p143 wined and dined – Frank Plowright, Comics Interview #19 (January 1985), p25 [CI19]
p144 likenesses – Gibbons
p144 Martian Manhunter – Works, p109
p144 formally pitched – Gibbons
CHAPTER V
p145 optioned in 1979 – Will Murray, ‘Scenes from the Swamp’, Comics Scene #7 (April 1989) [CS7]
p145 17,000 – Ptolemaic
p146 covered in snot – Chain5
p147 fifteen-page document – Works
p147 Tomb of Dracula – CI12
p147 reality of American horror – Profile. In the video he says that Leah and Amber are six and three, therefore it was recorded in 1984
p148 phone directory – Writing, p22
p148 all-time favourite – Portrait, p217
p148 Pasko – TCJ34, p13 (1986) – AM was more generous: ‘Marty Pasko had done some very good stories: he was obviously putting quite a lot of intensity into the writing.’ (Works, p84)
p148 whole network – TCJ185
p149 hand grenade – artbomb.net/brainpowered.jsp?col=22
p150 Sampler – TCJ93, p70
p150 50 per cent – according to Karen Berger in Profile
p151 Frederick Wertham – Knave, p40
p151 Mengele – Mark Evanier, ‘Wertham was Right’ (TwoMorrows, 2003), p189
p151 nemesis – James E Reibman, ‘The Life of Dr Fredric Wertham’, in The Fredric Wertham Collection (Harvard University, 1990), p18, quoting a 1983 Comic Buyers Guide column
p151 depicts Wertham – Recent scholarship has reassessed Wertham. See for example Bart Beaty, Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture (University Press of Mississippi, 2005)
p153 two different people – TCJ119, p73
p153 incestuous – Works, p90
p154 smugness – Paul Duncan, Alan Moore interview pt 3, Arkensword #13/14 (February 1986) [Arkensword13/14]
p154 Moore’s memes – Douglas Rushkoff, Media Virus! (Ballantine, 1996) pp188–9
p155 unfettered – srbissette.com/?p=4479
p155 fill-in – Works, p92
p155 worst contract – Daniel Dickholtz, ‘M for Moore’, Comics Scene #5 (May/July 1988), p15 [CS5]
p155 $50 a page – srbissette.com/?p=4479
p156 they look funny – AH85, p26
p156 thermonuclear capacity – Monsters. American readers should note that AM is referring to the British character, who’s appeared in the Beano since March 1951, not the American character who debuted in newspaper syndication the same month
p156 redeeming social value – TCJ138, p73
p157 triumphs and tragedies – Monsters
p157 small touches – The Ballad of Halo Jones, Introduction to Book One (Titan, August 1986) [Halo1]
p157 very fine tale – homepage.eircom.net/~twoms/halo1.htm
p157 their 24p – Halo1
p157 snake pit – Kimota, p71
p157 poisoned chalice – Mania09
p158 knowing deceit – Mania09 – the ‘decision’ here is a reference to the ownershp of the title
p158 lot of arguments – Knave
p158 editor’s life hell – Warrior #16, p14
p159 offensively inoffensive – Writing, pp10–1
p159 tarnished; hangover – Chalice
p160 slightest qualm – Arkensword13/14. Refers to ‘The Curse’, a feminist werewolf story that first appeared in Swamp Thing #40 (September 1985)
p160 £20,000 – Kimota, p42 gives the figure as ‘$36,000’
p160 carrying the book – Kimota, p72
p160 enhanced, payscale – Chalice
p160 contentious – A Letter of Agreement dated 3 March 1982 allocated 40 per cent to AM, 40 per cent to Leach and 20 per cent to Skinn. As the quote indicates, Alan Davis believed the rights to be split evenly between AM, Leach and Quality (effectively, if not legally, Dez Skinn). In Kimota! (p46), Skinn says it started out as the three parties owning one-third each and he arranged a deal whereby AM and Leach would give Davis 5 per cent of their shares and Quality give him 18 per cent, so AM, Leach and Davis each ended up with a 28 per cent stake and Quality was left with 15 per cent
p161 Other artists had to – Lloyd
p161 Various people – Kimota
p161 heroic melodrama – Chalice
p161 early 1983 – Warrior #24
p161 bartering; invited to pitch; stumbling block – Skinn
p162 original pitch – reprinted in Kimota
p162 not prepared – CI12 (published June 1984, but the text says the interview was conducted in person on a ‘wintry day’)
p163 to see sense; cherry-pick – Skinn
p163 empty-handed – Speakeasy52
p164 serious aberration – Moore, PC
p164 returned his stake – comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=567
p165 Jaye, had left the company – Jaye has confirmed this was for ‘personal reasons’ (Jaye)
