Alan Moore: Conversations

Alan Moore

26 Alan Moore GUY LAWLEY AND STEVE WHITAKER / 1984 Comics Interview 12 (1984): 9–27. © Fictioneer Books, Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Guy Lawley and David Anthony Kraft, publisher, Fictioneer Books, Ltd., #1 Screamer Mountain, Box 1241, Clayton, GA 30525. Since the 1979 publication of Alan Moore’s first strip in a nationally distributed paper—the hilarious Roscoe Moscow, which he wrote and drew under the pseudonym “Curt Vile”—he has become not only one of the most respected comics scripters in Britain, but also the most prolific—working for Warrior, 2000 AD, and Marvel UK simultaneously, as well as writing and drawing a weekly five-panel strip for a local newspaper. He has also been a rock journalist and an occasional member of the rarely seen Sinister Ducks, a wonderfully eccentric band which includes David J from Bauhaus. David and Alan have just recorded, “This Vicious Cabaret”—which appeared in strip form in Warrior #12—for release as a single. With the addition of DC’s Saga of the Swamp Thing to his workload, 1984 finds Alan busier than ever. Nonetheless, on a wintery day in the English Midlands town of Northampton, we received a warm welcome from Alan, his wife Phyllis, and their lively daughters, Leah, age six, and Amber, three. The conversation which follows revealed Alan’s talent to be based on a wide range of influences, a deep-seated integrity, and a wicked sense of humor, all shot through with a rich vein of honest humility. GUY LAWLEY: You grew up in Northampton? ALAN MOORE: If you can call it growing up, yeah. STEVE WHITAKER: And you read comics as a kid? guy lawley and steve whitaker / 1984 27 ALAN: Comics, when I was growing up, were part of a working class tradition. Mothers gave them to their kids to pacify them. Instead of a Valium, it would be a copy of The Topper or The Beezer. STEVE: As opposed to the posh boys’ comics like The Eagle or Boys World? ALAN: We knew our places in those days, Steve. We didn’t want to rise above our station! I think the first American comic I picked up was an early Flash. I was just enchanted by the idea of the superhero, as I was before that by science fiction, magic, fantasy, children’s versions of the Greek myths, the Arthurian legends—anything that wasn’t real. Then you get The Flash—the idea of someone being able to move that fast, the costume coming out of the ring! After that, I just bought anything I could find . . . Blackhawk, all the Mort Weisinger stuff—the Superman family, the kryptonite; that was an infatuation . Then came The Fantastic Four and I became a Marvel zombie, which was an enjoyable thing to be up ’til about 1968. STEVE: The year it all splintered apart . . . ALAN: To a degree it was a matter of Marvel losing its integrity. That’s a pretty sweeping statement, but in my eyes at the time, that’s how it was. Frankly, the DC characters had been dull for a number of years, but Superman is still Superman. He’s got that integrity and I don’t think anything could disrupt it. STEVE: Were you active in fandom? ALAN: I had a minor involvement in fandom from age fourteen to seventeen. When I was about sixteen or seventeen I got involved with Northampton Arts Lab, where you’d get together with some people, hire a room, put out a magazine , do performances. I learned a lot about timing dialogue in comics from acting, and I learned how to use words really effectively from poetry. There’s a poem by Brian Patten called, “Where Are You Now, Batman?” It has a haunting line about, “Blackhawk has gone off to commit suicide in the hangers of innocence.” It made you think, “Ah! If only they’d look at those characters with a bit of poetry in the comics themselves!” I think that’s where my attitude came from. GUY: When you started doing strips, you were drawing as well as writing? 28 alan moore: conversations ALAN: Yeah. The first one of any import was for an Oxford underground paper called the Back-Street Bugle. In the mid-’70s I was working for a pipefitting company, getting really depressed at the idea of working in an office for the rest of...