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| Art by Michael Lindabury |
Above, a mesmerizing portrait of our beloved Bearded Magus by American illustrator and graphic designer Michael Lindabury.
Apr 18, 2024
Apr 16, 2024
La Mappaterra del Mago... THE BOOK!
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| Cover art by Francesco Frongia |
My dear friend, musician, comic book author and scholar Francesco Pelosi did it!
He revised, expanded and collected the Mappaterra series of essays he wrote for the online magazine Quasi (in Italian, of course), and they will be printed in book form! In this volume (as he did in the articles) Pelosi traces a map of Moore's work, investigating his stories under the lens of Eternalism, spacetime theory, magic and the power of imagination. You can still read the complete series HERE. I think they could disappear from the Web sooner or later (paper rules!), so... hurry up!
The 268-page book will be released on the 30th of April, published by Odoya. It's highly recommended, especially if you can read Italian! ;)
With a fantastic cover by Francesco Frongia, the volume is enriched with amazing illustrations by Italian artists (in order of appearance) Alessandro Aroffu, La Came, Alpraz, Christian Galli, Claudio Calia, David Bacter, Francesco Frongia, Polsino, Emme, Chiara Raimondi, Lorenzo Palloni, Alessio Ravazzani, Titta D’Onofrio, Federica Ferraro, Sara Vincenzi, Officina Infernale, and Rise.
Afterword by Paolo Interdonato and a foreword by... yours truly! Grazie mille, Francesco!
Please note that Pelosi contributed to the Alan Moore: Portraits with a "remixed" essay from the Mappaterra series. So, you can read it there in English! No excuses!
Apr 12, 2024
The Double Life of Private Strong
[...] When I was six or seven years old and becoming rapidly addicted to the American comic-books that would sporadically find their way across the Atlantic as ballast on cargo-ships, it was always, I later realised, this pair's work [Joe Simon and Jack Kirby] that made the deepest and most lasting impression. So electrified was I by my first glimpse of The Double Life of Private Strong, with its hero leaping towards us in a manner that elegantly avoids the hail of machine-gun bullets he is diving into, that I persuaded my mother to make me a vague simulation of the character's stars-and-stripes vest, and immediately commenced my superhero career. It lasted less than a week, but this was in no way the fault of the costume. Luckily, I wasn't fired on by a machine-gun during those few days. [...]
Alan Moore
Northampton
September 9th, 2023
Apr 11, 2024
Sketching Moore by Francesco Frongia
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| Art by Francesco Frongia |
Apr 7, 2024
V for Vendetta special
Journey Planet is an acclaimed sci-fi and comics fanzine. Its 79th issue, released this March, is a 92-page special fully focused on V for Vendetta.
David Lloyd: [...] When I mentioned taking out thought bubbles and sound effects to Alan, he got on board with it, but what he did in response to that challenge was progressive. He turned thought balloons into captions–the thoughts of the characters into the streaming narrative. And we removed the lines around the captions and balloons, as I said. And the reason I did that is this: when you put lines around them, they’re on a different level, a different plane is created above the object of the art and separate from it. If you take them away, they become integral to the art, to the whole experience of the reading. That’s not some great idea of mine–I saw Alex Toth do it, who’s one of the great creators. When he did that, the art and the script became integrated. There was no separation. They were not on separate planes. When you take away the separation, you have a completely integrated experience. [...][...] But a lot of people don’t know it was a progression that was urged by an accident. Valerie Page’s appearance was an accident.After we revealed the existence of Surridge’s diary, Alan needed to write a lot of exposition in Finch’s meeting with the Leader, and he had no firm thoughts on what art might accompany some of that. So it was in my hands. I thought about it, and figured I’d set it in the Shadow Gallery, and figured it would be a great idea if there was a room in the Shadow Gallery where V might run old movies–or maybe home movies or slideshows of lost relatives, or something similar. One of the things I was concerned about at the time was that V was not seen as having any emotional depth at all. We’d seen him as a murderer with a philosophy, but we didn’t know anything of a backstory. I wanted to show him looking at some images in this private spot that might suggest one. At the time, I knew an actress who’d sent me some stage shots. I asked her if she’d mind if I used them as that anonymous character from V’s history, and she was fine with that. I wanted to show that there was someone who meant something to V. You don’t know why, you don’t know who it is on that screen. We just know he’s watching pictures of a lost love or maybe a lost sister, or whatever. We don’t know. So, I did that. And Alan bounced off that accident amazingly and created Valerie Page which became a central part of the whole story. Now, that was an accident that rachetted up the whole seriousness of the story’s tone. You can put that down to the cultural and social circumstances of the time, too, of course. But that moment illustrates one of the great values of V for Vendetta: that it grew organically and could. Alan could bounce off accidents like that, and create this character from nothing, because when we were first creating the comic, we were doing it in 6- to 8-page episodes per month. Slowly, with time to think. There was no great story arc we had to follow. We weren’t doing it like American comic books. That is the best of V–and we had complete control. And what Alan did with the completion of it all pulled it all together perfectly. [...]
