Best POST-WATCHMEN Alan Moore

From Hell is obviously the most impressive work here (apart from maybe Lost Girls? I haven't read it), but there's just so much FUN on this list that I'd feel a bit po-faced voting for it. I still might. If Promethea had lived up to the promise of its first ten issues rather than becoming a nice to look at snoozefest it would get my vote.

No one vote for Killing Joke, it's rubbish.

Hmm. Well, since you omitted Violator for some godforsaken reason, I'm not sure what to pick.

I'm tempted to say From Hell because it's an amazing work. Maybe his best ever. But it's not something I return to much.

I think I'll go with 1963 because it's the most fun and because it occasionally trumps the stuff that it's paying tribute to on the WOW scale.

xxpost! I'm glad that I'm not the only one who let fun affect his vote.

Violater as in Spawn? I wasn't aware of such a thing.

TOP TEN

Violater as in Spawn?

Absolutely! In fact, Moore wrote two Violator minis: Violator and Violator/Badrock. The latter was just lame, but the former was kind of batshit and OTT. I was jokingly balking at its omission, but I kind of want to read it now.

Argument: Most of Moore's best post-Watchment work has been published by Image.

Counter: Most of Moore's best post-Watchmen work has been published by America's Best Comics via Wildstorm via D.C.

I disagree!

I really wanted to like Moore's ABC stuff, but I've been underwhelmed, by-and-large. It feels like a talented guy going through the motions, winding down his career. Which is kind of what it was. Promethea got boring. Tom Strong...did it ever go anywhere? For as long as I read the book, it was mostly these disconnected episodes (and the occasional larger story) that were amusing enough but ultimately fluff. Tomorrow Stories was a repository for formal experiments and What The...?!?-esque humor. Top Ten wasn't bad. I like the LOEG books, but I think they impress me more than they fill me with enjoyment.

I disagree about LOEG, they're a pure joy! I might vote for it. Tom Strong is pretty insubstantial, but so well-crafted that they're still a pleasure. His run on TS had a surprising amount of soul for what was essentially a pastiche.

I think I tend to judge comics (and a lot of other entertainment) on the basis of the impression it leaves on me after the fact. The LOEG stuff is pretty good in the moment, but it feels a little flat after the fact. For something so obsessive, it doesn't feel as immersive as it should.

Argument 2: aside from LOEG, Rick Veitch's Greyshirt mini is the best thing that ABC has published (I'm such an iconoclast).

I thought I was throwing 1963 a sentimental fave/pity vote just so it wouldn't get shut out! Looks like Deric and I are on the same page.

I really really wish 1963 1/2 had actually been published, too.

I read all of Promethea in a 2-day binge and really liked it. It didn't bother me that it was the Alan Moore Classroom in a Book (TM). I may vote for it, though I should reread From Hell to make sure.

I like all the big encylopedias - From Hell, Lost Girls and LOEG. From Hell probably the best of the lot, certainly the one with the strongest storyline if you take away all the clever clever namedrop stuff (but y'know, I love clever clever namedrop stuff, and that's part of why I love Moore.) Lost Girls ends up overstating its case a bit towards the end, it pits sex as almost the opposite violence and even though it does acknowledge that sex can be scarring, too, there's still a lot of over-romanticising going on there. But it's a great read and I'm a sucker for end-of-an-era melancholy (which is what the book's about, almost as much as about the fucking.) The first volume of LOEG is almost more fun to analsyse than to read as a straight adventure, but the second is pure thrills, funny and disturbing and just awesome, so I voted for LOEG.

Have to stand up for Tom Strong, too - I don't think it was supposed to go anywhere, it was just a fun adventure book. I mean, is Carl Barks fluff?

(well it did go somehwhere eventually, with its own multiverse collapsing and whatnot, which I remember was fun as well. Never read any of the post-Moore stuff tho.)

Well, my consignment of Tom Strong to fluff-dom shouldn't have been taken as a condemnation of fluff. Heaven forbid (I am currently watching the shit out of some Dallas, f'rinstance). I think it was just kind of unengaging fluff. Moore on genre autopilot. Not terrible, but no real competition for the better stuff listed above.

So no takers on Geoff Klock's theory that Tom Strong is an elaborate, Starship Troopers style analysis on superhero comics as fascism?

I'm not saying I'm voting for it (I'm one of the weirdos who loved Promethea all the way through), but he makes an interesting case and it made reading Tom Strong much more interesting than it might have been otherwise.

