Alan Moore!

I find some of his comics a bit difficult to read because they're overstuffed, but when it's just text I think I can do it. But mostly I'm just not into most of his visual collaborators. More than anything I've enjoyed his essays, poems and interviews.

I do like that the paperback version of Jerusalem is 3 volumes in a box: breaking down a massive book like that makes it more aesthetically pleasing and also easier to actually read (and tackling only on 400p book at a time makes it seem more do-able, too).

The cover art is surprisingly not good, though: it looks like one of the Usborne puzzle books I was obsessed with as a child in the 1980s.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/jerusalem_moore.jpg

His style isn't really translating to colour, there.

RIP the photo that launched this thread

AM recently read Infinite Jest:

"After thinking about this long and hard, the last truly great book I read would have to be “Infinite Jest,” by David Foster Wallace. Yeah, sorry. This was my first exposure to Wallace’s work, only a month or two ago, and I don’t think there’s anything about the novel that doesn’t impress me: its stream of satirical invention, with conventional dating gone in favor of a subsidized calendar and the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment; its mandarin prose that perfectly conjures the trancelike drift of a modern consciousness overwhelmed by detail; and its breathtaking risks with structure, so that the whole experience seems to pivot upon a climactic resolving chapter — either right at the end of the narrative or right at the beginning — which does not actually exist and which therefore requires the reader to create it herself, from slender inference. I think the moment I probably fell in love with Wallace as a writer was the point where I realized that I was actually meant to be irritated by all of the occasionally crucial footnotes. An author after my own heart, and a genuine modern American diamond in the tradition of Thomas Pynchon, Robert Coover and Gilbert Sorrentino."

Revised delivery date from amazon? Sep 29th to Oct 30th. Serves me right for using my vouchers - should have tried a mor direct route.

you can still order copies from third-party sellers on amazon, which is what i did last night just hours after saying that i'd probably wait for a bit :(

i just got a notification it's been dispatched, so they must still have some stock left

The pub I drink in has a waterstones a couple of doors down, said they can get it for me tomorrow.

Although it'll probably be about £8 more expensive than the price amazon offered for goods they don't have.

byres rd?

Nah, in St Andrews (used to live just off byres rd though - above missing records)

I've seriously slacked as a reader of Important Fiction in recent years but Moore OTM about IJ. Still the most impressive novel I've ever read.

I think, unless I read lots of gushingly rave reviews of this thing, that I will allow From Hell to continue its tenure as my massive Moore magnum opus of choice.

thx dowd your mention of missing records on byres road has sent me into a bittersweet reverie of glasgow records stores now long-gone

xp i always thought moore would make a great critic - he's usually got at least one sharp observation in every interview i've ever read with him, no matter how sour his mood is otherwise.

Where is that Infinite Jest review from? A shame he hasn't kept going on Goodreads, perhaps he was inundated with too many questions.

I often find it kind of weird how many of us are from around Glasgow. Ahhh, I remember the days when there was 6 or 7 comic shops. I think it's just down to 2 now.

If you're feeling like blaming Belle and Sebastian...

i can think of three comic shops - four if you count the mouldering remains of future shock on woodlands road, which has been closed for years but still has a full stock trapped inside and slowly yellowing from the sunlight

That's weird, surely someone's supposed to clear all that out?

itisamystery.gif

i vaguely recall hearing that the guy that ran it died? not that that would explain why it's stood empty but packed full of books and comics for years. maybe we should take this to the try glasgow more thread and appeal for help there...

Yes, mad owner of Future Shock died, and judging by the way he organised his shop I'm guessing that his affairs won't totally in order when he relocated to the astral plane.

Belle and Sebastian have nothing to do with me living in Glasgow.

Cool, so if you guys could just give me the address of this abandoned comic store real quick, I'll coincidentally be stopping by Glasgow with my cat burglar outfit and a crowbar pretty soon.

Watch out, if you bump into anything you might be killed by a falling pile of hardcover collections.

I fondly remember reaching into a dark space between comic stacks to see what I'd find and pulling out a Corben book.

