Spongemen Squarewatch

Quite possibly the best Watchmen parody I've seen:

Watch till the end for Alan Moore's reaction.

Moore vs Morrison

You've probably seen what's being billed as the last interview with Alan Moore doing the rounds lately; much of the commentary has focused on the section where he talks about Grant Morrison.

Quite a lot:

(That's a Wordle of the interview I threw together)

In an attempt to be balanced, there's a good article here where Morrison gives his side of the story.

It's a long read and not just about Moore's feelings towards Morrison but, perhaps predictably, that's what the online comic fans have found the juiciest - after all these years, they get Moore's unrestrained thoughts about the man he thinks of "as a Scottish tribute band."

There's no deep insights from me here - I like the writing of both of them, though I'm definitely more of an Alan Moore fan - but this served as a nice intro for me to post the following by Ty Templeton whose blog and cartoons I enjoy every week and who offers his own take on the Moore vs Morrison palaver:

Click the pic to get the rest of it.

Killing Joke - Spot The Difference

Here's a published page from Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's Batman: The Killing Joke which I'm sure we've all seen before:

(And yes, that's from the original - I'm not breaking the spine of my Deluxe Edition copy for a single page)

Over at Brian Bolland's blog, he posted the original version of that page:

which I'd never heard of, let alone seen so I figured I'd share it.

Presumably DC Editors were happier with blood stained buttocks than they were with bare breasts in a Batman book.

"breasts" and "Batman" in the same sentence - I dread to think who's going to find this blog with those search terms.

Perusing Previews - December 2013

Apart from the Star Trek Enterprise pizza cutter I've mentioned in a previous Previews post, I think this might be the epitome of merchandising.

Monday Memories #45 - Watchmen Trade Paperback

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Charles Soule's Alan Moore's Swamp Thing

Last week's Swamp Thing Annual #2 featured the current version - Alec Holland turned into the Green's Avatar - meeting the classic version as written by Alan Moore - the Green's avatar made to think he was Alec Holland.

It's done nicely, with both an artistic nod to Moore's version as well as the dialogue and there's a last conversation between the current, green, version and Moore's blue which made me wonder if writer Charles Soule was giving Moore's Swamp Thing the opportunity to vocalise Moore's own thoughts and principles:

I might be reading too much into it, but that sounds like Alan Moore's approach to me.

Nemo: The Roses Of Berlin

“Sixteen years ago, notorious science-brigand Janni Nemo journeyed into the frozen reaches of Antarctica to resolve her father’s weighty legacy in a storm of madness and loss, barely escaping with her Nautilus and her life. Now it is 1941, and with her daughter strategically married into the family of aerial warlord Jean Robur, Janni’s raiders have only limited contact with the military might of the clownish German-Tomanian dictator Adenoid Hynkel. But when the pirate queen learns that her loved ones are held hostage in the nightmarish Berlin, she has no choice save to intervene directly, traveling with her aging lover Broad Arrow Jack into the belly of the beastly metropolis. Within that alienated city await monsters, criminals, and legends, including the remaining vestiges of Germany’s notorious ‘Twilight Heroes’, a dark Teutonic counterpart to Mina Murray’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And waiting at the far end of this gauntlet of alarming adversaries there is something much, much worse.”

Well this is definitely going to join my collection.

Monday Memories #31 - From Hell #9

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Monday Memories #24 - Top Ten #8

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

More League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Sort Of)

A standalone issue coming in February next year - check out the Gosh Comics site for more info.

Happy, happy day!

The Life And Works Of Alan Moore

Pinched from the lovely A Moment of Moore blog, here's a contestant answering questions on the above subject on the UK quiz Mastermind.

Now, no cheating by pausing the video to give you time to think of the answer, but how many do you get right?



I got eight which I'm happy with!

Before Watchmen

From nerdreamer

With everybody else weighing in on DC's recently announced Before Watchmen books, I figured I'd throw out my own thoughts for your delectation.

We know now that the books are going to form a prequel with stories set before and (possibly) during the main Watchmen story rather than as a sequel continuing from where the original finished. That, at least, is some small comfort.

I've posted before about any prequel / sequel and how I'd react and while I'm definitely of the opinion that a sequel would be bad, I'm still unsure as to the worth of any stories set in that world. If you'll pardon me for quoting myself, I said:

"To make any sort of connection, to make it worth the label of a Watchmen spin-off, prequel or sequel, the story would at the very least have to take place in the same world. And if it takes place in the same world, it's going to be compared with the original, and I think we all know how that's going to turn out."

and I think that still stands.

This Makes Perfect Sense

I like cats and am not advocating trying this at home. Though if you do and it works, please send me a picture.

Taken from Tomorrow Stories Book 1 by Alan Moore and Kevin Nolan.

A Very Alan Moore Christmas

I hope Santa brought you what you asked for rather than what you deserved. I had a bunch of graphic novels from my lovely wife including some collections that I've been meaning to pick up for years:

The first of the Tom Strong trades and the two Tomorrow Stories collections. When America's Best Comics first came out, I pretty much stuck with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as there's only so much money to go round. Since then, it's always been in the back of my mind to pick these up.

Talking of Mr Moore's work, I checked my news feeds the other day and Bleeding Cool have revealed the first character work for the forthcoming Watchmen prequels . . . which I had posted below but have removed since Bleeding Cool had a letter from DC . . . and I really don't want to piss off the lawyers.

I still want this to be a complete hoax but it's looking a little more likely that DC are going to go ahead and do it. That Bleeding Cool gets the scoop on this just adds to the bad taste it leaves in my mouth.

And yet, perhaps, sometimes things should be allowed to end.

Alan Moore: A Bit Of A (Future) Shock

I've mentioned before that as a young lad growing up in "Fascist Britain" my first introduction to comics was via the British weeklies rather than the American monthlies. Titles such as Action and Starlord remain dear to my heart but the ubiquitous 2000AD easily had the greatest impact.

One of the regular features of 2000AD was the Future Shocks, usually two to four pages in length, they were done-in-one tales, almost always having a twist in the tail, and often used for new and aspiring writers as well as the more established.

The weekend just gone, I picked up this little beauty:

All (well, most) of Alan Moore's 2000AD Future Shocks in one volume, along with his Time Twister stories - another type of short story that featured, as you can probably guess, time travel as it's theme.

Never A Truer Word Said

From the wonderful A Moment of Moore blog.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #123

Power Girl asks what we've all been thinking for some time . . .

Coming Soon

And about bloody time!

Browsing Amazon the other day, I found this little beauty in my recommendations:

Can't wait!

Friday Night Fights - Hhut Before Hh

It's Friday night once more so I'm sure I don't need to remind you what that means . . .

Please, Miss, Can I Have $6,500?

Holy crap - the original art for Page 1 of Watchmen, signed by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is up for auction:

As of this moment, it's selling at $6,500 but I have no doubt it'll go for a lot more as it's got nine days left.