Alan Moore

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Alan Moore (born November 18, 1953, in Northampton, England) is a British writer most famous for his work in comics. He is the co-creator of some of the most acclaimed comic books in history, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Career 2.1 Early work 2.2 The American mainstream 2.2.1 A lost work 2.3 The independent period 2.4 Return to the mainstream 2.5 America's Best Comics 2.6 Disputes and departure from DC 3 Major works 3.1 Marvelman/Miracleman 3.2 V for Vendetta 3.3 Swamp Thing 3.4 Watchmen 3.5 Supreme 3.6 From Hell 4 Musical work 5 Partial bibliography 5.1 Comics 5.2 Comics adaptations of Moore works in other media 5.3 Novels 5.4 Recorded works 5.5 Films 6 References 7 External links

Overview

Moore is renowned for bringing more mature, literary sensibilities to a medium often dismissed as juvenile and trivial. As well as including adult themes and challenging subjects, he also experiments with the form of comics, employing effects unique to the medium, and creating different ways to combine text and image. He brings a wide range of influences to his work, including Michael Moorcock and other authors of the New Wave of science fiction, horror writers like Clive Barker, more mainstream literary authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon and Iain Sinclair, and film-editing techniques from the work of directors like Nicolas Roeg. Comics artist Bryan Talbot, whose The Adventures of Luther Arkwright anticipated the adult comics movement, is also undoubtedly a major influence.

Moore is also a practising magician, having become a gnostic in the mid-1990s, and part of a performance art group, the Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels. Two of their pieces, The Birth Caul and Snakes and Ladders, have been adapted for comics by Eddie Campbell. He has written a novel, Voice of the Fire, a set of short stories about linked events in his home-town of Northampton through the centuries, from the Bronze Age to the present day.

He has written one screenplay, the unmade Fashion Beast, a recreation of Beauty and the Beast commissioned by Malcolm McLaren. Two of his comics, From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, have been made into Hollywood movies, and the film Constantine was based upon the character John Constantine, which Moore created during his Swamp Thing run, but Moore has been disappointed by the adaptations and refused to accept any money for any future film adaptations of his work, donating it instead to the artists with whom he created the respective characters. Nonetheless, a film of V for Vendetta is in development, written by the Wachowski brothers and starring Natalie Portman. Again, Moore requested that his name not be associated with the film after seeing the script and calling it 'imbecilic'. After a press release falsely reported that Moore supported the film, Moore cut all of his ties with DC Comics, removing the last project he had with the company, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, from their lineup.

A tribute and in depth biography of Alan Moore in his Fiftieth Year entitled Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman is currently available. All proceeds of this publication will go to charity.

Career

Early work

Moore began his career in the late 1970s as a cartoonist, drawing underground-style strips for music magazines like Sounds and the NME under the pseudonym Curt Vile, sometimes in collaboration with his friend Steve Moore (no relation), and a regular strip, Maxwell the Magic Cat, under the pseudonym Jill de Ray, for the Northants Post newspaper.

Deciding he could not make a living as an artist, he concentrated on writing, providing scripts for Marvel UK, 2000 AD and Warrior. At Marvel he wrote short strips for Doctor Who Magazine and Star Wars Weekly before beginning a celebrated run on Captain Britain with artist Alan Davis, running in a variety of Marvel UK publications. At 2000 AD he started by writing one-off Future Shocks and Time Twisters, moving on to series such as Skizz (E.T. as written by Alan Bleasdale, with Jim Baikie), D.R. and Quinch (a sci-fi take on National Lampoon's characters O.C. and Stiggs, with Davis) and The Ballad of Halo Jones (the first series in the comic to be based around a female character, with Ian Gibson). The last two proved amongst the most popular strips to appear in 2000 AD but Moore became increasingly concerned at his lack of creator's rights, and in 1986 stopped writing for 2000 AD, leaving the Halo Jones story incomplete.

Of his work during this period, it is the work he produced for Warrior that attracted greater critical acclaim; Marvelman (later retitled Miracleman for legal reasons), a radical re-imagining of a forgotten 1950s superhero drawn by Garry Leach and Alan Davis; V for Vendetta, a dystopian pulp adventure about a flamboyant anarchist terrorist who dresses as Guy Fawkes and fights a future fascist government, illustrated in stark chiaroscuro by David Lloyd; and The Bojeffries Saga, a comedy about a working-class English family of vampires and werewolves, drawn by Steve Parkhouse.

Warrior closed before these stories were completed, but other comic companies were quick to pick up and complete the stories.

