Magic Words: The Extraordinary Life of Alan Moore

by Parkin, Lance

  p54 Olsen – Modern comics fans might not appreciate Jimmy Olsen was one of the top ten comics at the time, selling far more than any Marvel title, so represented a serious promotion

  p54 Daredevil – Chain5

  p55 slobbering hysteria – AM, ‘Too Avant Garde for the Mafia’ in Infinity #8 [Mafia]. The three comics are Mad, Fantastic Four and Arcade

  p55 ranks as one – Monte Beauchamp (ed.), The Life and Time of Robert Crumb (St Martins, 1998), pp78–9. AM also singles out Stalin in Mafia

  p56 Tally ho; not too distant past – Mafia; ‘Griffy’ is Bill Griffith

  p57 Action – For more, read Martin Barker’s Action: The Story of a Violent Comic (Titan, 1990). In the From Hell edition of Panel Borders, Moore cites Action when he’s discussing the art styles of horror comics, noting when the art on Hookjaw, a series about a killer shark, was toned down and became ‘quiet and unassuming’, rather than gory, it was ‘ten times’ more horrifying because it was hard to dismiss as preposterous

  p57 Bolland’s cover – Storyteller identifies it as #11, 7 May 1977. (see p58)

  p57 I recognised them – Vworp

  p59 Ballerina – Chain5

  p59 imploring eyes – Chain5. Elsewhere (e.g. Works, p35), AM has said that he’d already handed in his notice before Phyllis learned she was pregnant, and was offered his job back. Whatever the case, the choice AM faced between a dull office job and attempting an artistic career remained essentially the same

  p60 £42.50 – Works, p36

  p60 Sun Dodgers – Moore. PC

  p60 Lord of the Rings – Works, p35.

  p60 never going to finish it – Chain5

  p61 Something Nasty in Mega-City One!! – Reprinted in Works, pp50–2

  p61 the long way – Warrior #15, p12

  p61 gritted teeth – Moore, PC

  p61 over the fence – Knave, p39

  p62 dirty doings – Gray

  p62 stippling – FE5

  p64 ageing hippies – ‘Roscoe Moscow’s St Pancras Panda’ in Back-Street Bugle #30 (August 1979)

  p64 Lex Loopy – Warrior #2, p12

  p64 Rip-Off – alteredvistas.co.uk/html/steve_moore_abslom_daak_interv.html [Alteredvistas]

  p65 Chandlerese – TCJ138, p64

  p65 250,000 copies – Warrior #2, p11

  p65 Vile – Contrary to a number of listings, AM used his own name for most work in this period. Curt Vile is credited for Dark Star, Talcum Powder and Three Eyes McGurk – co-created with ‘Pedro Henry’ (Steve Moore), as well as art in Sounds (Roscoe Moscow, Ten Little Liggers, The Stars My Degradation and spot illustrations). Some of AM’s music journalism in Sounds was credited to Vile, some to AM. Curt Vile was credited for illustrations in Back-Street Bugle #34, #42 and #43. The Mystery Guests single ‘Wurlitzer Junction’ has the sleeve note ‘featuring Curt Vile’. ‘Nativity on Ice’ is credited to ‘Kurt Vile’ [sic]. Curt Vile did two interviews – Eddie Stachelski, Curt Vile interview, Cerebro Vol 3, #15, July/August 1982 [Cerebro]), and Warrior #2. AM did little to hide his secret identity: Kultural Krime Comix features ‘Curt Vile’ creation Roscoe Moscow among AM characters like Anon E Mouse and St Pancras Panda. Cerebro freely discusses work credited to AM and Back-Street Bugle #30 had an article discussing AM’s work for Sounds

  p65 simple objects – Storyteller

  p66 solidly rooted – ‘Alan Moore’s Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths’ (Avatar, 2007) [Yuggoth], p38

  p66 wasn’t terribly popular – Comic Art Profile 3: Dave Gibbons & Alan Moore (CA Productions, 1987) [Profile]