There were lots of clippings and notices on his shop window singing the praises of nuclear power.

yeah, he was, um, a character. i eventually stopped going in there because i couldn't stand the feeling of being watched while i dug through piles of stuff any longer. it was like walking into an episode of hoarders

that said, I do have fond memories of living a block up the road from future shock when i first moved to glasgow back in 2001 and managing to excavate the first 15 or so issues of priest's black panther run, among other things, from amongst the detritus

I may have told this when he died, but once he started talking to me about something, talked on for a minute maybe, we were both smiling then suddenly he stopped with a serious look on his face and went away. I felt too awkward to ask him why he stopped.

Bah, now waterstones are saying they don't have it in their warehouse, but they can get it from another warehouse. Hate this book now.

Oh, and amazon keeps including it in my recommendations. YOU DON'T HAVE ANY!

through an accident of over-enthusiastic online ordering, i've ended up with two hardback copies - if you're still having trouble i could always pass one on to you instead of sending on back

Cheers, but it's okay. I'll grump my way to a copy eventually.

good luck!

Finally got a copy. It's the 3-volume one, don't know if I feel anything particular about that.

having faced down the possibility of starting work on reading the 1300-page hardback this weekend and deciding i couldn't face the physical challenge of holding it i think you might have made the better choice tbh

Cinema Purgatorio whimpered out of existence this week. A couple of decent stories but inessential.

kickstarter to buy BG a belated lectern he can also post from

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156713539045823

Been keeping this under my hat for a while but now it's official.. My first presenting spot for BBC6 Music is airing on Friday 4th Oct, 7pm - 9pm. It's an interview with Alan Moore, the planet's leading graphic novelist. Two hours of Alan's favourite music and some extraordinarily tall tales in the Iggy Pop slot. I first interviewed Alan more than three decades ago for Strange Things Are Happening magazine. I met him again a couple of years ago, and he remembered the interview and the psych records I was reissuing at the time with great fondness. I mentioned this on facebook, and the post was spotted a certain BBC6 Music presenter, who thought it would be a good idea for a show. So here we are. Many thanks Lauren, much appreciated! Turn on, tune in.. it's not often you hear The Residents on the radio! :) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008yp0

something profundly unsettling about the sight of alan moore in a sky-blue jumper tbh

The Lion, The Witch and His Wardrobe

https://deadline.com/2020/10/alan-moore-rare-interview-watchmen-creator-the-show-superhero-movies-blighted-culture-1234594526/

(is it me or does that interview end abruptly?)

I'm not in the mood for long tv shows anymore but I'm looking forward to the film at least.

A short story anthology next year, and a five-volume fantasy series starting 2024, that will move from the “shell-shocked and unravelled” London of 1949 to “a version of London just beyond our knowledge”, encompassing murder, magic and madness.

Speaking about his book deal, Moore said that he was at a moment in his career when he was “bursting with fiction, bursting with prose”.

“I couldn’t be happier with the new home that I’ve found at Bloomsbury: a near-legendary independent publisher with a spectacular list and a fierce commitment to expanding the empire of the word,” said Moore. “I have a feeling this will be a very productive partnership.”

lol so weird reading a fawning Alan Moore quote on a publisher

All words no pictures for all that?

I'll draw you some to go along with the books as they are released.

the 1000 page thing scares me to the point where i haven't read it but these look interesting

Reading through his Swamp Thing run at the moment. Just got into Constantine and the American Gothic storyline. Some of these issues are so good, I don't know what to do with it. I expect it to go downhill eventually, but the highs of Rites of Spring (psychedelic yam sex) and Love and Death (first issue without comics code stamp) are amazing. I had a copy of Love and Death when I was 8 years old, rereading it now I'm amazed at how much went totally over my head.

Would like a collection of short stories but I'm sure the fantasy series will be cool.

daniel: cool, please draw me at least one picture for every twenty words and arrange them sequentially and bind it. then scan it. thanks in advance.

(my first swamp thing was the American Gothic / Crisis Crossover episode #46 and was such a mess. but didn't stop me buying all the others)

the 1000 page thing scares me to the point where i haven't read it but these look interesting

Have had it lying around for years, think I'll make it my last pre-vaccine doorstop (I usually read on public transport so used this time to tackle some bigger works).