The American mainstream

Moore's British work brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Len Wein, who hired him in 1983 to write Swamp Thing, then a fairly formulaic monster comic, and also the poorest selling of DC's titles. Moore, along with artists Stephen R. Bissette, Rick Veitch and John Totleben, deconstructed and rebuilt the character from the ground up, writing a series of formally experimental stories that addressed environmental and social issues alongside the horror and fantasy.

Once it was clear that Moore had revitalised Swamp Thing and that he brought great critical acclaim, he was given more to write by DC.These included backup Green Arrow stories in Detective Comics, a two part story in Vigilante plus various Batman and Superman stories. The most acclaimed of this work was the final two part Superman story (Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?) before John Byrne's revamp in 1986 and of course, The Killing Joke with artist Brian Bolland.

It was with the limited series Watchmen, begun in 1986 and collected as a graphic novel in 1987, that he cemented his reputation. Imagining what the world would be like if superheroes had really existed since the 40s, Moore and artist Dave Gibbons created a twisted Cold War mystery in which the heroes, who either work for the U.S. government or are outlawed, are variously neurotic, amoral, sexually dysfunctional, borderline fascist and merely human, and the shadow of nuclear war threatens the world. Watchmen is formally ambitious, densely written, intricately constructed, non-linear and told from multiple points of view, and is a rare example of a graphic novel that in its scope and depth can be genuinely considered a novel in comics form.

Alongside roughly contemporaneous work such as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Art Spiegelman's Maus and Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez's Love and Rockets, Watchmen was part of a late 1980s trend towards comics with more adult sensibilities. Moore briefly became a media celebrity, and the resulting attention led to him withdrawing from fandom and no longer attending comics conventions (at one such convention in London he is said to have been followed into the toilet by eager autograph hunters).

Marvelman was reprinted and continued for the American market as Miracleman, published by independent publisher Eclipse Comics. The change of name was prompted by Marvel Comics' complaints of possible trademark infringement. Despite copyright disputes with artists and allegations of non-payment against the publisher, Moore, with artists Chuck Austen, Rick Veitch and John Totleben, finished the story he wanted to tell and handed the character to writer Neil Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham to continue. The legal ownership of the character continues to be rather murky.

Moore and Lloyd took V for Vendetta to DC, where it was reprinted and completed in full colour and released as a graphic novel. However Moore fell out with DC over a proposed age-rating system similar to those used for films, and he stopped working for them after completing V for Vendetta in 1989.

A lost work

There is a "lost work" from this period, a miniseries proposal called Twilight of the Superheroes which Moore submitted to DC at some point in 1987. A superheroic pun on Richard Wagner's opera act, the "Twilight of the Gods" (Götterdämmerung), this story was to be set two decades in the future of the DC Universe and would feature an epic final conflict between good and evil, as well as between the older and younger generations of superheroes. Twilight was conceived as a standalone miniseries which could optionally also be tied into ongoing titles, much like the then-recent Crisis on Infinite Earths; however it would also undo one element of the prior series by restoring writers' access to the various multiple earths which had been eliminated during Crisis. Cleverly, Moore did this in such a way as to leave the single timeline of the post-Crisis continuity intact.

The story would feature a world ruled over by superheroic houses, in which the two most powerful, the House of Steel (presided over by Superman and Wonder Woman) and the House of Thunder (consisting of the Marvel family) are about to join forces through a political marriage between the children of the two families. Such a marriage would make the combined houses an unstoppable force and a potential danger to freedom, and as such certain characters set about a complex plot to prevent the marriage and free humanity from the power of the superheroes. By the climax of the story, elements from all across the universe and from up and down the timestream would be brought in. Unusually, the series would highlight many obscure and forgotten DC characters by putting them in important roles, and the lead character would be John Constantine, whose interaction with the superheroes of the DC Universe had up until then (and indeed since) been rather minor.

With Moore's departure from DC, the series never got beyond the proposal stage, although copies of Moore's very lengthy notes have appeared on the internet and in print. DC have been quite thorough in tracking down and suppressing these copies as the story, though unpublished, is still considered the property of the company. Elements of Twilight can be seen in the concept of hypertime and particularly in DC's similar-themed series Kingdom Come, leading cynics to remark that the suppression of copies of the Twilight proposal may be an attempt by DC to hide the fact that they are strip-mining unused Moore concepts. Both Mark Waid and Alex Ross, the creators of Kingdom Come, have admitted that they had read the Twilight proposal before starting work on their series, but claim that any similarities are both minor and unintended.

The independent period

A variety of projects followed, including Brought to Light, a history of CIA covert operations with illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz, and an anthology, AARGH (Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia) campaigning against anti-homosexual legislation, which Moore published himself through his newly-formed publishing company, Mad Love.

