Magic Words: The Extraordinary Life of Alan Moore

by Parkin, Lance

  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