Apr 3, 2024
Comics Are Dying: The Comic
You can find all the details on Zoop! Crowdfunding will end in 30 days.
Comics Are Dying: The Comic
by Louis Southard and Over 100 Artists
A satirical journey through the history of the comic book industry recounted by 100 one-page comics by 1 writer and 100 artists.
A Comic Book About the Comics Industry, By the Comics Industry, For the Comics Industry
Foreword by Mark Waid
Mar 28, 2024
Anarchism, Athenians and A.I.
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| Panels from V for Vendetta. Art by David Lloyd. |
Wells wrote: I recently spent six hours with Alan Moore. I wrote this feature about it. But the total interview transcript ran to 30,000 words. So, on my blog, in daily instalments, I’m going to be posting the edited highlights – as far as possible, all in Moore’s own words.
You can read them all at the following links.
Selected excerpts below.
Alan Moore: [...] I’m an anarchist. I don’t believe in democracy, and I think that this [Moore is referring to Brexit] shows the massive flaws. If you’re going to have democracy in an ill-informed, massive population you’re always going to get shit like this. That is my opinion.
“And, I’ve often said, you cannot have democracy and Rupert Murdoch on the same planet. It’s like, how’s that going to work? The only way that democracy would work is if we were to adopt the Athenian direct democracy system.
“Now, I’m not championing the Athenians: they kept slaves, they weren’t perfect. But if they had got an issue that affected the whole country, they would appoint by lottery a jury, of say 50 people, from all walks of life, probably actually except the slaves, but the principle is: you’ve got a decision of national importance to be made, you have 50 people, then you have two people giving the pros and the cons, like in a court. Two experts explaining thoroughly the reasons for and against. Then you let them vote, then immediately you dissolve the jury; they dissolve back into the normal population.
“So straight away you remove the possibility of an administration voting for extra perks, pay rises, because they are not going to be the administration, it’s in their interests to vote for what is best for the broad mass of the population which they will be returning into. That would work.
“People have said, ‘oh well, direct democracy is just endless referendums’. No. You don’t need to ask everybody in the country, as long as you’ve got a representative section. That would work, and that would be a form of democracy that anarchists could vote for, because it would not be about appointing leaders. So, that is what I would favour. [...][...] there is a traffic system in Hong Kong at the moment. It’s called a ‘niche A.I.’ This is not a full artificial intelligence, in that it is not aware, it’s not going to take over the world and send Arnie back in time. There aren’t self-aware machines, perhaps there never will be.
“What it is, is a very smart computer which knows everything about its particular niche – its niche being the Hong Kong traffic system. It knows where the work gangs are, it knows where there’s flaws being reported and it knows the quickest way to sort out these flaws with the least energy and man-hours. The Hong Kong traffic system works much better than it ever has done, and that is, I would imagine, quite a complicated system. So, niche A.I.s – why not? To work out all these things which don’t need votes or opinions.
