the Tharg work just a few pages per strip? I wonder if that stuff is collected anywhere now a days, I have almost no memory of reading it.

 

 

They were quite short, throwaway stories, and they have been collected.

 

The Complete Alan Moore Future Shocks paperback is available on Amazon.com.

 

Just checked. :)

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dupont2005

dupont2005

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I know a lot of people hate Alan Moore because he dares to speak bad about the people who own the intellectual property they love so dear, but I agree with pretty much everything he says regarding the industry. Having said that, not a huge fan of his work. I don't find it bad, just average. Not worthy of the acclaim it receives. I admit, I have only read a small sample of his work, mostly because I think Stormwatch is garbage no matter who is writing it, and Moore spent so much of his career on the kind of drek unworthy of a truly great writer. And that's why I think he gets so much acclaim. People who are used to the kinds of things Marvel and DC normally publish, and actually think that stuff is good, they see Watchmen and their minds are blown, because it's not completely stupid. He "deconstructed superheroes" by making people have motivations for their actions, by showing heroes aren't perfect, and villains aren't 100% pure distilled evil for the sake of being evil. Common things in every other type of storytelling, but apparently hadn't been done in superhero comics before.

 

Anyway, I've read the following.

One issue of Swamp Thing, forgot which one, but I think it was #21.

The Killing Joke

About half of Watchmen

1963 #1 (possibly #2 as well, can't remember)

The Maxx #21

The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen vol. 1

Anything Goes! #2

Hate #30

From Hell (the first quarter or so)

Images Of Omaha #2

Probably some of his Negative Burn but not sure

 

Out of that I notice most of what I have read of his was small contributions, a page or two, in anthologies or as guest spots. I don't remember a thing about most of them.

 

Others are series I didn't feel like completing.

I thought Killing Joke was better than DKR, but seemed shorter, without looking up the page count of both. Watchmen I found to be average in quality. Not bad, but not what I was promised would be the best thing any comic lover could ever hope to read. I won't be finishing that series. League was average as well. I think a common thing I see in his comics is they try to be smarter than they are. It seems like his market is people who have heard of classic literature, but don't like reading classic literature, so they'll read a picture book light on the dialogue that can make them feel like they've read classic literature. I actually was enjoying From Hell before I put down, and will probably eventually pick back up again.

 

So I'll say he's not a writer I actively avoid, but I'm not exactly a fan either. And it's amazing how so much of his American work is Spawn and Supreme and Glory and Youngblood and so on. I won't be sampling any of that stuff.

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Balham's Finest

Balham's Finest

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It's unfortunate that the majority of you have probably not read much (or any) of the early stuff he did for 2000AD.

 

Next to Watchmen, The Ballad of Halo Jones is the best thing he's written, in my opinion.

 

I'm going to put it in bold caps because I really think it needs more attention:

THE BALLAD OF HALO JONES

 

There we go. Any fan of Moore should pick it up, you won't regret it.

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