LOEG vol 1 was mostly joy, but the second volume had a main story in which nothing much happens (okay, it can't match "putting the team together", but then that's the point at which you need an idea, and he doesn't have an idea) and a back-up story which was dreadful "I've read all these books already this week, and it's Tuesday. What have you done?". I really should read the Black Dossier, huh?

I voted for Top 10, because it's great at everything it does, and Joe Pi's first day on the job is one of my favourite Moore issues. In fact, between this and Halo Jones, the secret to my heart may well be sentimentalising robots.

LOEG, because, though technically not the best, it was perfect for me as a fan of 19th century/early 20th century fiction. Top 10, From Hell very close seconds.

I voted for LOEG because it's paradoxically both some of his strongest and some of his weakest post-WATCHMEN work. Volume One was a nice warm-up. Volume Two turned on the heat. Volume Three fizzled spectacularly.

My opinion, mind you. I still love Kevin O'Neill to death, but Volume Three of League was dazzling mimicry on top of a cruise control plot, that if we take the reading offered to us, gives us disengagement from reality trumping action and responsibility.

I don't find Moore's post-WATCHMEN work nearly as engaging (with the exception of FROM HELL and moments in TOM STRONG) because it leans so heavily on fiction as a work of scholarship instead of the story standing on its own merits. I could keep going on here, but I'll spare ILC the dreary details.

Now, isn't it time for a TS: Moore/Morrison? I know we've done one before, but perhaps a fresh view is called for...

http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/Neil%20Gaiman%20Grant%20Morrison%20Alan%20Moore%20lego.jpg

And now to bed.

voted promethea though i suspect the right answer might actually be from hell. loeg's the one i probably was most avid/giddy about following in real time, top ten the one i most bemoan him not doing a lot longer run with, probably the one i'd be most likely to recommend to someone also.

Batman: The Killing Joke- I always wondered if this thing actually started out as a Batman Annual that got put into a big prestige book because The Dark Knight was a huge hit. It is a classic Batman story, but I don't think it is the best thing EVER. It is just classic in that it is one of the few stories that Brian Bolland ever did, which are all classic in that way.

From Hell- I think it drags at points, but it is probably the most detailed thing he ever did. The issue where Dr. Gull takes a tour of the masonic symbols of London I thought was really amazing.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen- I have only read the first trade, but I have to be honest in that I was a bit underwhelmed. I thought it was OK and O'Neil's artwork is quite fine, but the thing seemed really oddly paced.

Supreme- There are some good Superman stylized stories in that trade, but the artwork is not that hot except in the flash back stories.

Tom Strong- I have only read up to about issue #25 and a couple of the Tales issues. I think Tom Strong is great fun read with lots of clever stories.

Tomorrow Stories- I've only read a couple of issues and they were pretty good. There is some really amazing Art Adams artwork on a couple of the stories in that book.

WildC.A.T.S.- I've got the trade, but have only read through the first couple of issues. I had no idea what the heck was even going on or who the characters were, so I could not get into it.

These I have not yet read...
1963
Lost Girls
Promethea
A Small Killing
Smax
Top Ten

Volume Three fizzled spectacularly.

My opinion, mind you. I still love Kevin O'Neill to death, but Volume Three of League was dazzling mimicry on top of a cruise control plot, that if we take the reading offered to us, gives us disengagement from reality trumping action and responsibility.

The first issue of Volume Three hasn't come out yet, and the last one probably won't come out until 2011. The Black Dossier isn't meant to be a plot, it's a sourcebook.

Voted Top Ten. Wish he'd done more, but am far more frustrated that DC haven't let Cannon write five more series by now.

I really get tired of that argument. Moore put it together like a story, and it's getting judged like a story.

Yes, I'm crabby.

OK, if you like, but don't judge it as Volume Three when it is plainly something different.

because it leans so heavily on fiction as a work of scholarship instead of the story standing on its own merits.

This is a valid criticism. Thing is, I get a giant kick out of fiction as a work of scholarship - it goes back to having fun identifying every last character in Infinity Gauntlet and other big crossovers. Maybe Moore would be writing better stories if he gave the encyclopedia angle a rest, but I can't really judge because I just get too much fun out of that stuff. Which is not to say that I think his stories have become mediocre or anything, but I do wonder how LOEG for one would stand up if it were all new characters.