After prompting by cartoonist and self-publishing advocate Dave Sim, Moore then used Mad Love to publish his next project, Big Numbers, a proposed 12-issue series set in contemporary Britain and based on chaos theory and the mathematical ideas of Benoît Mandelbrot. Bill Sienkiewicz illustrated in an intense, painted style but the workload became too much for him after only two issues. His assistant Al Columbia took over and painted a third, which never saw print, and the series was abandoned. Mad Love was financially wiped out.

Moore contributed two serials to the horror anthology Taboo, edited by Stephen R Bissette. From Hell examined the Jack the Ripper murders as a microcosm of the 1880s, and the 1880s as the root of the 20th Century. Illustrated in an appropriately sooty pen and ink style by Eddie Campbell, From Hell took nearly ten years to complete, outlasting Taboo and going through two more publishers before being collected as a graphic novel by Eddie Campbell Comics. Lost Girls, with artist Melinda Gebbie, is an erotic series decoding the sexual meanings in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. A collected edition is apparently imminent.

He also wrote a graphic novel for Victor Gollancz Ltd, A Small Killing, illustrated by Oscar Zarate, about a once idealistic advertising executive haunted by his boyhood self.

Return to the mainstream

After several years out of the mainstream Moore worked his way back into superhero comics by writing several series for Image Comics and the companies that later broke away from it. He felt that his influence on comics had in many ways been detrimental. Instead of taking inspiration from the more innovative aspects of his work, creators who followed him had merely imitated the violence and grimness. As a reaction against the superhero genre's abandonment of its innocence, Moore and artists Stephen R. Bissette, Rick Veitch and John Totleben conceived 1963, a series of comics pastiching Marvel's early output.

Tapping into the early issues of Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Captain America, and the Avengers, Moore wrote the comics according to the styles of the time, including the period's sexism and pro-capitalist propaganda, which, though played seriously, appeared quaint to a 90s audience. There was also a large streak of self-promotion, a satire of the bombastic Marvel editorial columns and policies of Stan Lee.

The series was to have concluded with an annual in which the heroes travel to the 90's era to meet the prototypical grim, ultra-violent Image Comics characters. The 60's heroes would have been shocked at their descendants, even the change in art from four colors to gray shading would have been commented upon. Although Moore had gotten a number of pages into the annual, the splitting up of the Image partners spelled the end of the project. There has been some talk recently of a possible concluding chapter, re-conceived as more contemporary commentary.

Following 1963, Moore worked on Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.s and a number of Rob Liefeld's titles, including Supreme, Youngblood and Glory, retooling sometimes rudimentary and derivative characters and settings into more viable series. In Moore's hands Supreme became an inventive post-modern homage to superhero comics from the 1940s on, and the Superman comics of the Mort Weisinger era in particular.

America's Best Comics

After working on Jim Lee's comic WildC.A.T.s, Moore created the ABC (America's Best Comics) line, an entirely new group of characters to be published by Lee's company Wildstorm. Before publication, however, Lee sold Wildstorm to DC, and Moore found himself in the uncomfortable position of working for DC again. The line included:

• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a team-up book featuring characters from Victorian era pulp fiction such as H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain, H. G. Wells' Invisible Man, Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Wilhelmina Murray from Bram Stoker's Dracula, drawn by Kevin O'Neill
• Tom Strong, a post-modern superhero story drawing on and politicizing pre-Superman characters such as Doc Savage and Tarzan and subtly implicating their moral absolutism in a program of fascism, drawn by Chris Sprouse and others
• Top 10, a deadpan but hysterical police procedural set in a city where everyone, from the police and criminals to the civilians and even pets, has super-powers, costumes and secret identities, drawn by Gene Ha (finished art) and Zander Cannon (layouts). The series ended after twelve issues, but spawned two spin-offs: the miniseries Smax, drawn by Cannon, and Top 10: The Forty-Niners, a graphic novel drawn by Ha
• Promethea, a superheroine from the realms of the imagination, which also explores Moore's ideas about consciousness, mysticism, magic, écriture féminine and the Kabbalah, drawn by J.H. Williams III
• Tomorrow Stories, an anthology series with a regular cast of characters such as Cobweb, First American, Greyshirt, Jack B. Quick, and Splash Brannigan.

Disputes and departure from DC

As noted above, Moore had a long-standing dispute with DC Comics, and he was unhappy that his deal with Wildstorm unexpectedly placed him in the DC "family." Wildstorm attempted to placate him by forming an editorial "firewall" to insulate Moore from DC's corporate offices. However, various incidents continued to irritate Moore. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #5 contained an authentic vintage advertisement for a "Marvel"-brand douche, which caused DC executive Paul Levitz to order the entire print run destroyed and reprinted without the advertisement.

