Alan Moore!

^^^yes

I simply felt this is a kinda too obvious and lazy way to write an immortal character. If you compare Orlando to Hob Gadling in The Sandman

have you even read Orlando? Moore didn't make up this character.

the biggest problem is that it's BORING, we get the character trait and how it affects the group dynamic from one or two instances, Orlando could have said something else witty or self-obsessed or plot-developing or annoying on the other 61 pages

(I mean, it didn't shit me as much as it does T-dogg, but I totally get where he's coming from)

Anyone have any opinion on Unearthing? (Or know where to purchase the non-multimedia version? Like just the essay or him reading it)

I know it not.

Anyone reading Neonomicon, the sequel to The Courtyard, his Lovecraftian-themed title of some years back? I wuvved the Courtyward, and #1 of the new one seems good too.

The Courtyard was pretty good. I was tempted to get the companion piece - is that any good? I wish I could be bothered to read enough Lovecraft to understand all the references - is there some significance to why he's dismembering the bodies in this way? It's reminiscent of From Hell.

I just finished the Promethea series. Some of the artwork in that is nigh-inconceivable. I just can't fathom some of it. My only gripe is that while it was very pretty, I preferred the Malkuth stuff with the painted doll and Sonny Baskerville etc to the journey through the Immateria.

I saw him read Unearthing, with accompanying Mitch Jenkins slideshow and music by Crook and Flail (aka Fog and Doseone aka Andrew Broder and Adam Drucker), in the tunnels under Waterloo station last Friday. Really captivating, which I might not have expected had I known it's basically a potted biography of a UK comics writer (and his magickal imaginary friend). Would be interesting to see how it stands up outside of that atmospheric setting, if it has the same sense of enchantment.

The prose version of THE COURTYARD is a hundred times better. I'm finding the book a little disappointing, but that might be the art, which is just there or the pricetag.

My only gripe is that while it was very pretty, I preferred the Malkuth stuff with the painted doll and Sonny Baskerville etc to the journey through the Immateria.

Absolutely agree, the first and final Earthbound arcs were excellent. The Immateria stuff was a gorgeous snoozefest mostly.

The prose version of THE COURTYARD is a hundred times better. I'm finding the book a little disappointing, but that might be the art, which is just there or the pricetag.

I used to think the art was only so-so, but it has started to grow on me. I find it appealingly understated. In the second book Burrows does some impressively subtle character stuff with it.

I reckon The Courtyard is better as a comic. Things like the mirrored closing and opening frames work far better in this format than just in prose.

is there some significance to why he's dismembering the bodies in this way?

not really, though the magic of Lovecraft is you can throw pretty much anything in.

I really liked the artwork in the Courtyard - notice the pictures on the wall in the drug dealer's house. And the crepey tree.

WTF - this isn't actually a thing is it?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w

ah no, it's not - very good though!

You hadn't seen that one before?

no sorry I can't know all the internet all the time.

So I went to Forbidden Planet in NYC today and asked the cute girl with the tight shirt behind the help counter about 'Unearthing' and neither she nor the giantess next to her had any idea about it.

slags!

it's not a direct market "product"

it's on amazon.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Unearthing-3CD-VINYL-Various-Artists/dp/B003TOS84E

(could swear it wasn't £100 last week)

see, is £50 here (+£10 shipping)

https://lexrecords.com/shop/pages/view.php?stockcode=LEX090BOX

byrne, liefeld, Watchmen 2

Opinions on some of Moore's novella-comics? Including The Courtyard, Another Suburban Romance, The Killing Joke, Light of Thy Countenance etc...?

Killing Joke is overrated, bit of a one idea comic. Good art though.

I agree with that, though that one idea is pretty interesting.

A Small Killing is pretty interesting, it's Moore doing a French style psychonanalytical art comic. The story kinda tries to be more deep than it actually is (a common thread in Moore's work), but it's well worth reading. The art by Oscar Zarate is very European, and looks great.

Killing Joke is underrated, I think! It's all about the Bolland, who my thirteen-year-old self would probably have married if possible. Perhaps the story would have been better served as a single issue than a "prestige" format thingy.

It's all about the Bolland, who my thirteen-year-old self would probably have married if possible.

Same! I even wrote to him for a school art project and got a very gracious note and a signed Dredd picture, which I have of course lost.

ya i really liked the killing joke, although i'm not that au fait with the batman/joker mythos personally.

It did a lot to create the Batman/Joker two sides of the same coin thing, which is pretty important (cf The Dark Knight).

Moore I've not read:

A Small Killing
Supreme
Wildcats
Lost Girls
Captain Britain

captain britain starts slowly - moore has to kind of clear the decks of all the rubb that went beforehand - but by the time he and davis get into their stride it is really really good - there's a recentish british marvel reprint which collects it all

Opinions on some of Moore's novella-comics? Including The Courtyard, Another Suburban Romance, The Killing Joke, Light of Thy Countenance etc...?