p165 finished it off – TCJ106, p44 (a transcript of AM’s panel at San Diego Comic-Con in March 1986)
p165 external, unconnected – Chalice
p165 golden boy – Paul Sievking, ‘The Dave Gibbons Interview’ (Arkensword #22, late 1987) [Arkensword22]
p165 Bizarro – CBA25, p71
p165 Metal Men – TCJ93, p85
p165 Batman/Judge Dredd – CI19, p29
p166 Joker – Speakeasy65
p166 promoted – TCJ106, p38
p166 faked alien attack – Gibbons says the alien attack was in the original proposal in Arkensword22, p59
p168 finalised the look – Arkensword22
p168 Dez Sez – Chalice
p168 the gang – Skinn
foggy – Lloyd
p169 bankruptcy – sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/apr/21/pacific-comics-the-inside-story-plus-indie-comic-h/
p169 Creation Convention – AM’s account appeared in ‘Comics USA – An Impossibly Rich Celebrity’s Guide’ in Escape #6 (1984). [Escape] He mentions the collapse of Pacific Comics
p169 my greatest mistake – Exit, p30
p170 baffled and shocked – Skinn
p170 divided neatly – As part of the initial agreement at Warrior, Dez Skinn got (and continues to receive) a 1 per cent cut of royalties for V for Vendetta, including film, DVD and merchandising rights. AM’s ‘far poorer deal’ has ended up making far more money for Skinn than the deals Skinn cut in the US have for AM
p171 sympathy – Kimota, p44
p171 comparative trivialities – Miracleman #2
p172 Liberators – Amazing Heroes Preview Special 1985 [AHPS85], p125
p172 masterpiece – Kimota, p112
p172 March 1986 – V for Vendetta #6 had one chapter that hadn’t been published in Warrior, but AM had written it two years before for Warrior #27.
p172 sticking point – TCJ95, p13
p172 no contracts – comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=567Alan
p173 bottom of a drawer – Exit
p173 suggested by Moore – TCJ99, p26
p173 deserter – TCJ106, p45
p174 excited about – The Ballad of Halo Jones, Introduction to Book Two (Titan, October 1986)
p174 concessions – Arkensword13/14
p174 Epic Illustrated – Epic was a division of Marvel. AM had signed to write the story, with Rick Veitch as artist, by August 1984 (he mentions it in Escape). It was therefore commissioned before he vowed not to work for Marvel
p174 summer of 1985 – Knave
p175 £30,000 – Barry Kavanagh, ‘The Alan Moore interview’, Blather (17 October 2000) [Blather]
p175 turnaround – Craig Bromberg, The Wicked Ways of Malcolm McLaren (Harper and Row, 1989) [Wicked]
p175 walnut coloured – George Khoury, ‘The Supreme Writer: Alan Moore’, Jack Kirby Collector #30, p33
p176 Superman graphic novel is an odd way to describe Superman Annual #11, but this would seem to be what AM is referring to
p176 serious literature – AHS
P85, p5
p176 Dodgem Logic – CBA25, p66. #1 was to feature ‘Convention Tension’, a ‘very, very vicious’ story set at a comics convention, #2 a biography of Aubrey Beardsley. This incarnation of Dodgem Logic would not materialise. Moore also pitched Dodgem Logic to First Comics, including work involving 2000AD artists Mike McMahon and Kevin O’Neill.
p176 ceased all contact – TCJ106, p44
p176 protests/refusals – ‘Alan Davis talks Miracleman’, Comic Book Resources (5 November 2001) [CBR01]
p176 hadn’t bothered telling – Marvel had been reprinting Doctor Who strips in America. In Doctor Who #14 (November 1985), they reprinted AM’s ‘Black Legacy’. However – somewhat to the parent company’s surprise – Marvel UK’s contracts were not work-for-hire. AM retained copyright of the script (and Lloyd the artwork). TCJ102, p19.
p177 purposely avoided – Moore, PC
p177 95,000 – lh3.ggpht.com/--jhneWpXfcM/TsL7lEDsg6I/AAAAAAAAA1w/2eHFmZsAmPY/s1600/dc-sales-analysis.jpg
p177 intentions – Letter from Skinn to AM, dated 16 July 1985
p177 solid friendship – CBR01
p177 sold his share; sold out his rights – Kimota, p113 and p16 respectively
p178 legally bound – Speakeasy57
p178 safer long-term bet – Dezskinn.com
p179 whip up a storm – Skinn
p179 distraught – Chalice
p179 retrospect – Moore, PC
p180 short shrift – Speakeasy57
p180 August 1985 – Kimota, p45
p180 actually owed – Kimota, p55
p180 shabbily – graphicnovelreporter.com/content/looking-back-alan-davis-interview
p180 Dez, why don’t you – This probably happened at UKCAC 1986, held in London in late August that year. Talbot, AM and Skinn were all in attendance.