  p66 sub-underground – Alan David Doane, ADD Weblog, 3 March 2004

  p66 glaring flaws – uncredited, ‘The Honest Alan Moore Interview’ (Honest, 1 December 2011)

  p66 poorly executed drivel – Ian Blake, ‘Drawing Up Sides’ (ZigZag, June 1984)

  p67 repulsive bilge – TCJ138, p65

  p67 out there on the ’net – A wealth of early Moore material appears on Ó Méalóid’s site, glycon.livejournal.com

  p67 Nutter’s Ruin – Reprinted in Maxwell the Magic Cat Volume One (Acme Press, 1986) [Maxwell1] and Works

  p67 a little cat – Ptolemaic

  p68 idle notions – Eddie Campbell, ‘Forward’ (sic) in Maxwell1

  p68 a friend to all the people – The original letter was in the 3 May 1980 edition of Sounds, the ‘Curt Reply’ followed on 17 May

  p69 space opera – Alteredvistas. Steve Moore notes: ‘in the third episode of Stars I suddenly found he’d parodied the courtroom scene from Abslom Daak. Well, you can imagine how outraged I was by the fact that later, when he asked me to write Stars for him, I said “yes” straight away. He was paying me £10 a week, after all!’

  p69 Hawkwind – uncredited, ‘Cult Heroes: Alan Moore’ (Uncut, January 2000) [Uncut]

  p69 Shadow as a teenager – Works, p33

  p69 meat and potato; two pages isn’t a lot; a gothic costumier – Gareth Kavanagh, Alan Moore interview in Vworp Vworp #3 (2013) [Vworp]

  p71 gesture of support – Alteredvistas

  p71 might be acceptable – Spells, p22

  p71 robots giving the thumbs up – Works, p38. In FE5, AM says once he was invited to write a Future Shock he was ‘accepted straight away’; in Comic Book Artist #25 (April 2003) [CBA] he says he wrote the Judge Dredd script, was invited to write Future Shocks, wrote ‘one more’ that was rejected, then ‘The Killer in the Cab’, which was accepted after he altered the ending (p14) and that he was commissioned for Doctor Who Weekly before 2000AD (p15)

  p72 best possible education – Spells, p22

  p72 more commercial – Spells, p15

  p73 what the artist wants – Portrait

  p73 mercenary – Vworp

  p73 SSI – Lloyd

  p74 Status Quo – Eddie Campbell, ‘Alec: How to be an Artist’ (Top Shelf, 2001) [Alec], p27. ‘Status Quo’ looks like David Lloyd

  p74 coffee evening – Kimota, p12

  p74 inch of ground – Works, p78

  CHAPTER III

  p75 May 1981 – David Lloyd, ‘From the Writer’s Viewpoint’, Society of Strip Illustration Newsletter #40, May 1981 [SSI] Reprinted in Conversations

  p75 twice as many copies – Sales were regularly over 200,000 a week and were occasionally nearer 300,000, according to Look-In editor Colin Shelbourn (animus-web.demon.co.uk/lookin/colin3.html). For an interview with Allan, see animus-web.demon.co.uk/sapphireandsteel/angus/angus1.html

  p75 how brilliant he was – Lloyd

  p76 staggeringly easy – SSI

  p77 roly-poly – Portrait, p83

  p79 remarkable coincidence – Works, p73

  p79 Bernadette Jaye – all Jaye quotes from email correspondence for this book, June 2013 [Jaye]

  p80 April 1981 – ‘Freedom’s Road’, editorial in Warrior #1

  p80 so instead of – Kimota, p38

  p80 too busy – Email correspondence with Dave Gibbons for this book, June 2013 [Gibbons]

  p81 He’s Back! – Dark Star #23 was published in March 1980, Warrior #1 in March 1983

