Alan Moore's influence on comics: Good or Evil?

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Pretentious twaddle is not a big step from anything, ever.

― always crashing in other people's cars (kenan), Sunday, 27 February 2000 02:46 (twenty-five years ago)

two years pass...

sometimes I think that while Alan Moore's comics are mostly G*R*A*T*E, his legacy is mostly EVIL. That is, he has begat an annoying slew of auteurist writers who write pretentious twaddle without the charm and skill of the great man himself.

what do you think?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 22 October 2002 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)

largely evil.

cf. d.c. post-1987, image, and of course vertigo goes without saying (except erm i just did.)

also inspired - however obliquely - the rash of marvels-style "artistic" art-less comics.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 22 October 2002 15:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I c0mpletely agree, perhaps he is the Suicide ov comic book writ0rz haha. I wd type more, but i am at w3rk & have to fix puncture on cheap & nast mountain bike now.

― N0RM4N PH4Y, Tuesday, 22 October 2002 15:04 (twenty-two years ago)

i'll disagree and say "largely good". imitators will imitate whoever is grate. it's the readers i blame for making the stuff saleable. also that's the reason he ducked out of sight for so long. he didn't like what happened either, poor guy.

― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 22 October 2002 15:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Next up: blaming the Beatles for prog and blaming the Ramones for emo.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 22 October 2002 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

If anything screwed up D.C. post-1987, it was Crisis on Infinite Earths & Legends, which Alan Moore had li'l to do with. That's Frank Miller's fault.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 22 October 2002 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

he's on ch4 tonight at 3 something. don't think there was much comic content in it though (it's a repeat)

no alan moore => no neil gaiman. but yes, hard act to follow.

― koogs, Tuesday, 22 October 2002 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

It's like asking whether Kraftwerk had a good influence on popular music- I find it impossible to get any sort of grasp on the quality of Moore's influence, because (in mainstream superhero comics at least), what came after him that wasn't either trying to carry on his legacy in some way or actively oppose it?

― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 22 October 2002 21:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Alan Moore knows the score, apparently. Thought From Hell was Ackroydian tosh.

When are they going to make a film of V for Vendetta BTW? Harrumph.

― Dave B (daveb), Tuesday, 22 October 2002 22:41 (twenty-two years ago)

didn't alan moore pretty much say that himself in that interview with the onion's av club a while back. see the answer to the "Is it true that you regret in some ways the effect that Watchmen had on the comics industry?" question, here.

― angela (angela), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 10:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Another old pal of mine, and I agree that his writing was excellent, but his influence often bad, through no fault of his own. AM writes wonderfully structured comics full of intelligence and craft with some adult themes and the downside of sometimes over-purple prose; idiots are inspired to 'adult' themes (i.e. keep the nastiness, throw away the reason for the nastiness) and purple prose. On the negative side, if we hadn't had Alan we might have avoided Neil, but on the other hand if Alan hadn't been a success, would Grant Morrison have got a chance? Ditto Mark Millar (my discovery, ha ha) and many others. I've compared Alan's effect before to Jimi Hendrix's in music - JH plays passionate, soulful, technically complex music - fools mimic the technical virtuosity but lose that which the skill was in the service of, the fire (which should be honoured, obv) and feeling.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 11:09 (twenty-two years ago)

You don't like Neil Gaiman's work, Martin? (I promise I won't get defensive about it, just interested)

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 11:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I want to know about this Martin/Neil conundrum as well. Is Mr. Gaiman to Martin as Mr. Hornby is to Mark S?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 13:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I've posted on the Gaiman thread. I did publish a minor fragment of Neil's work myself, years back. I just think he's colossally overrated.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:44 (twenty-two years ago)

haha i'm not that big on alan moore either

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 28 October 2002 21:35 (twenty-two years ago)

If Millar's work on Authority is any indication of the quality of the rest of his oeuvre, then I ought to sic my T-100 on AM.

― Leee (Leee), Monday, 28 October 2002 21:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark Millar's first Authority story, with Jack Kirby as the supervillain, is brilliant! His Ultimates is great too.

I cannot but defend Alan Moore. He has been stupidly overrated at times, but some of his work is great. Also, he was a really good friend for quite a long time - we used to have three hour phone conversations every few weeks. I will always have much love for Alan, after our first meeting. He was reviewing fanzines in Captain Britain, so I wanted to give him mine. I timidly approached him at a mart, muttering something. He said "Oh, Worlds Collide! This is great - I've got every issue! Are you Martin Skidmore?! Let me pay you for a subscription! And I was just going to the pub - can I buy you a drink?" He was a genuinely lovely man. I never agreed with everything he said, but he wrote a tremendous and huge piece on comics writing for my later mag, FA (it was later reprinted in the Comics Journal).

And I loved a lot of his Swamp Things, and Watchmen felt so special when it was happening. And I really like Top Ten at present, though too much of his work has been treading water for years.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 28 October 2002 23:04 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

the Neil Gaiman thread revival made me think the Alan Moore radio 4 interview he did with Stewart Lee last week (and the Eno one he will do this week) deserves a bigger audience than the dozen or so people on ILC...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/chainreaction.shtml

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 10:45 (twenty years ago)

cheers for that!

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

It was a great interview. And I can't stand Stewart Lee.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 11:45 (twenty years ago)

does this mean ALan Moore will interview someone next week?

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 11:50 (twenty years ago)

Yes, brian Eno.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 11:53 (twenty years ago)

but, unfortunately, the moore / eno one (on thursday?) is the last in the present series.

moore always talks a lot of sense and is naturally funny. the only thing i didn't like about the above interview was having to wait 10 years for it. why isn't he on radio / tv more?

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 12:17 (twenty years ago)

he's always stayed shy of tv interviews - Jonathon Ross was always on at him to do an interview back in the 80s

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

Alan Moore ("Comic Writer and Warlock") vs Brian Eno was broadcast yesterday and is available via listen again.

― koogs (koogs), Friday, 4 February 2005 14:10 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

Alan was also on tv last night talking (again) to stewart lee as part of Lee's anti-blasphemy thing on ch5 (which was great btw)

― Koogy Yonderboy (koogs), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 11:17 (eighteen years ago)

I have to side with the pro-Moore camp. I think his influence has been mostly positive. he may have

"has begat an annoying slew of auteurist writers who write pretentious twaddle"

But I think that auteurism and pretentious twaddle is a big step up from what came before.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Thursday, 7 September 2006 00:42 (eighteen years ago)

pretentious twaddle is a big step up from Gerry Conway

― kit brash (kit brash), Thursday, 7 September 2006 10:05 (eighteen years ago)

Kit, DID YOU KNOW I brought up GC once in an ILE thread, and got zinged by a Googler!?! Related: I saw about 2 minutes of a GC-scripted episode of Matlock.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 7 September 2006 18:44 (eighteen years ago)

BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES

― kit brash (kit brash), Thursday, 7 September 2006 21:38 (eighteen years ago)

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