In 2002, Marvel Comics' editor-in-chief, Joe Quesada, attempted to persuade Moore to contribute new work (Moore had already contributed to Marvel's 9/11 tribute comic, Heroes). Quesada had spent a lot of time courting contributors who had previously had problems with the company. Moore was suitably impressed by Quesada's claim that the company he had once known had now changed, and that the problems he'd had previously would not happen again. This resulted in Moore's approving a trade paperback collection of his Captain Britain work (with Alan Davis), on the understanding that he would receive full credit for his characters. Unfortunately, Moore's credit was omitted due to a printing error, and this led him to declare that he would no longer consider working for Marvel, despite Quesada having apologised publically and ensured that later editions were corrected.

Film adaptations of Moore's work also proved controversial. With From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Moore was content to allow the filmmakers to do whatever they wished and removed himself from the process entirely. "As long as I could distance myself by not seeing them," he said, he could profit from the films while leaving the original comics untouched, "assured no one would confuse the two. This was probably naïve on my part." [1]

Trouble arose when producer Martin Poll and screenwriter Larry Cohen filed a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox, alleging that the film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen plagiarized their script entitled Cast of Characters. Although the two scripts bear many similarities, most of them are elements that were added for the film and do not originate in Moore's comics. According to Moore, "they seemed to believe that the head of 20th Century Fox called me up and persuaded me to steal this screenplay, turning it into a comic book which they could then adapt back into a movie, to camouflage petty larceny." Moore testified in court hearings, a process so painful that he surmised he would have been better treated having "sodomised and murdered a busload of children after giving them heroin." Fox's settlement of the case insulted Moore, who interpreted it as an admission of guilt.

Moore's reaction was to divorce himself from the film world: he would refuse to allow film adaptations of anything to which he owned full copyright. In cases where others owned the rights, he would withdraw his name from the credits and refuse to accept payment, instead requesting that the money go to his collaborators (i.e. the artists). This was the arrangement used for the film Constantine.

The last straw came when producer Joel Silver misquoted Moore at a press conference for the upcoming V for Vendetta film, produced by Warner Brothers (which also owns DC Comics). Silver stated that producer Larry Wachowski had talked with Moore, and that "he [Moore] was very excited about what Larry had to say." [2] Moore, who claims that he told Wachowski "I didn't want anything to do with films ... I wasn't interested in Hollywood," demanded that DC and Warner Brothers issue a retraction and apology for Silver's "blatant lies." No retraction or apology appeared, and in response Moore announced his departure from Wildstorm/DC/Warner Bros. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Dark Dossier, a hardcover graphic novel, will be his last work for the publisher. Future installments of LoEG will be published by Top Shelf Productions and Knockabout Comics.

Major works

Marvelman/Miracleman

Main article: Miracleman

Moore resurrected Marvelman, an obscure British comic which was a thinly disguised ripoff of the American superhero Captain Marvel. The strip, which ran from 1953 to 1963, followed the adventures of Micky Moran, a young boy who was given the power to become a full grown superhero by a recluse astro-scientist who discovered the secret "key harmonic" of the universe. The strip, which maintained a childish innocence and purity, has the distinction of being the first British superhero comic.

In Moore's revival, begun in 1982, the now adult "Mike" Moran is a married journalist with no memory of his former life as a superhero. Caught in the middle of a hostage situation, he remembers the key word "Kimota" and becomes Marvelman once more. But the world does not remember him, and the simple morality of his former life no longer seems to apply. Mike begins a search for the answers to his past, which involves a secret government conspiracy and technology reverse-engineered from a crashed alien spacecraft.

After Warrior closed, Marvelman was reprinted and continued at Eclipse Comics, renamed "Miracleman" due to a trademark dispute with Marvel Comics. After disposing of the conspiracy that created him, Miracleman faced his former sidekick in a battle that devastated London, and ultimately used his god-like power to overthrow the governments of the world and institute an uneasy utopia under his rule.

Miracleman is an early example of post-modernism in superhero comics, and has a strong theme of loss of innocence. Another key idea is that the existence of a superhero would change the world radically, something Moore would return to in Watchmen.

V for Vendetta

Main article: V for Vendetta

Moore's original strip for the British Warrior comic was designed as an homage to the spirit of the British Boys Adventure comics of the 1950s and 60s as well as referencing literary sources such as George Orwell and the libertarianism of William Blake. The title character "V" appears at first to be a modern Robin Hood figure righting wrongs in a corrupt Fascist Britain of the Future, but as the story develops becomes more sinister. Moore's writing in 'V' continually challenges the assumption of moral absolutism.

