A D Jameson—
If you haven’t read Alan Moore’s (supposed) last interview, I highly recommend it. He defends his League character the Galley-Wag, responds to accusations that he’s “rape-obsessed,” then spends upwards of ten thousand words unloading on Grant Morrison.
Good stuff.
Just out of curiosity, Adam, what do you think of Moore? Besides, perhaps, a complete endorsement of his rant about Morrison.
I didn’t read the last portion because I don’t care about Morrison or Moore’s thoughts on him, but the first bit was interesting. I agree that sweeping, wholesale attitudes towards depictions of “sensitive” topics are basically doomed to inconsistency. People nevertheless try to frame and filter their emotional reactions into logical semantics.
Alan Moore is one of my favorite comics writers. I haven’t read everything he’s done—e.g., I’ve never read Marvelman (aka Miracleman), but I’ve admired everything that I have read by the man. I of course love his big important works—V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, Watchmen, From Hell, The Killing Joke, Lost Girls, The League, and so on. But my favorite work of his might be his Superman comic “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” which I think is, hands down, one of the single-best comics I’ve ever read.
By way of contrast, I’ll admit I’ve never cared much for Grant Morrison’s work. I enjoyed to some extent his runs on Doom Patrol, New X-Men, and All-Star Superman. But while the man admittedly has some good ideas now and then, I think his writing itself is lazy and never all that well crafted. Instead, he’s always struck me as someone who tries coming up with “flashy” lines/ideas (or just steals them from other writers), then has one character voice that line/idea to another via dialogue (“the Christopher Nolan approach”). And then the comic moves on to the next clever line/idea—he doesn’t care to investigate comics writing or the craft of fiction itself. Whereas Moore is always poking and prodding at every aspect of comics writing, exploring ways he can innovate with them.
Me, I know which of the two I’d rather read. Sadly, most comics I look at these says seems to be more about characters saying weird/provocative things to one another, than about innovation/craft (especially the superhero stuff).
… As far as all the other stuff in the interview goes, I’m not familiar with any of the actual people involved. I’ve heard a few suggest that the journalist has been misrepresented; I can’t judge either way. But I am interested in Moore’s defenses of his own interests (though I haven’t seen the criticisms people have made of him—I’m pretty out of the comics scene these days).