Alan Moore on HardTalk

The BBC's interview with Alan Moore this week is surprisingly revealing for a mainstream news network. Moore is asked seriously probing questions of a sort that are rarely put to him: he is rigorously challenged about the more controversial elements in his work (particularly on whether Lost Girls constitutes child pornography), his own attitude towards the comics industry in general (and what he calls its "gangster ethics") is put to task, and - something I've never seen happen to Moore before - the interviewer actually ties him into knots when it comes to his ever-evolving stance on film option money.

There's a good selection of transcribed quotes over at Bleeding Cool but here are a couple of the things they left out that I thought were interesting.

On the rise of the term 'graphic novels':

    "I suppose in the 1980s there were a few comic books that were actually handling more adult material, not necessarily in terms of sex or violence, but actually more intelligent ideas. There were only a few of them, but the comics industry tended to seize upon them and come up with this casual phrase of 'graphic novels', but with the best will in the world, a load of collected Spider-Man stories is not a novel."

And on taking film option money:

Moore:    "Originally, I was under the illusion that the way that films worked was that you got a lot of option money, and then after a couple of years they decided that they weren't going to make the film. Which was the perfect result, the film didn't get made, you got the money. Then they actually made a couple of my films, and at that point I decided, well, I'll just distance myself from them as much as is possible."
Franks:    "Why?"
Moore:    "Because the films have got nothing to do with my books, and because the books themselves were actually written to show off what the comics medium can do that films can't."
Franks:    "Why did you sell the film rights in the first place then?"
Moore:    "Well in the cases of From Hell and LoEG, this was basically sold on the assumption that the films probably wouldn't get made."
Franks:    "Well, I mean... (laughs) you were trying to get money for old rope-"
Moore:    (agreeing) "Trying to get money for old rope."
Franks:    "Then you can hardly complain when they do actually then make the films."
Moore:    "Well I can complain about how those films turned out. Originally I was trying to take the position of, I will not go to see these films, but I wish them well. Then when I actually heard about them then I kind of realised that these were absolutely nothing to do with my books --"
Franks:    "But just to be clear, you've never SEEN these films?"
Moore:    "Never seen them."
Franks:    "Well how can you pass judgement on them?"
Moore:    "Well I do prefer to criticise things from a position of ignorance."

I'm sure there are a fair few people in Hollywood who will cite this exchange as evidence of hypocrisy on Alan Moore's part. He does seem to be having his cake and eating it too. But then, as one of comics' foremost (probably the foremost) writers, with a hugely impressive body of work that has brought joy to millions and generated a lot of money for a lot of people, perhaps he has earned the right to take that kind of approach to his own material. And it's not even as though his disowning of film projects based on his work has actually deterred Hollywood from adapting more of them, is it?

(Although thinking about it, there's been nothing since V for Vendetta and Watchmen, the two he had his name taken off...)

Comics I've Written

Decap Attack

• Good Luck Chuck

Sonic the Hedgehog

• The Elephant In The Room
• Many Happy Returns
• The Tale of Cream the Rabbit
• Robotnikat's Sunday Funnies

X-Men First Class

My semi-coherent advance review with Rich Johnston for Bleeding Cool.



Film out on 1 June 2011!

Do you want comics? Here be comics.

I have 525 comics I want to sell. But I can't be arsed with eBay, as it won't let me do what I want it to, and charges me for the privilege. If you want the lot, you can have it for three hundred quid. If you want a particular comic, or some of them, make me an offer and I'll consider it (and probably take you up on it). Contact me in the comments, which are completely open, or on Twitter. They're all in good nick, I'd call most of them NM but I haven't got a clue about those classifications really, what the comics are good for is reading. The full list appears after the jump (if people stake individual bits I'll update accordingly):

Jonathan Ross finally reveals some of his conversation with Steve Ditko

It starts at about 30 minutes into this rather excellent podcast. Here's a little excerpt where Ross starts talking about Steve Ditko's interpretation of a Spider-Man that thrives as a teenage boy, and diverging into his own opinion about a certain controversial topic:

Jonathan Ross: "If you look at what Marvel's doing with Spider-Man now of course, in the long run, he was proved right, because as soon as he became an adult - kids, and that's primarily who those books were aimed at, couldn't associate with him in any way. Y'know, I don't think any teenagers wanted to pick up Spider-Man and read about the problems he was having with his wife Mary Jane! Why do you want to read about a married superhero? Why did they let him get married, it was about the dumbest thing they ever did! Y'know, obviously I'm saying that with the benefit of hindsight, but it was stupid. I remember seeing the cover, Spider-Man gets married, I thought - oh please, for god's sake what's wrong with you."