Though set in the year 1997 the strip captures the feel of life in Britain in the early 1980s with economic decline and a perpetual drift to the right in national politics. In the strip Moore also innovated for comics the use of the literary device of intertextuality, with V's speech often made up of extended quotes and references that are not cited. Moore also makes extensive use in 'Vendetta' for the first time of the technique that became his motif: using secondary characters to carry forward plot development or elicit background details.

Swamp Thing

Main article: Swamp Thing

Moore's first American work was Swamp Thing, a title starring a man turned into a vegetable monster by an experimental plant growth formula, which at the time was one of DC's poorest selling titles. The editor, Len Wein, had been a huge fan of Moore's work in Warrior and had decided to get Moore to take over the book from Martin Pasko. Moore's first issue wrapped up Pasko's storyline and set up what would be his own very unique take on a former fan-favourite character.

In Moore's second issue, "The Anatomy Lesson", the title character is shot and dissected by a scientist. The scientist soon concludes that Swamp Thing is a superficial imitation of a man, his lungs cannot pump air, his brain does not contain neurons. He concludes that the swamp creature is a plant which had absorbed the memories and imitated the life of a dead man; Swamp Thing was never human. The initial shock to his sense of identity led the character to embrace his identity as a plant, discovering new abilities and becoming less a "muck-encrusted mockery of a man" than a virtual vegetation deity.

Many of Moore's stories dealt with social ills as seen through horror metaphors. Sexual discrimination, racism, violence, fear of nuclear energy, and pollution are all themes addressed in his work. The series was formally ambitious, using unusual story structures and experimenting with different ways to combine text and image for narrative effect. The slow, languorous pace of Steve Bissette's layouts, the intricate textures of John Totleben's inks, and Tatjana Wood's imaginative and atmospheric use of colour were all put to good use.

The series also revitalised DC's neglected magical and supernatural characters, featuring the Spectre, the Demon, the Phantom Stranger, Deadman and others in supporting roles. At the prompting of Bissette and Totleben, who were fans of The Police and wanted to draw a character who looked like Sting (specifically his character from the film Brimstone and Treacle), Moore created his own magical character, John Constantine, who would go on to headline a title of his own, Hellblazer, that is the longest continuously published comic of DC's Vertigo imprint.

Moore's Swamp Thing was enormously influential in showing a larger audience that genre comics could address serious issues and take on literary pretensions. DC followed Swamp Thing's success by recruiting British writers like Grant Morrison, Jamie Delano, Peter Milligan and Neil Gaiman to write comics in a similar vein, often involving radical revamps of obscure characters, and thus laid the foundation of what became the Vertigo line.

Gaiman in particular was strongly influenced by Moore's Swamp Thing work: his Black Orchid, Books of Magic and many early Sandman stories are largely derived from Moore's innovations.

Watchmen

Main article: Watchmen

Moore's most popular comic work, Watchmen , is about superheroes who have been affected by real world politics. McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War have unhinged the current superhero generation.

Watchmen deconstructed the superhero, looking at the moral, psychological, and sexual implications of their activities. His most far reaching work to date, Watchmen addressed such issues as free will, the nature of time, human psychology, global politics, and moral relativism.

Watchmen incorporated cinema style transitions and voice overs. It avoided the then typically-used comic book thought bubble.

Watchmen is the only comic to be granted an honorary Hugo award. Moore said it was his final statement on superheroes, and, upon completing his commitment of Miracleman, retired from mainstream comics.

Supreme

Main article: Supreme

Moore was asked by publisher Rob Liefeld to write further adventures of Supreme, Liefeld's violent, inconsistently-written Superman knockoff. Moore agreed on the condition that he could throw out everything previously done with the character, as he felt the comic was not very good, and turned the series into a post-modern homage to the innocence and imagination of Mort Weisinger's Superman.

Beginning with issue 41, Moore began developing a new approach to comic storytelling and the Superhero. Supreme is a complex comic, containing layers upon layers of metafiction, each issue containing further comment on the nature of comics history, storytelling, and the Superman mythos.

Supreme's secret identity is Ethan Crane, a mild-mannered artist for Dazzle Comics. When not saving the world as the archetypical superhero, he illustrates the adventures of Omniman, an ultra-violent Supreme-like character going under a relaunch with a change of writers. In the first issue, Supreme discovers he is living in the most recent "revision," as reality is an ever-changing story and there have been many versions of himself who came before. Retired Supremes live in the "Supremacy", an afterlife for characters whose stories have come to an end.

