Alan Moore
May 12th 2009 10:16
OK so this is the blog that I have been fermenting in the back of my mind for a few months. Alan Moore is as interesting as the work that he has created. When I started to become interested in the people that create the comics that I read he was one of the first writers that I became aware of after Neil Gaiman.
Here was a figure that wrote Swamp Thing, Watchmen and V for Vendetta. Someone who people who were above the simple four color fantasies that myself and thousands of others enjoyed every week. People who read Cerebus the Aardvark, Sandman, Hellblazer and maybe Next Men if they were nostalgic for super heroes.
So I matured as a comic book reader with the fact that Alan Moore was a bloody genius was a pillar of the comic book universe. He was mythic as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, these men who I had no real exposure to as a comic book reader in the early nineties.
So Alan Moore became this mythic figure.
Then in 1997 in one night I read Watchmen. I started at 11pm and I put it down at 4am. I was blown away. But it all sat as a blur in my head.
Coming into the 21st century comics became GRAPHIC NOVELS. As that grew, as comics started to seep into the cultural zeitgeist. As this started to happen, Alan Moore grew in cultural stature and a mystery started grow up around Alan Moore. He started to become ALAN MOORE and was a figure that the longer I looked into the comics and comic writing the larger ALAN MOORE started to loom, but then a funny thing happened V for Vendetta was made into a movie.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was the first film based on an Alan Moore property but really Alan Moore wasn't a factor in the promotion of that film.
It was when V for Vendetta was released that Alan Moore started to creep into the cultural subconscious. i am sure that there are people who know the name Alan Moore but don't know who he is or why they should recognise his name.
Equally there are people to this day who will not know who Alan Moore is, however in late 2005 Alan Moore got into a disagreement with Silver Pictures about his name being associated with the movie V for Vendetta.
Here was this mythic writer who had written some of the greatest works of graphic fiction (I am using a pretentious term as I know that for some people comic books is not a grand enough term.) Was objecting to being associated with film based on his work and then I discovered that Alan Moore had an uneasy relationship with DC Comics (owned by Time Warner).
Here was a guy that had his principals and stuck to them.
I really admired him for that.
So after a long consideration I decided that I would go and See V for Vendetta. It is an interesting conundrum do I respect the artists stand or do I go to judge for myself to see if his work was respected or do I hold off and respect an artists stand and his objection to the treatment to his work.
After reading the comic press surrounding this film and the initial buzz surrounding the movie i decided to go and see the film.
I had a wonderful experience. I have never found an explosion uplifiting however with the last frame of V for Vendetta I felt uplifted and tears were in my eyes.
Then I felt conflicted. I wanted Alan Moore to know that this particular film had an effect on me that was uplifting and positive and he was part of that.
I get that the film is removed from the work that he created. I understand that this is a work that to him is akin to an aborted fetus that was removed from the thing that he had lovingly created.
But did my experience of the work have any value?
Was the joy that I felt sitting in that dark theater worth the negative experience that the creator had experienced in the creation?
I dont really know the answer to this question, I only know that I am glad that the film exists.
It was after V for Vendetta I noticed that Alan Moore became more publicity friendly.
He appeared on a podcast that I was listening to and then popped up all over the media including an appearance on the Simpsons.
And it is funny because the more I have seen Alan Moore and have been exposed to him, the more he has transformed from this remote story Alchemist that lives in a deep dark cave in england creating works of sheer genius.
I spent today watching You Tube videos of Alan Moore and have to say that I feel a great amount of warmth for the man and find that the more I am exposed to him the more I see that this is a guy who writes stories.
Sure he has lost some of his mystique and wonder but what has been replaced is a man that is engaging and self aware and someone that I admire a great deal.
I am still conflicted by V for Vendetta but I now it is because I truely want to sit down with Alan Moore and tell him that I really loved the film and thank him for being part of that experience.
With Watchmen it is even a greater case of the director desperately wanting to be true and respectful of the original work and I cant help but feel that if this book was made in 30 years Alan Moore would have received it much better than he did now.
But that is just my opinion.
I suppose the point of this is that while watchmen and V for Vendetta may each be a single work in some strange way they are each several different things. They are the creation of the artist and then again the creation of the writer and then a synthesis of all the creators and collaborators and then the work that each person experience because my experience of the work will be different to the experience that you had and so in some ways you are experiencing a different work to me.
And with all this the work itself is universal and my experience is no more valid than yours.
So I suppose that at the end of the day the creator is but one small part of the entire experience.
But then again who knows let me know if you figure it out.
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Comments (2)
Comment by Aldoth
on Merlin
It's All Geek To Me
Also track down a copy of Once and Future King. It is the classic Arthur book and has a very funny moment when two old Knights meet that had me laughing out loud.
Also The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper (the Seeker movie was VERY loosely based on it.) You will find it in the young adult section but a fantastic read.
There is a place to start.