  p81 kill for the chance – Kimota, p40

  p81 must have seen – Kimota, p12

  p81 suggested me – Painted

  p82 David suggested – email exchange with Dez Skinn for this book May 2012 [Skinn]. The reference to the ‘script’ must refer to the initial pitch document

  p82 already said yes – Lloyd

  p82 Frantic – Kimota, p73 versus p39

  p82 purely historical – Skinn

  p82 eight-page pitch document – reprinted in Kimota

  p84 nothing like the depth – Lloyd

  p84 we don’t really remember – Painted

  p84 Laurel and Hardy – Dave Itzkoff, ‘The Vendetta Behind V for Vendetta’ (New York Times, 12 March 2006) [NYT]

  p84 pssst! – Lloyd. pssst! ran for ten issues from January to October 1982, but made massive losses. In FE5 AM said that he was working on two ideas for pssst! with artists Lloyd Thatcher and Steve Dillon.
Neither of these ever saw light of day

  p86 only a first draft – Reprinted in Kimota. Ace of Shades might be a play on the title of the 1921 Lon Chaney film Ace of Hearts, about an anarchist group dedicated to assassinating the rich and powerful

  p87 established in my head – Yuggoth, p32

  p87 work out the entire world – David Roach, Andrew Jones, Simon Jowett and Greg Hill, Garry Leach and Alan Moore, Hellfire #1, 1983, (reprinted in Conversations), p15 [Hellfire]

  p87 word-heavy – Reprinted in Kimota

  p87 stunning – Kimota, p39

  p88 too dense to read – Kimota

  p89 The big breakthrough – Painted, p89

  p89 so British; – Comics Britannia: ‘X-Rated: Anarchy in the UK’ (BBC Four, 24 September 2007) [Britannia]

  p89 Zara – Pádraig Ó Méalóid suggests this might refer to Zara’s Kingdom, from Gilbert & Sullivan’s Utopia Limited

  p90 Heidelberg; – Britannia

  p93 satisfactory revelation – Painted

  p93 never had any intention – Lloyd

  p93 apart from Evey – TCJ128, p27

  p93 introducing Falconbridge – Lloyd

  p94 spin entire plotlines – Yuggoth, p32

  p94 warts and all – Introduction to V for Vendetta #1

  p95 absolute accident; – Lloyd

  p95 explore and exploit – Works, p75

  p95 up the ante – Skinn

  p95 editorial bullpit – Portrait, p85

  p96 urban mass – Knave, p41

  p96 very surrealistic – Works, p60

  p98 few comedy strips – Knave, p41

  p99 full potential – 2000adreview.co.uk/features/interviews/2004/parkhouse/parkhouse3.shtml

  p99 interest in reviving – Works

  p99 Adam Ant – Bryan Talbot, The Art of Bryan Talbot (NBM, 2007), p22 [Talbot]

  p99 Nightjar – AM’s script for Nightjar, the letter, completed first instalment and an article by Talbot appear in Yuggoth pp15–42

  p101 hated the name – Skinn

  p101 comics landscape – AM’s introduction to Bryan Talbot, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, Book Two (Valkyrie, 1987)

  p102 sleeper hit – Skinn

  p103 been an accountant – Kimota, p43

  p103 120,000 copies – Talbot, p41

  p103 print run of around – Skinn: ‘Oh, we never got anywhere near the 40,000 on print run let alone sales. But these things needed hyping up to get IPC, Marvel UK and the like to believe such projects could work, an encourage them to do similar.’ Initial estimates were that Warrior could break even on 16,000 sales

  p103 festering – Kimota, pp53–4

  p103 Vignettes – Letter from AM to Skinn, August 1982. Kimota reprints the fictional timeline