Supreme learns that his memories are "backstory" gradually being filled in until his real memories are indistinguishable from the filled-in, never-happened ones of the past. Flashback Supreme sequences are told in the comic style of the era, reflecting different periods of comics history.

From Hell

Main article: From Hell

From Hell is, in a different way, as intricately constructed as Watchmen, but this time the intricacy is not of form but of message. It was partly inspired by the title of Douglas Adams' novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. To solve a crime holistically, one would need to solve the entire society it occurred in. Moore's take on the Jack the Ripper murders is not a "whodunit": he spells out his (fictional) culprit and the reasons for his actions very early on. From Hell takes Stephen Knight's largely discredited Final Solution, slightly modified, as its starting point (see Jack the Ripper royal conspiracy theories): the killer is Sir William Withey Gull, the royal surgeon, silencing all those who knew about Prince Albert Victor's illegitimate child; but as Gull remarks, "Averting Royal embarrassment is but the fraction of my work that's visible above the waterline."

The murders are an occult ritual, a complex sacrifice using Victorian London itself as an altar. The symbolism of London's landmarks is explored in a tour de force chapter, in which Gull explains his motives to his uncomprehending coachman. Women had power over men once, Gull believes, and the irrational, Dionysian unconscious mind once dominated the rational, Apollonian conscious mind. Gull is reason's lunatic, carrying out an act of magic to enforce the rational, masculine hegemony. Following the murder of Marie Kelly, Gull claims to have "delivered" the twentieth century, a mysterious statement perhaps clarified by the conception of Adolf Hitler, depicted at the beginning of Chapter 5, which must have taken place in the month of the murders.

On a more prosaic level, Moore indicts the inequalities of Victorian society, contrasting Gull and the wealthy circles he moves in with the hand-to-mouth existence of the women he targets, the moral disgust shown at the peccadilloes of the poor with the depths the rich are prepared to sink to to protect the appearance of propriety, the imaginary anti-Semitic conspiracy theories which divert the police's investigations with the real conspiracy that controls them. Just about every notable figure of the period is connected with the events in some way, from Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man", to Oscar Wilde, from the Native American writer Black Elk to William Morris, the artist Walter Sickert to Aleister Crowley, who makes a brief appearance as a young boy in short trousers, sucking on a candy cane, and lecturing the police about magic.

Almost none of this made it into the film adaptation, which merely dramatised Knight's theory as a "whodunnit", with the addition of a psychic, opium-addicted police detective, who bears some superficial similarities to Sherlock Holmes. The finished film thus has many points of comparison with the 1979 Bob Clark-directed Murder by Decree, which featured Holmes catching the Ripper in a dramatisation of the Knight theory.

Moore has always been at pains to point out that From Hell is fiction, and that he used Knight's theory for its artistic potential rather than its accuracy; yet he included an "author's statement" in the serialised publication of the epilogue which consisted of a blown-up panel from the prologue, depicting the psychic Robert Lees confessing that although his visions were accurate, they were fraudulent: "I made it all up, and it all came true anyway. That's the funny part."

Musical work

Alan Moore has also made brief forays into music. Notably, with ex-member of Bauhaus David Jay and Max Akropolis, he formed a band known as The Sinister Ducks and released a single, March of the Sinister Ducks, under the pseudonym Translucia Baboon.