He also says Ditko told him Spider-Man was meant to be purple and orange, instead of red and blue! I wonder if the character would still have taken off the way it did.

Alan Moore talking about Marvel's acquisition of Marvelman in May 2009

PÓM: OK. The only other thing about your previous work is, do you keep up with what’s going on with the Marvelman Miracleman debacle?

AM: Nah. I mean, other than the fact that I was happy to do everything that I could to help Mick Anglo, who is the person who has always owned all of the rights to Marvelman, as far as I now understand it, that we never had the rights to do those stories, even though Mick really liked the stories that we did. We didn’t understand at the time that Mick Anglo was the sole owner of the rights. We were misled. So I’ve done everything that I can to clear all that up. I’ve said that, they talked about the possibility – what they want is money quickly, because Mick’s a very old man, he’s got a sick wife to look after, and they could use some dosh quite quickly.

I mean, I believe that the Todd McFarlane thing, his ridiculous claims to the character have now been dropped, so it can move on. I believe that they’re going to be reprinting some of my stuff, but I’m not sure of all the details, I’ve just said, “Yeah, go ahead,” and all the money from the first book, from the first printing of the book, should go to Mick Anglo. They’ve also said that what if there’s a possibility of some animated Marvelman cartoons, and I’ve said, again, “Don’t put me name on them, and give all the money to Mick Anglo.” So I hope that some of it turns up in time to do Mick some good, because he’s a great artist, you know, the British comics scene would be poorer without him...

Courtesy of Forbidden Planet Blog.

How Roger Stern took five panels and 26 years to tell a story

The above panels are from Amazing Spider-Man #238, dated March 1983, written by Roger Stern and drawn by John Romita Jr, introducing an aspect of Aunt May's backstory that was quite literally NEVER AGAIN referred to...

...until last month's Amazing Spider-Man Family #7, written by Roger Stern and drawn by Val Semeiks:



Which not only explains that 26-year-old throwaway line, but also Aunt May's heart condition and her dedication to fostering the young Peter Parker!

Dancing in the Gutters

Via JibJab I assembled this video on Saturday and tweeted it at Rich Johnston, writer of "Lying in the Gutters", the premier rumour column for the comic book industry.

By Sunday he'd retweeted it, leading to Heidi McDonald highlighting it on The Beat (and then bumping it the next day so everyone got a chance to see it), Joe Quesada boasting of his new physique, and Blog@Newsarama declaring this as an example of JibJab used "for evil" and "at this point, we probably deserve it".

And I presume that Leah Moore did not appreciate seeing her father dancing around like a stripper (sorry Leah, it never crossed my mind).

The all-star cast of recent editions of "Lying in the Gutters": Alan Moore, Joe Quesada, Rich Johnston, Dan Didio and Paterson Joseph, take it away!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Not why Ditko left Marvel in the 60s

In response to Steve Ditko's fisking of Joe Quesada, one of the commenters, BobH, disputes the urban myth that Ditko left Marvel because of a dispute he had with Stan Lee over the identity of the Green Goblin. This isn't news to me; by all accounts the working relationship between the two creators had completely deteriorated, Ditko was unhappy at the lack of credit and renumeration he was getting for his work in creating Spider-Man, and Lee's dialogue often bore little resemblance to the stories Ditko was telling (my favourite example being the death of Mendell Stromm in ASM #37: Ditko draws a man shooting him to death, Lee's ludicrous dialogue has the gunman miss and Stromm "dying of a heart attack"). So to my mind the Goblin thing seems too trivial to be a tipping point (in fact given Ditko left a month after the Mendell Stromm issue I do wonder if it might have been that). However, when BobH is asked for a quote on this, the one he produces rather surprises me. (I reproduce his post here in full, without his permission, because as he points out Breitbart's commenting system stinks; not only am I unable to link to the comment directly, it doesn't even show up half the time I actively look for it. Apologies to BobH.)