  CHAPTER IV

  p106 auto-plant workers – Chris Dahlen, ‘Interview: Steve Bissette’, Onion AV Club (23 July 2009) [AV09]

  p106 it falls short – Alex Fitch, ‘Panel Borders: David Lloyd’ (10 July 2008)

  p106 opera – Profile

  p107 Annual 1981 – Mark Salisbury (ed.), Writers on Comic Scriptwriting (Titan, December 1999), p60 (Ellis), p75 (Ennis)

  p107 planning stages – Works, p68

  p107 there isn’t one – Spells, p57

  p108 hard fascist people – Comicon 1984, transcript in TCJ #106, p43

  p108 people’s presence – Melinda Gebbie in Blake Bell (ed.), ‘I Have To Live With This Guy’, (TwoMorrows, September 2002), p158 [Guy]

  p108 the phone rings – Spells, p57

  p108 Harold Budd – Mania09

  p108 On Writing for Comics – Fantasy Advertiser #92–95 (1985–6), reprinted in TCJ #119–121 (1988), and again, with a new afterword, in Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics (Avatar, 2003 – page references from that edition). [Writing]

  p108 all that is required – Writing, p19

  p109 Enoesque – Spells, p27

  p109 must be solved –Writing, p6; 15 words wide – Writing, p24; banes of the industry – Writing, p24; wading through mud – Writing, p29; useful in some way – Writing, p2

  p109 golden rut – Spells, p27

  p109 transform the medium – Profile

  p110 high-altitude – Cerebus

  p110 morbid dread – Spells, p42

  p110 environmental reality – Writing p20;

  p110 going on holiday – Writing p21

  p111 order of events – Writing p34

  p111 nut and bolt – Spells, p39

  p111 structure – Writing p14; panel progression – Writing p9; element of time – Writing p30; broad mechanisms – Writing p13; elliptical – Writing p15

  p112 re-reading – Iain Thomson, ‘Deconstructing the Hero’, in Jeff McLaughlin (ed.), Comics as Philosophy (University Press of Mississippi, 2005), p103

  p112 Near Mint – See for example milehighcomics.com/information/grade.html

  p112 gold sedan – Alex Fitch, ‘Panel Borders: Looking for Lost Girls’ (podcast 14 February 2008) [Panel08]

  p112 giant grid – Spells, p39. The grid is reprinted in Storyteller and dated 28 August 1988, when the series was still called The Mandelbrot Set

  p113 bareback – Spells, p40

  p113 tricks and devices – Writing p16

  p113 mugger’s balls – Grant Morrison, Supergods (Spiegel & Grau, 2011), p201 [Supergods]

  p113 how long – Writing p18

  p114 scribbles – Writing p41

  p114 method acting – Paul Duncan, Alan Moore interview pt 2, Arkensword #11 (October 1984) [Arkensword11]. AM was filmed getting into character as the Demon for Monsters.

  p114 biro – Spells, pp46–8

  p114 eleven chapters – Spells, p50

  p114 first draft – Spells, p51

  p115 hired hand – Talon, Durwin S, ‘Panel Discussions: Design in Sequential Art Storytelling’ (TwoMorrows, 2007), p41

  p115 60’s70’s80’s – Howard Mackie, ‘Marvel Method vs Full Script’, Byrne Robotics website, 28 November 2007 at 2.33pm

  p116 huge balloon – Hellfire, p16

  p116 May 1985 – jimshooter.com/2011/09/chris-claremont-face-down-in-his-mashed.html

  p116 Claremont had won – ‘Moore and Claremont Speak Out On Writing’, Speakeasy #54 (May 1985) [Speakeasy54]. Claremont tied with Dave Sim in 1983 and won outright in 1984. AM would go on to win in 1985, 1986 and 1987. Claremont in 1988, 1989 and 1990. cbgxtra.com/knowledge-base/for-your-reference/cbg-fan-award-winners-1982-present

  p116 cheap shots – Warrior #2

  p117 cinema that doesn’t move – Spells, p58

  p117 Bullpen – Jim Shooter, ‘Bullpen Bulletins’ in Marvel comics cover-dated May 1982. Moore visited the Bullpen on his first trip to the US in 1984