p181 soured – Kimota, p16
p181 March 1985 – Arkensword22
p181 ninety-one pages – as reported in AHPS85, p125. In Speakeasy54 AM claims 164 pages. However, there’s visual confirmation in Watching that the last page is p91
p181 six issues – TCJ106, p38
CHAPTER VI
p184 bloodsplattered – Arkensword22
p184 greetings card – Mustard, p16. The card slightly misquotes the start as ‘life isn’t divided into genres’
p185 gritty, grim – AH85, p125
p185 dark take – Works, p110
p185 jail sentence – Works, p120
p186 chuckle – Stanley Wiater and Stephen R. Bissette, Comic Book Rebels (Donald I. Fine, 1993), pp170–1 [Rebels]
p186 identity and magic – Annalisa Di Liddo, Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel, (University Press of Mississippi, 2009), p62. [DiLiddo]
p186 Jack B Quick – Works, p185
p187 I’m handsome – Cerebro
p187 nuclear warheads – Steve Moore wrote the last instalment of The Stars My Degradation and Three Eyes McGurk
p187 heavy irony – The End is Nigh #2 (2005) [Nigh]
p188 Dredd – forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=1020
p189 black sense – Martin Barker and Kate Brooks, Knowing Audiences: Judge Dredd (University of Luton, 2005), pp206–7
p190 sight dramatics – Works, p110
p191 different meanings – Nigh
p191 musicians – Mary Borsellino, ‘How the Ghost of You Clings: Watchmen and Music’ (p24), in Richard Bensam (ed.), Minutes to Midnight: Twelve Essays on Watchmen (CreateSpace, 2011) [Bensam]
p191 supposed to be funny – robertmayerauthor.net/Page_2.html (quote has been amended on his website)
p192 subconsciously – Lance Parkin, Alan Moore (Pocket Essentials, 2002), p15
p192 untenable concept – TCJ119
p192 only a cloak – Afterword to the Graphitti edition of Watchmen
p194 afflictions – Daniel Dickholtz, Man and Overman, Starlog #114 (January 1987) [Starlog], p26
p194 staggeringly complex – NYT
p194 conventional Hollywood – Supergods, p204
p195 are not real characters – CBA25, p39
p195 sniggering – Mustard, p16
p196 ‘This Vicious Cabaret’ – V for Vendetta, prologue to Book Two
p196 cruel man – User ‘Matt’ on bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/03/02/whos-watching-the-watchmen-reviewers/ on criticism of the meat cleaver scene in the movie: ‘You mean, as opposed to try to understand the pedophile? I’ll take the meat cleaver appoach. In fact, if the meat cleaver approach was more prevalent, I’ll lay odds there would be far less pedophiles. The graphic novel was a masterstroke and I thought, pretty well balanced, as it takes shots at both sides of the aisle. Arguably, Rorsharch is the hero of the piece and his refusal to back down in the face of evil and compromise is inspiring.’
p197 distinctive views – Works, p113
p197 Manhattan is dark – Works, p121
p197 fascistic notions – Starlog, p26
p197 sexually assaulted – Escape, pp45–7
p198 ‘Son of Sam’ – Christopher Sharrett, ‘Alan Moore’ (Comics Interview #65, 1988) [CI65]. Reprinted in Conversations
p199 crank file – Watchmen #10, p 24
p199 better dead – Ironically, the two staff members of the right-wing New Frontiersman newspaper are the only two New Yorkers who survive
p199 effeminate – Gene Phillips, ‘Blotting Out Reality’, in Bensam
p200 ‘Big Joke’ – John Loyd, ‘The Last Laugh’, in Bensam
p201 stamp album – Writing, pp24–5
p202 ‘Dark Riders of Mordor’ – John Coulthart, Strange Things Are Happening, vol. 1, #2 (May/June 1988) [Coulthart88]
p203 drug-addled – Zigzag, p29
p203 bad mood – Tasha Robinson, ‘Alan Moore Interview’, Onion AV Club (24 October 2001) [AV01] Reprinted in Conversations.