Ditko's prose style doesn't really lend itself to excerpts, as you can see above, he constructs amazing, sometimes maddeningly complex arguments. So I encourage you go order the newsletter in question (or join me in encouraging Ditko's co-publisher to put together a collection of the relevant essays).

However, a few tastes:
"So certainly, the GG [Green Goblin] could hardly be any reason for me quitting Marvel"
"Now digest this: I knew from Day One, from the first GG story, who the GG would be... I planted him in J. Jonah Jameson's businessman's club." [prior issues of the newsletter had a contest to identify all the planted appearances of the character]
"I planted the GG's son (same distinct hair style) in the college issues..." [referring here to Harry Osborn]

This will probably be my last reply here, as the commenting system here makes no sense to me. Feel free to contact me via e-mail or my site (should be linked in my name above) if you wish to continue.

Just in case this is unclear to anyone reading this, it was widely believed that making Norman Osborn the Goblin was entirely Stan Lee's initiative - this completely debunks that myth too. (An unnamed man resembling Norman Osborn was indeed seen in Jameson's business club in ASM #23 and #25.)

Apparently this is racist.

If that's racist (because the monkey supposedly depicts President Obama - it's actually just a combination of the idiotic stimulus bill, which could really be described as "borrowing your way out of indebtedness", and the intelligent chimpanzee that went on a rampage and got shot) then what were all those depictions of George W. Bush as a chimp?

If Democrats are going to wheel out the "racist" accusation (usually the last refuge of a lefty scoundrel) like this every time anyone even vaguely criticises or mocks Obama or any of his policies then American democracy is in serious trouble.

Or perhaps the Democrats missed the hilarious yet tragic chimp story because they were too busy reading the 1500 page bill they voted through this week. Because they read every page before voting for it, don't they?

Newsarama has an interesting article on the rights and wrongs of comic book publishers (such as Marvel) putting out material involving a public figure (in this case, Barack Obama).

My question to Marvel would be why they permitted an sequence involving Gordon Brown to appear in Captain Britain and MI13 #1 (which generated a lot of positive coverage for him over here) and blocked a similar sequence in a future issue involving David Cameron.

Now I doubt that anyone at the publisher seriously favours one over the other (I would not presume anyone at Marvel knows anything about UK politics, why would they?) but this lack of equality in coverage essentially boils down to political interference over here. - especially given that it's added to Gordon Brown's personal delusion that he's some sort of superhero, "saving the world" he says, which is doing serious damage to the way he runs the country.

The Spectacular Spider-Man season two

Dunno when this starts but information for the episodes has been released. Unfortunately it's absolutely riddled with spoilers (really awful ones like the development of Peter's love life in lengthy detail) - so I'm reproducing them here with the really bad spoilers cut out. Word of warning though, it still includes spoilers for the end of season one, so if you haven't seen that yet, stop reading now!

If you really want to see the full descriptions (I recommend against this) they are here.

14 – Blueprints
It’s early December, and the first snow is falling. PETER PARKER has a long “To Do” list – leading off with talking to GWEN STACY about their surprise first kiss. But before he gets the chance, SPIDER-MAN has a run in with the sorcerer MYSTERIO.

15 - Destructive Testing
SPOILER CUT! Meanwhile, KRAVEN THE HUNTER has come to New York to make SPIDER-MAN his prey!

16 - Reinforcement
As Christmas approaches, the SINISTER SIX reconstitutes with SANDMAN, RHINO, VULTURE, ELECTRO and new members MYSTERIO and KRAVEN. All they want for Christmas is SPIDER-MAN – dead. SPOILER CUT!

17 - Shear Strength
It’s New Year’s Eve, and all is not right with world. The MASTER PLANNER and his henchmen are literally planning to take over the world! A highly motivated SPIDER-MAN takes the fight to the Planner’s secret lair. But once he gets there, can he survive?

18 - First Steps
School’s back in session, and things have changed. SPOILER CUT! Meanwhile, SPIDER-MAN has to party with SANDMAN, who’s once again looking to make his Big Score. And is that VENOM disappearing into the night?

