The News Blog of Comics Culture
TweetThis May DC released a free guide in magazine-like format, about the size of a small prestige graphic novel itself, containing a list of “essential graphic novels” and also a “chronology” for new readers. It’s not a bad idea considering what a difficult time new readers, or those who have left for awhile, can have [...]
I’m breaking continuity on Poisoned Chalice, my history of Marvelman, to say something about the current disposition of the character, and particularly to speculate on whether Marvel Comics are actually getting any closer to being able to publish it, as is being suggested around the Internet this past while.
Tweet[Previous chapters: Introduction, 1 - Prehistory, 2 - Marvelman Rises, 3 - Marvelman Falls, 4 - Intermission: 1963 to 1982, 5 - Prologue to Warrior, 6 - A Warrior is Born] When Dez Skinn had started Warrior, he wanted the creators to own their own creations, which they all did, more or less. Marvelman was [...]
TweetIn May Top Shelf in the US and Knockabout in the UK will be co-publishing The From Hell Companion. The Top Shelf website describes it as An astonishing selection of Alan Moore‘s original scripts and sketches for the landmark graphic novel, with copious annotations, commentary, and illustrations by Eddie Campbell. Here for the first time [...]
TweetThe end of the ROT WORLD crossover arc raises the question that Umberto Eco posed in his famous essay on Superman in 1972: can there really be change in a superhero universe? Doesn’t that imply aging, and movement toward an end, death, in fact? Whereas the constant return to a status quo at the end [...]
TweetPoisoned Chalice Part 3: Marvelman Falls [Previous chapters: Introduction, 1: Prehistory, 2: Marvelman Rises] The actual work on the Marvelman titles was done by various artists, and Mick Anglo goes into quite a bit of detail about them and their different styles in Nostalgia: Spotlight on the Fifties. The outstanding Marvelman artist amongst all of [...]
Superman, co-created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, first appeared in Action Comics #1 in June 1938, published by Detective Comics Inc, a fore-runner of National Periodical Publications and DC Comics. Virtually overnight it became a huge seller, and is running to this day, with uninterrupted publication for well over seventy years. A vast amount has been written over the years on the history of Superman, and by people substantially more qualified than I, but one claim, that Superman was based on the character of Hugo Danner, from Philip Wylie’s novel Gladiator, (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1930), has some relevance to the larger story of Marvelman and, although I decided that it might be too far back to start this series of articles, if you’re interested in reading what I have to say about it, you should go read this article, and then meet us back here.
Via Millarworld — in case you have been sleeping and missed Grant Morrison’s thoughts on Alan Moore. We don’t know the credits for this, but it’s pretty awesome.
by Laura Sneddon–Over the last few weeks, my good friend Pádraig Ó Méalóid has been writing a series of articles about Alan Moore and Superfolks, which became an edgeways look at the long running friction between Moore and fellow writer, Grant Morrison. While Moore has previously spoken out about his thoughts on Morrison in various interviews, Morrison has generally kept quiet on the issue. There have been occasional barbs of course, and plenty of praise, but very little on the actual facts of the matter.
So, just to recap where we left off last time: it looks like Alan Moore has based all the big hits of his career on ideas he stole from Robert Mayer’s 1977 novel Superfolks. Various people, including Grant Morrison, Kurt Busiek, Lance Parkin, Joseph Gualtieri, and even Robert Mayer himself, have claimed at one point or another that Moore based a lot of his superhero work on various aspects of the book, specifically Marvelman, Watchmen, Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, and his proposal to DC Comics for the unpublished cross-company ‘event,’ Twilight of the Superheroes. But is any of this true, or might there be another explanation? To answer that, I’m going to go through the individual allegations or suggestions, and deal them one by one, to see how they hold up.
TweetComic book writer Alan Moore has dropped a new single today, available through Occupation Records. His first new recording in a while, it shows a clear new direction for his music, away from shamanistic chanting in the woods of Northampton and more towards William Shatner-style slam poetry. His newest song shows clear his influences, which [...]
In 1977 Dial Press of New York published Robert Mayer’s first novel, Superfolks. It was, amongst other things, a story of a middle-aged man coming to terms with his life, an enormous collection of 1970s pop-culture references, some now lost to the mists of time, and a satire on certain aspects of the comic superhero, but would probably be largely unheard of these days if it wasn’t for the fact that it is regularly mentioned for its supposed influence on a young Alan Moore and his work, particularly on Watchmen, Marvelman, and his Superman story, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? There’s also a suggestion that it had an influence on his proposal to DC Comics for the unpublished cross-company ‘event,’ Twilight of the Superheroes. But who’s saying these things, what are they saying, and is any of it actually true?
Tweet [Photo via Mei Li] Alan Moore made an appearance at the N.I.C.E. show in his native Northampton this weekend, and the event was well covered in audio by Stereoket:
What’s this — a new book in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-verse? yes, in a new book by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill called NEMO: HEART OF ICE. the website for the store Gosh! has details of the 48-page hardcover, which is due in February:
Luckily for the world Alan Moore is nearly as productive as he is cantankerous, and he has interesting stuff coming out at regular intervals. UNEARTHING, a biography of Moore’s close friend and mentor Steve “No Relation” Moore, was originally published in 2010 as a prose book but Top Shelf is publishing a NEW edition with photos by Mitch Jenkins that have turned it into a narrative art book. A special limited edition goes on sale today.
Okay, so as the world has just noticed, in LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: Century 2009 we finally see Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neil’s multiverse spanning pop culture adventure reach the current day (or close to it) and since the current day isn’t in the public domain, there’s good old-fashioned satire in the tradition of about 8000 previous books. The Independent’s Laura Sneddon has the lowdown:
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