  p118 day job – Les Chester, ‘An Interview with Alan Davis’, Amazing Heroes #85 (15 December 1985), p24 [AH85]

  p123 91 pages – watchmencomicmovie.com/121409-watchmen-typescript-contest.php

  p123 one at a time; windswept – Egomania

  p124 wheat from the chaff – Profile

  p124 hard to crack – blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/ill-lyteracy/rob-liefeld-shoots-on-alan-moo/

  p124 beetles – AV09

  p125 nails everything down – Kimota, pp84–5

  p125 one chunk – Lloyd

  p126 it’s Alan’s book – TCJ273

  p126 sound and reliable – Writing, p41

  p126 my way of doing it – Spells, p47

  p126 conveyor belt – SSI

  p127 emotional temperature – eddiecampbell.blogspot.com/2007/02/in-thrall-to-cinematic-principle_21.html

  p127 jolted – David Colton, ‘Writer prefers porn label for his Girls’ (USA Today, 30 August 2006)

  p128 annoys me – Guy Lawley and Steve Whitaker, ‘Writer: Alan Moore’, Comics Interview #12 (June 1984), p25 [CI12]

  p128 space opera – Lloyd

  p128 embarrassed by – Daniel Dickholtz, ‘M for Moore’, Comics Scene #4 (July 1988), p27 [CS4]

  p129 breadth of his – Bill Sienki
ewicz Sketchbook (Fantagraphics, 1990), p5

  p129 boring for him – Dave Dickson, ‘Alan Moore: Out of the Wilderness’, Comic Collector #3 (May 1992) [CC]

  p129 Kubrick period – ‘Bill Sienkiewicz Speaks About Big Numbers #3’, originally written for The Beat, finally published 2 January 2011 on Padraig O Mealoid’s website (slovobooks.blogspot.com/2011/01/bill-sienkiewicz-speaks-about-big.html)

  p130 who cares about windows? – Alex Fitch, ‘Panel Borders: The Magic of Alan Moore’ [PanelMagic]

  p130 five weeks – AV09

  p130 eight pages – Comic Book Artist #25 (2003), p39 [CBA25], p21

  p131 quite frustrating – sardinianconnection.blogspot.com/2008/08/melinda-gebbie-interview-2.html [Sardinian]

  p131 schism – AV09

  p131 far less complex – Writing p43

  p132 Mycroft – Arkensword10

  p133 given series work – Works, p68

  p135 out of your pit – Skinn

  p135 pop into Marvel – Jaye

  p135 I wasn’t IPC! – Skinn. Most sources suggest that the Warrior rates were half the 2000AD rates

  p136 lucrative – Quality Communications Internal memo, 24 June 1981

  p136 I’d love to know – Lloyd

  p136 blessing – Skinn

  p137 Eagle Awards – Warrior also won Favourite Supporting Character (Zirk from Pressbutton). 2000AD could only muster Favourite Artist (Bolland) and Character Most Worthy of Own Title (Judge Anderson)

  p137 no indication – Ptolemaic

  p137 right track – Works, p69

  p137 royal wedding – Nemesis the Warlock Book Six, starting in 2000AD #482

  p137 Badlander – Works

  p138 Blackstuff – Alan Davis reports in AH85 that AM watched the last episode with him.

  p138 cos he’s little – Hellfire, p18

  p138 appetite – Works, p57

  p139 superhero direction – Jaye

  p139 inaugurated – Storyteller

  p139 not to compromise – Jaye

  p139 out of place – Arkensword11

  p139 prolific output; lifeblood – Jaye

  p140 Westminster Hall – Vworp

  p141 paucity – Zigzag, p28

  p142 vacant throne – Hype

  p142 four regular series – Works, p69

  p143 Herbie – FE5. Elsewhere (goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2012/01/06/comic-book-legends-revealed-348/), AM has said that Herbie was an influence on Rorschach

  p143 Thriller – michelfiffe.com/?p=756