Alan Moore and Watchmen hysteria
Alan Moore and Watchmen hysteria
I’m not much of a comic book fan… except maybe just about anything I have seen written by Alan Moore. He wrote the novel which was made into “V for Vendetta”, although he pretty much distanced himself from the production before it was released, something about artistic differences. The movie was still bad ass but I have no idea how it departed from the original text. I’ve downloaded an electronic copy in case I find myself wanting to read a book online.
He also wrote something called “Promethea”. If I had to recommend something to a teen or 20-something that summarized my Thelemic and gnostic religious views, I would point him at Promethea before I would torture him or her with Crowley. Moore is the only completely “out” ceremonial magickian with a mundane following that I know of. He’s also got some amazing spoken word stuff on a magickal theme, you can find them on your favorite P2P network if you look for “Alan Moore”.
Moore also wrote a three-piece bit called “Lost Girls” which has Alice in Wonderland, Wendy from Peter Pan and Dorothy from Wizard of Oz meeting in a hotel in eastern europe just before WWI. It’s a lesbian love-fest, with Alice being an elderly aristodyke, Wendy in a loveless marriage, and Dorothy a sweet young innocent who is still discovering her sexuality. You can find the first two of three of these in a bit-torrent, and it is infuriating that I have not been able to find the third part anywhere. I can’t help wondering if it wasn’t Alan Moore or someone else with a monetary interest who partially leaked this, assuming that you’ll go buy it for the raucous conclusion. As far as I know, it is only available in a $50+ deluxe bound edition.
Now the world is being introduced to Watchmen. With a rabid following that rivals the Lord of the Rings, this is being billed as the “most celebrated graphic novel of all time”. As it turns out, this was my first introduction to Moore when a co-worker lent me his compilation copy. I pretty much destroyed it in the process of reading it, but it painted a picture of an amazing world in which there was not one but a whole bunch of “science heroes” with names like Nite Owl, Spectre, Ozymandias, Dr Manhattan, Comedian and Rohrschach. Oh yeah, and science villains, too. This is not the Super Friends, but in this world, the masked crusaders have been outlawed, yet they have not gone quietly into the night (that would be no fun and a very short story). I can’t help recalling the speeches which appear in the recent “Hellboy 2” and “Dark Knight” movies in which the “bad guy” tries to explain to the “good guy” that he (the good guy) is just as much a freak as the bad guy, and that the “normals” are going to turn on him. This is where the normals have turned, and what happened next. The buzz around this is spreading because of its pairing up with Dark Knight. It is increasingly hard to find in bookstores, and allegedly it is #2 on Amazon.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/comic_con_2008/news/1743960/ has a very detailed analysis of the trailer, with some specific references to the novel.
The release of Watchmen is slated for release 3/6/9. only how many more days?