Three of these are not by Alan Moore.

really? how so?

captain britain starts slowly - moore has to kind of clear the decks of all the rubb that went beforehand - but by the time he and davis get into their stride it is really really good - there's a recentish british marvel reprint which collects it all

The Alan Davis art is of course beautiful, but otherwise I thought this was very uneven. (Then again, I've always thought Swamp Thing was uneven too.) Some cool ideas mixed with not-very-innovative cosmic superhero stuff, IMO Moore's early DC work has stood the test of time better when it comes to straight superhero comics. But it's fun to read Captain Britain and see how it anticipates some themes Moore would return to later on; the "fascist Britain" part of course parallels V for Vendetta, and you can even spot a blood-stained smiley in one panel!

AM's Swamp Thing run taken as a whole certainly has its ups and downs, but the American Gothic cycle is amazing. My young mind was blown to smithereens reading it 5 or so years after it first came out. It was the first Moore thing I read, give or take the odd 2000 AD story. Looking back now, the nuts and bolts of the writing can be annoyingly pretentious, but the broader storytelling is untouchable.

Then the siege of Gotham! Incredible. The lost in space stuff that came after that is patchy, yes.

really? how so?

one's a comics adaptation by someone else of a prose short story Moore wrote 20 years before

one's a comics adaptation by someone else of a song Moore wrote 15 years before, previously adapted into comics by yet another someone else ten years before

one's a comics adaptation by someone else of an essay Moore wrote 15 years before

none of them are novellas in any sense, and none have any actual creative involvement by Moore. (and Avatar are lying, thieving pricks who don't deserve your money, but that's not exactly rare in comics.)

Are Miracleman or Top 10 worth a punt?

I've tried (and failed) to read Swamp Thing several times. Perhaps time for another go...

Miracleman is interesting as an early foray into deconstructing the superhero - the central character develops into kind of a proto Doc Manhattan. Top 10 is very slick and funny.

If you didn't get on with ST, you may have issues with MM though. They're written in a similar way, and ST is better.

Top 10 and the spin-off Smax are two of my favorite Moore works. His playful stuff is underrated.

I dunno, obviously I like all that stuff but it can be a bit glib.

Despite being very clever, well crafted etc.

I'll take a little glib over a little pretentious. I loathed Promoethea, for example.

or Promethea, even.

I think Tom Strong is the most underrated of the ABC line, he seemed to have more invested in the characters in that one. And it reminds me of early FF and Tintin, both of which I love.

And when Promethea got the balance of magical didactism and action right, it was spectacular (which sadly it didn't for most of the run).

Tom Strong might be the best balanced of his work in that it isn't too pretentious or too glib. Sadly, I found it a bit too repetitive after the first year, but that first year was ace.

Gosh had copies of Miracleman 14 for £60 last weekend. quite a few others, including the gaiman run, were £30 (i have a spare #14, picked up for £1, woot)

Top Ten was great, promethea i haven't finished (yet). was disappointed when tom strong changed authors. swamp thing's his magnum opus though, imo. #46 was the first thing i bought having read a review in one of the music papers. terrible place to start (middle of both american gothic and crisis crossover)

STRAY COMMENTS:

SEEK SEEK SEEK SEEK OUT Eddie Campbell's adaptations of his performance works, either separately via bin-diving or collected in Disease Of Language. The Birth Caul floors virtually anyone who comes into contact with it, from my experience.

Cap Brit - Lotsa good ideas that deserve a better venue, really - worth reading for Davis, mind you. I keep waiting for someone to bring back The Fury. Morrison weirdly nicks a climactic stray detail about climbing a flaming stairway toward a doorway for The Invisibles.

Promethea - Both extraordinarily impressive and pretty, but not entirely readable, at least if your eyes drift whenever you get the sense that the word magic is about to be spelled with a k.

Swamp Thing Annual #2 - Swampy goes to heaven, hell, and chats with Deadman - may be my favorite single-issue comic ever.

Supreme I happen to think is super-swell. One or two not-so-good issues - something about time travel and the Civil War leaps to mind - and three quarters of the run is drawn by fifteen year-olds (I don't blame you if that's a deal-breaker), but there's a great wealth of fun there, with Moore tossing off ultra-clever pastiches and remixes of Weisinger/Schwartz Superman ideas on every page. It still bugs me that we never got to see The End (here the concept literalized as an actual super-villain) in action.

Birth Caul is great

eh but all his stuff is great imho (varying degrees of course). Agree that his more playful/less serious stuff is often the most fun - Smax miniseries is great for ex, as is his Death of Superman twofer and a bunch of his other early DC work. Never read Captain Britain (dunno if this is even available in the US?), or Supreme (artwork looks terrible)

Promethea gets a lot of hate for its didacticism but I loved getting each issue as it came out. Swamp Thing I also read while it was coming out and had a similar "holy shit" factor to it, just the hopping around from one idea to the next from issue to issue was very exciting.