p203 lucidity – Nigh
CHAPTER VII
p205 finally came – Darrel Boatz, ‘Alan Moore’, Comics Interview #48 (1987) [CI48]. The interview was conducted after Watchmen #11 was published. AM: ‘I finished Watchmen a little over a week ago, Dave Gibbons has finished the artwork.’ Gibbons was drawing thumbnails for page 16 of #12 on 17 April 1987 according to TCJ116 (p101). In his afterword to the Graphitti edition, dated January 1988, AM says it is ‘twelve months’ since he finished the script for Watchmen #12. The discrepancy might be that AM finished the script in January but there was additional work for him to do on the project after he delivered the last script
p205 taxi – TCJ116, p101
p206 quintessentially – Neil Gaiman, ‘Every Picture Book Tells A Story’, Today (27 July 1986)
p206 fearsome – Don Watson, ‘Shazam! The Hero Breaks Down’, Observer (November 1986) [Observer86]
p207 Eisner – 2000adreview.co.uk/features/interviews/2006/goldkind/igor-goldkind.shtml
p207 doing well – Moore, PC
p208 I felt weird – Ptolemaic
p208 experimental relationship – newsarama.com/pages/Other_Publishers/Mirror_Love.htm
p208 undeserved adulation – Knave, p41
p209 Megastar – Roger Sabin, Adult Comics: An Introduction (Routledge, 1993), p95 [Sabin]
p209 a series called Minutemen – Starlog
p209 a fortune on Watchmen 2 – CI65, p31
p210 ownership position – FA100
p210 1 per cent royalty – Sabin, p267
p210 Greenpeace – Maxwell1
p210 written in 1985 – Marv Wolfman reported (Amazing Heroes #135, February 1988) that he’d stayed at Bolland’s house ‘two years ago’ and Bolland had begun drawing it by that point. In Speakeasy65 (1986), Bolland had said the project had started in 1985, but there had been ‘a lot of tedious holdups, so the artwork wasn’t started until quite a long way into this year’
p210 two-thirds – If Dez Skinn is correct that AM, Leach and Davis each had a 28 per cent share, with Quality owning 15 per cent, and Davis literally ‘gave his share to Garry Leach’, Leach would have end
ed up with 56 per cent. If, as Davis believes, he, AM, Leach and Quality each had 25 per cent, then Leach would have ended up with 50 per cent. What seems to have happened, formally or not, is that once Davis gave up his share, the deal reverted to the terms before Davis was involved – a third each for AM, Leach and Skinn. This is consistent with Clause 3 of AM’s contract with Eclipse, which states that the Writer (AM) and Artist ‘shall for the duration of their work on the series, jointly own one-third and Eclipse shall own two-thirds’ of the characters and trademarks
p211 Crichton – See Jenette Kahn’s letter of 1 July 1985 reprinted in Watching, p124
p211 no time pressure – Arkensword22
p211 revamped version – site.supermanthrutheages.com/History/end.php
p212 late 1986 – Moore’s Twilight pitch: ‘While I understand that Paul is attempting to sort out the Legion/Superboy problems over in LSH at the moment’, a reference to Paul Levitz’s story in Superman #8, Action Comics #591 and Legion of Superheroes #38 (August–September 1987). AM also speaks of Legends (August 1986–January 1987) as though it’s current
p212 whatever we wanted – Works, p121
p212 necessarily my friends – Works, p123
p213 smiley button – DC also issued a four-button set (a radiation sign, an ‘ego ipse custodes custodio’, a Rorschach pattern, a doomsday clock) and sold them for $4.95, as a limited edition of 10,000. It’s widely reported that DC tried to classify this set as a ‘promotional item’, but in Watching (p243) Gibbons states that while he and AM had no involvement in producing the set, they did receive the royalties due
p214 eventual resolution – Watching, p243
p214 sum equivalent to – Gibbons
p214 bits of meanness – Works p125. As a benchmark, the limited edition button set sold 10,000 units and retailed for $4.95. Moore and Gibbons split 8 per cent of that, so AM would have been paid roughly $2000 (around £1340 at 1987 exchange rates). That is comparable with what AM was getting for writing two issues of Swamp Thing, given Stephen Bissette’s recollection (AV09) that Moore was paid around $50 a page
p214 lifespan – TCJ116, pp84–5
p215 rights to it forever – Works, p123
p215 received the contract – Gibbons
p215 competent business people – Kurt Amacker, ‘Interview with Alan Moore’, Seraphemera (March 2012) [Seraphemera]
p216 over 100,000 copies – George Gene Gustines, ‘Film Trailer Aids Sales of Watchmen Novel’, New York Times, 13 August 2008
Magic Words: The Extraordinary Life of Alan Moore Page 49