Also plz no Moore Vs Morrison. Morrison would win. Morrison would always win in an ILC taking sides against anyone unless it were, like, Bob Haney or summat.

Morrison vs Mandela.

I prefer Moore to Morrison.

Joe Pi is a manipulative cypher Spielberg would be proud of. I hate him.

Apologies for the misnaming.

THE BLACK DOSSIER fizzled spectacularly. Is that better?

People can get the thrill out of fiction as scholarhsip; I was an English major once myself. But as a text in and of its own self, BLACK DOSSIER disappointed.

And yes, Moore vs. Morrison on this particular battlefield is pretty easy to call. Maybe we should do Moore vs. Roy Thomas instead...

i voted top ten but feel maybe i should have voted from hell but i have reread various stuff out of top ten maybe three, four times and from hell never despite having had it for six years (except the epilogue.)

wow but the post-watchmen stuff trumps the pre-w. stuff.

also: i don't think i've ever read moore issue-by-issue and i find it really hard to imagine wanting to do so. PROBABLY something to do with 'formalism'

The only Moore I've read issue by issue are LOEG and Promethea. I enjoyed both that way, as he can really pull out a cracking cliffhanger at times (my favourite is prob the army of Painted Dolls emerging from the Hudson River in Promethea).

I loooove Promethea, all the way through. It's got my vote!

A Cannon/Ha Top Ten miniseries is on the way, I'm told.

Yeah, and I'm very keen for it, but they offered to do Season 2 back when Moore announced he wouldn't be - we could have had one every year by now!

(Or every second year, if the work enabled Cannon to do more Replacement God in between while waiting for Ha.)

I don't understand: what earthly use is Top 10 without Moore?

(Also the distant reaches of my brain are suggesting that there has been some mini series along these lines already?)

Beyond the Furthest Precients? Or something... if it had a good team, it could be fun. They're good broad characters/it's a good broad situation.

[... ]but there's just so much FUN on this list that I'd feel a bit po-faced voting for it.

I know what you mean... while I reckon From Hell is probably the best thing there, I might still vote for 1963 or Tom Strong.

Beyond The Furthest Precinct. It wasn't by Ha and Cannon. And the earthly use would hopefully be "a comic at least as entertaining as Zander Cannon's other comics," since he hasn't been able to get another writing job since 1999 or so.

Also plz no Moore Vs Morrison. Morrison would win. Morrison would always win in an ILC taking sides against anyone unless it were, like, Bob Haney or summat.

I think comparing Moore and Morrison is kinda interesting, because to me they almost seem like mirror images of each other (right down to Moore being massively hairy and Morrison being a smooth baldie). They bot occupy roughly the same niche in comicdom, but their strengths and weaknesses are almost the opposite. To put it simply: Moore is a better storyteller/dramatist, Morrison is a better idea-man/conceptualist. I'm not saying Moore can't come up with interesting concepts, nor that Morrison can't write a gripping yarn - it's all relative - but I do believe these are the main aspects where they differ from each other.

To illustrate my point, one could take a look at two recent big works by Moore and Morrison, Promethea and Seven Soldiers. Promethea is where Moore really puts the concept before the dramatics of the story, just like Morrison so often does. However, this is what makes Promethea sort of a failure, because the conceptual stuff in it gets kinda boring after a while. But Promethea is nevertheless an gorgeous failure, and the bits where there is a proper story are still a great read. Seven Soldiers, on the other hand, is where Morrison tries to do an intricately woven story where several different threads would eventually come together to form a big dramatic whole, so it's much like Watchmen in that respect. However, in the end I think Morrison fails to bring all the story threads together in a dramatically satisfying manner. But SS is still a fun and interesting read, because many of the individual ideas in it are great, and the whole thing comes together better on a more conceptual/meta level. Now, I'm not saying Promethea written by Morrison or SS written by Moore would've been any better (they're both too much tied to the individual quirks of their writers), but comparing the two show why the respective strengths of these two writers are almost opposite to each other. Moore's way of presenting his magical ideas simply isn't as cool and interesting as Morrison's, whereas Morrison seems to lack the sort of formal skill and patience Moore has which would able him to make a 30-issue, multi-level series into a satisfying dramatic whole.

The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is that a Moore/Morrison collaboration would be THE BEST THING EVER! However, besides the reported animosity between the two (is there actually any proof beyond Internet rumours that they don't like each other?), I think they are simply destined to always exist in contrast with each other and never to meet. It would be like matter and anti-matter meeting.