19 - Growing Pains
VENOM is back and framing SPIDER-MAN. Meanwhile, alien spores infect JOHN JAMESON, increasing his size, strength and mass. J. JONAH JAMESON convinces his son to become a super-hero to capture Spidey…

20 - Identity Crisis
SPOILER CUT! VENOM, SPOILER CUT!

21 - Accomplices
A gang war looms as SILVER SABLE, HAMMERHEAD and DOCTOR OCTOPUS vie for a prize that could change the balance of power in the New York Underworld…

22 - Probable Cause
Some days, PETER PARKER just can’t win… especially when he winds up on a MIDTOWN HIGH police car ride-along with SALLY AVRIL. As SPIDER-MAN, his luck isn’t any better, facing off against SHOCKER, RICOCHET and OX, i.e. the NEW ENFORCERS.

23 - Gangland
SPOILER CUT! TOMBSTONE , DOCTOR OCTOPUS and SILVERMANE call a Valentine’s Day Summit . But SPOILER CUT! the summit erupts into a gang war – one only SPIDER-MAN can stop!

24 - Subtext
SPOILER CUT! MARK ALLAN. But when GREEN GOBLIN blackmails Mark into doing his bidding, neither LIZ ALLAN, MARY JANE WATSON nor SPIDER-MAN may be able to save him!

25 - Opening Night
To test security at the VAULT, SPIDER-MAN volunteers to try to escape. But the GREEN GOBLIN has other ideas, trapping Spidey inside RYKER’S amid a sea of felons he put away.

26 - Final Curtain
SPOILER CUT! GREEN GOBLIN SPOILER CUT!

Product Updates

This may seem like the most schizophrenic blog ever at times. Please bear with me...

Diamond releases a list of product updates for comic books every week, detailing the most recent changes from the comic books' original solicitations. I give them a look every week, there's usually a few useful pieces of information, but this week's contains the most updates I've ever seen, all from Marvel.

Among the highlights:

• Models Inc. (#1: DEC08 2383, #2: JAN09 2521, $3.99 ea.) is cancelled and will be resolicited in 2009.

I wonder what happened here. Were orders beneath Marvel's expectations? ($3.99 an issue for a totally unknown quantity was a bit much to ask, I think. And they should probably have been a little more upfront about Mary Jane's involvement in the book, or its continuity status, which for some readers is apparently the most important thing in the world...)

• Amazing Spider-Man Extra #2 (NOV08 2359, $3.99) will no longer contain the Phil Jimenez Kraven story. Instead, the page count of the previously solicited Anti-Venom story will increase.

That means more of Dan Slott, which isn't something I can complain about. (The Kraven story shifts into ASME #3 in March.) I wonder why they're putting so many of these out; #3 has been scheduled in place of a regular issue in March, but these specials aren't as successful as the ongoing series has been...

• The Eternals TP Vol. 1: To Slay a God (DEC08 2461, $19.99) will no longer contain Eternals Annual #1, and will run 144 pages, not 184 pages.

And the Marvel TPB ripoff continues.

• The Captain Britain and MI 13 TP Vol. 01: Secret Invasion (Reg./Direct Mkt. Eds.: DEC08 2447-8D) will be $15.99 and 136 pages, not $16.99 with 96 pages, and will now also contain Marvel Team-Up #65-#66.

Thus resolving probably the most controversial solicitation in recent memory, although I don't know if sticking extra reprint material in there is necessarily a good thing (I don't like the mix-and-matching), although this is a good one. Wish they'd just go ahead and reprint the entire Claremont/Byrne MTU run actually, it's truly wonderful stuff that most people don't know about.

• Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four (NOV08 2461D) – solicited as running 144 pages and containing Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four #1-#3; Fantastic Four #300 and #357 at a price of $14.99 – will now run 192 pages and contain Fantastic Four #358, in addition to the aforementioned contents, at a price of $16.99.

Now this just takes the biscuit. The original three-issue series would have cost a consumer $9 in total. Stick in two vaguely-related Skrull stories and it's worth about double that? Er, right. In fact with that there is more reprint material in that book than there is the main series itself. What a joke!

• The Secret Invasion TP: Home Invasion (NOV08 2462, $14.99) will be 120 pages, not 104 pages.