Partial bibliography

Comics

• 1963, 6 issues (1993), Image Comics; with Stephen R. Bissette, Rick Veitch and others,
• Alan Moore's Shocking Futures (1986), Titan Books; reprints a selection of short strips originally published in 2000 AD between 1981 and 1983, with various artists
• Alan Moore's Twisted Times (1987), Titan Books; reprints a selection of short strips originally published in 2000 AD between 1980 and 1983, with various artists
• Albion, 6 issues (2005), Wildstorm (plotted by Alan Moore, written by Leah Moore & John Reppion)
• The Ballad of Halo Jones, with Ian Gibson, 2000 AD progs 376-385, 405-415, 451-466, (1984-1986); collected in several editions by Titan Books
• Batman: The Killing Joke (1988), DC Comics; with Brian Bolland
• "Batman: Mortal Clay", Batman Annual #11 (1987), DC Comics; with George Freeman,
• Big Numbers, 2 issues of a projected 12 (1990), Mad Love; with Bill Sienkiewicz,
• The Bojeffries Saga: Warrior #12, 13, 19 & 20 (1983-1984), Quality Communications; Dalgoda #8 (1986), Fantagraphics Books; A1 #1-4, A1 True Life Bikini Confidential (1989-1990), Atomeka Press; collected edition (1992) Tundra; with Steve Parkhouse
• Captain Britain (2002), Marvel Comics; reprinted from various Marvel UK Publications ca. 1983-1984; with Alan Davis
• DC Comics Presents #85 (September 1985) featuring Superman and Swamp Thing
• D.R. and Quinch, 2000 AD progs 317, 350-359, 363-367 (1983-1984); collected in several editions by Titan Books; with Alan Davis
• From Hell: first 6 installments in Taboo #2-7 (1989-1992), SpiderBaby Graphics; 11 volumes (1991-1998), Mad Love/Tundra/Kitchen Sink Press; collected edition (1999) Eddie Campbell Comics; with Eddie Campbell
• Green Lantern vol. 2 #188 (May 1985): "Mogo Doesn't Socialize"; with Dave Gibbons)
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 1, 6 issues (1999-2000), collected hardback edition (2001), paperback (2002), DC Comics/Wildstorm/ABC; with Kevin O'Neill
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2, 6 issues (2002-2003), collected hardback edition (2003), paperback (2004), DC Comics/Wildstorm/ABC; with Kevin O'Neill
• Lost Girls: Taboo #5-7 (1991-1992), SpiderBaby Graphics; 2 issues (1995-1996) Kitchen Sink Press; with Melinda Gebbie
• Marvelman: Warrior #1-21 (1982-1984), Quality Communications; Miracleman #1-16 (1985-1989), Eclipse Comics; collected in 3 volumes; with Garry Leach, Alan Davis, John Totleben and others
• Maxwell the Magic Cat, 4 volumes (1986-1987), Acme Press; reprints weekly strip from Northants Post, originally published 1979-1986
• Meatcake #9 (1999), Fantagraphics Books; with Dame Darcy
• Promethea, 32 issues (1999-2005), collected in 5 volumes, DC Comics/Wildstorm/ABC; with J.H. Williams III and others
• "Shadowplay: the Secret Team", Brought to Light (1989), Eclipse Comics; with Bill Sienkiewicz
• Skizz, 2000 AD progs 308-330 (1983); collected in several editions by Titan Books; with Jim Baikie
• A Small Killing (1991), Victor Gollancz Ltd; republished (2003), Avatar Press; with Oscar Zarate
• Smax, 5 issues (2003-2004), hardback and paperback collected editions (2004), DC Comics/Wildstorm/ABC; with Zander Cannon
• "Superman: For the Man who has Everything", Superman Annual #11 (1985) DC Comics; with Dave Gibbons
• "Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?", Superman #423 and Action Comics #583 (1986) DC Comics; with Curt Swan
• Supreme #41-56 (1996-1998), Image Comics/Awesome Entertainment; with Joe Bennett, Rick Veitch, Keith Giffen, Dan Jurgens, Stephen Platt, Chris Sprouse and others
• Supreme: the Return #1-6 (1999-2000), Awesome Entertainment; with Chris Sprouse, Rick Veitch and others, Supreme work collected in 2 volumes by Checker Books.
• Swamp Thing #20-58, 59-61, 63-64, Annual #2 (1983-1987), DC Comics; with Stephen R. Bissette, Rick Veitch and others; collected in 6 volumes as:
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing (1987)
  • Swamp Thing: Love and Death (1990)
  • Swamp Thing: The Curse (2000)
  • Swamp Thing: A Murder of Crows (2001)
  • Swamp Thing: Earth to Earth (2002)
  • Swamp Thing: Reunion (2003)
• Terra Obscura Volume 1, 6 issues (2003-2004), collected edition 2004, DC Comics/Wildstorm/ABC; with Peter Hogan and Yanick Paquette
• Terra Obscura Volume 2, 6 issues (2004-2005), collected edition 2005, DC Comics/Wilsdstorm/ABC; with Peter Hogan and Yanick Paquette
• "This is Information", 9/11: Artists Respond Volume 1 (2002) DC Comics; with Melinda Gebbie
• Tomorrow Stories, 12 issues (1999-2002), collected in 2 volumes in hardback and paperback, DC Comics/Wildstorm/ABC; with various artists
• Tom Strong, 32 issues (to date) (1999-present), collected in 5 volumes (to date), DC Comics/Wildstorm/ABC; with Chris Sprouse and others
• Tom Strong's Terrific Tales, 12 issues (2002-2005), collected in 2 volumes, DC Comics/Wildstorm/ABC; with Steve Moore, Arthur Adams and others
• Top 10, 12 issues (1999-2001), collected in 2 volumes, DC Comics/Wildstorm/ABC; with Gene Ha and Zander Cannon
• V for Vendetta: first two books serialised in Warrior #1-26 (1982-1985), Quality Communications; 10 issues (1988-1989) DC Comics; collected edition (1995), DC Comics; with David Lloyd
• Watchmen, 12 issues (1986-1987), collected edition (1987), DC Comics; with Dave Gibbons
• Wildcats #21-34, 50 (1995-1998), Image Comics; with Travis Charest and others
• Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths, 3 issues (2003), Avatar Press; short pieces by Moore and various artists