“Leaders are never going to legislate for their own obsolescence. But unless we’re going to have a Weimar revolution, and we replace one power structure with another that will be as bad or worse, which never works… unless we do that, then we have to find a way around these people. I would argue that with technology being as it is at the moment, we have the means to do that. We can go round them. We can set up structures of our own.
“Let’s go back to those small communities. Let’s connect up those small communities, because we can do these days], and we perhaps have them all manage to buy a niche A.I, something like that. [...]
Mar 27, 2024
Alan Moore Portraits: Italian review
Fumo di China n.339, the March issue of Italian magazine devoted to comic art and pop culture, includes a nice, positive review of Alan Moore: Portraits written by comics journalist and expert David Padovani. Grazie mille, David! And special thanks to FdC's head editor Loris Cantarelli!
If you can read Italian you can enjoy the complete review above (click to enlarge the picture). Below, a translated excerpt.
As you know, the 150-page book is available on Amazon stores.
[...] the essays by the various authors involved offer the reader a well-rounded portrait of the Magus [...] focusing both on the analysis of some of his works and lesser-known aspects of his personality (for example, his deep bond with the world of fanzines), delving into the literary style, sources and models of inspiration.
The unaltered prominent role of the British author in the world of comics - a constant polestar even today - can also be seen by the variety of critics, journalists and writers assembled by smoky man for the volume. International acclaimed contributors, such as Paul Gravett and Ian Sinclair, are joined by established Italian critics such as Andrea Tosti and Adriano Ercolani, but also new voices like comic book writer and scholar Francesco Pelosi.
Regarding the visual homages, we find the same heterogeneity with Internationally renowned artists (like Danijel Zezelj, Gene Ha, Zander Cannon and Miguel Angel Martin) and Italian ones (like Sergio Ponchione, Werther Dell'Edera, Lorenzo Palloni and Giuseppe Palumbo). All the portraits share the same high quality. [...] --- David Padovani
Mar 21, 2024
Power Moore by John Bishop
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| Art by John Bishop |
Above, a powerful portrait of our beloved Man from Northampton by British illustrator and storyboard artist John Bishop.
For more info about the artist, visit his official site HERE.
Mar 19, 2024
Damn them all!
Below, some panels from Damn them all n.3, a great series written by Simon "Si" Spurrier with art by Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead) and colors by Sofie Dodgson, published by Boom!
The
series includes mobs, occultists and... demons. One of them looks a bit
familiar and says things that sound familiar too, imho.
It's a real fun reading experience. Highly recommended!
Mar 18, 2024
Alan Moore Portraits - Visual Part 2
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| Art by Sergio Ponchione |
Below, the list of the portraits contained in Alan Moore: Portraits of an Extraordinary Gentleman, Part 2, ordered as they appear in the book.
Gary Spencer Millidge's cover is not included in the list (check this post about it).
As you know, the 150-page book is available on Amazon stores.
The whole book includes 42 portraits (plus the cover): and... 42 is a great number! :)
Special thanks to all the artists involved! Grazie mille!!!
Note: the links below could present the art in a different version respect to the printed book.
Click to view them all!!!
[15] Portrait by Rachele Aragno
[16] Portrait by Giuseppe Palumbo
[17] Portrait by Paolo Massagli
[18] Portrait by Danijel Žeželj
[19] Portrait by Miguel Angel Martin
[20] Portrait by Eduardo Risso
[21] Portrait by Massimo Giacon
[22] Portrait by Sergio Ponchione
[23] Portrait by Hilary Barta
[24] Portrait by Hunt Emerson
[25] Portrait by Lorenzo Mò
[26] Portrait by Dan McDaid
[27] Portrait by Jeffrey Lewis
[28] Portrait by Spugna
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