Nothing interesting to note here except that this is the future of comic book distribution - online first (in this case, for free!), then collected as though an original graphic novel. Fingers crossed that Marvel will try more of this distribution format in the near future (although to be honest, what little I saw of it wasn't very good, but that's an editorial problem rather than a format one).

• The Wolverine TP First Class Vol. 2: To Russia with Love (NOV08 2473, $15.99) will be 160 pages, not 168 pages, and will also contain Wolverine and Power Pack #1.

Quite the bizarre addition. The Weapon X First Class solicitation is a bit weird too. I don't like this mixing-and-matching business, just do straightforward sequential collections so people can buy the ones they want and not wind up being forced to buy the same material twice!

UK comic prices

Diamond UK is raising comic prices by roughly 15% this week due to the collapse in the value of the pound.

Here's why. Thanks for nothing, Gordon.

Colbert goes Marvel.

For the benefit of non-US readers (and that includes me!):

Shove this up your pipe and smoke it

Marvel collected editions decidey people (like you're even reading), listen up. You're missing out on a golden opportunity here. You have a nice little back catalogue of Brian K Vaughan X-Men comics that you haven't collected into TPBs because sales sucked the first time round.

So. Now that he's big and famous and all. How about making one sensible-sized volume out of the lot of them? X-MEN VISIONARIES: BRIAN K VAUGHAN, featuring the as-yet uncollected X-MEN ICONS: CYCLOPS and X-MEN ICONS: CHAMBER miniseries, his story from X-MEN UNLIMITED #22, the X2 WOLVERINE PREQUEL (preferably with Vaughan's own dialogue reinstated on the Wolverine book - an issue he complains about on his web site) and hey, why not throw FCBD RUNAWAYS/X-MEN in there as well!

It'd make for a great package (especially if you use Jo Chen's RXM cover on the front) and despite the somewhat unsuccessful nature of those mini-series BKV obviously has big "name value" in the graphic novel business now (hence DC putting out that Batman/Wonder Woman book for no other reason). Marvel's sitting on a pot of gold there!

Marvel Comics sneak peek: December 2013!

On their official site!



And for good measure, also from the same site: Tom Brevoort berates Jonathan Ross for invading an old man's privacy.

How not to interview

See this interview with Brian K. Vaughan. (File size approximately 60MB.)

Midway through the interview, artist Pia Guerra appears and Vaughan pushes the microphone in her direction so she can answer some of the questions. However the interviewer virtually ignores her throughout the rest of his interview with Vaughan, pretty much shutting her out. He doesn't ask her a single direct question, and doesn't even include her on "what are you working on now", to which I'm sure she would have screamed "DOCTOR WHO!!!".

I've met Pia Guerra before and she's an absolute chatterbox. That guy could have asked her anything and she'd have given him great value for money. Personally I was disappointed he made such poor use of her time.

It's a great disservice to the industry that most of these "comic book media" types seem only interested in the writing and don't really have a clue what to ask the people who actually do 90% of the work in them. It gravely concerns me that this may simply be the attitude of comics fans in general...

And if that isn't bad enough, they don't even spell "Vaughan" correctly in the headline. How unprofessional can you get?

Where's the wally?

hint: he's the only one facing the camera, wondering if he's ruined that guy's shot... (click for bigger)



Courtesy of the wonderful D'Israeli.

RUNAWAYS vol 3

I finally caught up with the first two issues of this.

I can't figure out whether Terry Moore is a bit of a mismatch for this series; despite his credentials as an artist these issues are suspiciously verbose. Most of issue 2 is just an interrogation. Still, he does deliver a strong degree of intimacy with the characters, and he's plentiful with the cultural gags the series is reknowned for.

Anyway, the big selling point for this new volume of Runaways, for me, is Humberto Ramos' artwork, and he doesn't disappoint. This guy is absolutely a perfect match for this series, and after a few kinks in the first issue, he absolutely nails the right amount of energy, pathos and humour for each moment, ably assisted by inker Dave Meikis and the awesome colourist Christina Strain (the only one who remains from the very first volume of Runaways).

I'm cautiously optimistic about where the series is heading. Dunno why they had to restart the series again though; the latest issue (#2) is actually the fiftieth issue of Runaways (not counting Runaways/X-Men, or the two Runaways/Young Avengers crossovers). Some anniversary!