Comics adaptations of Moore works in other media

• Alan Moore's The Courtyard, 2 issues (2003), Avatar Press; story by Moore, adapted for comics by Antony Johnson with artwork by Jacen Burrows. Collected into softcover and hardcover editions by Avatar Press (2004).
• Alan Moore's The Courtyard Companion (2004), Avatar Press; reprints Antony Johnson's script for Alan Moore's The Courtyard with annotations by NGChristakos, Moore's original short story (from which the series was adapted), new pinups/art by Jacen Burrows, and a new essay by Antony Johnson.
• Alan Moore's Hypothetical Lizard, 4 issues (2005), Avatar Press.
• Alan Moore's Magic Words (2002), Avatar Press; song lyrics, poems and other writings by Moore, adapted for comics by various artists, with a cover by Juan José Ryp
• Another Suburban Romance (2003), Avatar Press; play by Moore, adapted for comics by Antony Johnston and Juan José Ryp
• The Birth Caul (1999), Eddie Campbell Comics; performance art piece adapted for comics by Eddie Campbell
• Snakes and Ladders (2001), Eddie Campbell Comics; performance art piece adapted for comics by Eddie Campbell

Novels

• Voice of the Fire, 1996, Victor Gollancz; 1997, Orion Books; republished 2003, Top Shelf Productions. This new editon features a dust jacket designed by Chip Kidd, and introduction by Neil Gaiman and thirteen color plates by José Villarrubia.
• He is currently working on the novel Jerusalem. His previous planned prose work A Grimoire has been put on hold.

Recorded works

• March of the Sinister Ducks (Single recorded by The Sinister Ducks, 1983)
• The Birth Caul, 1996, D.O.R.; adapted for comics by Eddie Campbell, 1999, Eddie Campbell Comics
• The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, 1996, Cleopatra
• Brought to Light, 1998, Codex Books
• The Highbury Working, 2000, RE
• Angel Passage, 2002, RE
• Snakes and Ladders, 2003, RE; adapted for comics by Eddie Campbell, 2001, Eddie Campbell Comics

Films

• From Hell, 2001, adaptation directed by the Hughes Brothers
• The Mindscape of Alan Moore, 2003, Shadowsnake Films
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 2003, adaptation directed by Stephen Norrington
• Constantine, 2005, based on the character John Constantine, created by Moore in Swamp Thing
• V for Vendetta (in production)
• Watchmen (in production)

Moore has publicly asked for his name to be taken off the credits of the Constantine, V for Vendetta and Watchmen films, as he wishes to have nothing to do with any film adaptations of his work where he does not own sole copyright and cannot prevent the films' production. In each case, Moore had his option money given to the artists involved.

References

• Efforn, Samuel (1996) Taking Off the Mask (Tirando a Máscara) Invocation and Formal Presentation of the Superhero Comic in Moore and Gibbons' Watchmen Accessed June 29 2005
• Groth, Gary (1990-1991), "Big Words", The Comics Journal 138-140, Fantagraphics Books
• Khoury, George (2003), The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore, TwoMorrows Publishing
• Moore, Alan (1994), From Hell: the Compleat Scripts Book One, Borderlands Press/SpiderBaby Graphics
• Moore, Alan (1999), "Appendix I: Annotations to the Chapters", From Hell, Eddie Campbell Comics
• Moulthrop, Stuart; Kaplan, Nancy; et al (1997-2000) Watching The Detectives, An Internet Companion for Readers of Watchmen. Accessed June 29 2005
• Sabin, Roger (1993), Adult Comics An Introduction, Routledge
• Smoky Man & Gary Spencer Millidge (eds) (2003), Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman, Abiogenesis Press

External links

• Alan Moore Fansite
• Alan Moore Magic Site
• Alan Moore Portal
• 2000 AD profile
• Blather.net interview with Moore on magic and Aleister Crowley
• Alan Moore on Superman
• Transcript of an interview with Alan Moore on BBC Radio 4
• A flash-animated version of Moore's 'March of the Sinister Ducks'
• Interview with Alan Moore from The Onion, October 2001