And yeah, I know I'm doing a lot of simplifying here to make M & M into a neat contrasting pair, but I do feel it's interesting to think of them from this point of view.

Good post, Tuomas.

Just on Alan Moore generally - isn't he in one of his "I am never writing comics again, SRSLY" phases right now? So what is he doing?

Top Ten because it's a thing of joy from beginning to end and perfect in every respect - although I did think that The 49ers, good as it was, was a bit too pofaced for its own good.

The 49ers was well-set up, but had a too quick and easy resolution. Lovely art, though.

D.V., he's working on Novel #2, "Jerusalem," which has been in the works forever. Also, comics-wise, there's LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: CENTURY in the works, as well as a four-issue miniseries for Avatar that Jacen Burrows is drawing, about which he's so passionate that he cannot even remember what it's fucking called: see http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/?p=7911

For Morrison vs. Moore, see the No-Beard/All-Beard rivalry in SEVEN SOLDIERS: MANHATTAN GUARDIAN... I've never seen any evidence that they personally dislike each other, just that they have very different views on stuff. But Morrison has riffed on Moore ideas innumerable times, up to and including the "Killing Joke" homage in DC UNIVERSE 0.

that interview is brilliant!

Now, I did deliberately put the Hob’s Hog chapter in Voice of the Fire. I have been asked since why I did that. The only thing I could think of was, to keep out scum.

Go Alan! It it amazing that he should have to justify his book's best chapter to idiots.

Ha, I've just read it too,and I was going to post that quote!

I loved that chapter (and the whole book): the way it really communicated the disorienting mystery of so many things in a pre-rational world--clouds, dreams, twins, etc. Great stuff.

Moore has been cold on Morrison personally (and I believe avoided reading him as a result) since Morrison wrote a column in Speakeasy or some such late-80s zine saying "OMG he stole his whole schtick from teh Super-Folks!!1!"

Also I believe there's some argument regarding "I'm a proper magician!" "No, I'm a proper magician, you're just ripping me off!". Morrison's interview in Arthur a while back goes into it a bit, I think.

Which one of them became a magician first? I think Morrison has had magical references in his books ever since Doom Patrol, if not earlier, but it could be he was just playing with these ideas then, and only got into them seriously later on. I always had Moore tagged as a rational atheist until I read the final bits of From Hell. Actually, I think I remember reading somewhere that Moore only got into magic while was doing research for From Hell, does anyone know if this is true? Anyway, I don't it makes much sense if either one of them accusing the other of plagiarism, since their concepts of magic and how to use it in comics are very different. But it is kinda funny how two of the Big Three writers of the 80s and 90s would both become magicians via separate paths. Whereas the third big writer, Neil Gaiman, has probably written much more about magic on the nominal story level, yet seems more of a secular agnostic type of fellow in real life.

Moore got into magic as a midlife crisis thing (which he admits himself),so it wasn't that long ago. I'd say Morrison has been into it, or at least flirting with it for quite a bit longer.

Where is Driller Penis?!?!??!?!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Oh good, I'm glad From Hell came joint top, I was feeling a bit guilty about not voting for it.

smax is maybe a little underrated up there

Yeah, the results came out pretty favorably. Disappointing that WildCATs didn't get a single vote, though. The Tao storyline was pretty hot stuff.

Maybe I'm wrong, but would people be likely to prefer Smax to Top Ten? It's a thoroughly enjoyable sequel, but like most sequels, not quite as good as the original.

There's a hint of Moore-as-Pratchett about it. The villain is properly unnerving though, which gives it an edge.

The villain is indeed creepy, but the weird pseudo-scientific explanation for how they kill it is kinda meh. Everything else in the series is great though.

The lost issue of BIG NUMBERS posted here:

http://glycon.livejournal.com/11817.html?#cutid1

Man, that went around FAST.

Thanks for the heads up!

Not the lost lost one, just the unprinted one.

you know the way no one voted for Lost Girls... do people generally not like it?

One imagines the "hefty-price-tag-even-when-discounted" factor comes into play there. That's a lot of plasma.

Except Batman: The Killing Joke, the poll results look exactly the same as "How many people read these?"

^^having people accuse you of being a creepy pedophile is also factored into the price

I read the first several chapters in Taboo and they were crap. Never bothered to track down any of the single chapters or the finished book; worst work of his I've ever encountered.

Bill Sienkiewicz speaks about Big Numbers #3