Special Alan Moore Update : Rants and Comic Announcements

Welcome to a special news update edition of the Wayfarer folks!

Today we bring you some highly entertaining and some exciting news from the much-revered, ridiculed, confusing, scary, god-like but undeniably talented and legendary scribe you all know as Alan Moore. His series like Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell showed his literary power and made people start looking at comics more seriously - Watchmen still being among the top books recommended to new converts. He's also known for his remarkable re-imagining of established characters like Superman (For the man who has everything), Batman (The Killing Joke), Supreme, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, etc, etc... He even did a 3-part series called Lost Girls along with his wife that was pretty amazing, albiet skirting the very edges of artful vs. pornographic story-telling.

Basically, there is a versatility to this man that makes any project by him the subject of much speculation and anticipation - and justifiably so. 

He has long separated himself from the mainstream comic publishers like Marvel and DC and his only recent work by a publisher in that market has been through smaller publishers like Avatar/Boundless and Top Shelf and he's done some pretty good work for both of them, though few and far between for a long time now. 

Parodied on The Simpsons

So you can imagine what a treat it is to the fans that at the recently held 1st-ever Northants International Comic Expo (held at Kettering, Northamptonshire, UK), he not only attended a UK convention for the first time in near two-decades, but he announced that he will be writing a new series for the good folks at Avatar. His work for them has been pretty much on the Lovecraftian and darker, more horror side of things (something they are good at as a publisher), such as Neonomicon and Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths and this promises to take that relationship to a whole other level. 

Basically, the series will be titled Providence and will not just involve Lovecraftian horror, it will STAR Mr. H.P. Lovecraft himself and follow the various events that led Lovecraft to become the master of horror that he did. Bleeding Cool reports that it will also have a red-headed, secretly gay and Jewish policeman in an attempt to explore Lovecraft's sympathies with Adolf Hitler. 

There was no information given on who the artist of the series will be, though one obviously hopes that Moores' previous collaborator at Avatar, Jacen Burrows, might take this on. He has worked with Moore on several comics as well as many famous creators like Ennis and has a skill as an artist that might really do such a tale justice. 

In addition to this, he spoke about a lot of things from comics past and present - most entertaining of them all was this bit where he scathingly rips into Stan "The Man" Lee. As anyone who knows me, I'm a life-long fan of Jack "King" Kirby and Steve Ditko and Moores look here struck a chord. No disrespect to Stan, I love you man, but I do believe that far too many folks never gave Kirby and Ditko the kind of respect and credit they deserve and some of this is not all that far from the truth.

To quote Alan : "There was a reason why 'Jolly' Jack Kirby wasn't always jolly, why 'Sturdy' Steve Ditko wasn't always sturdy, and why 'Smiling' Stan Lee was always smiling,"

In another video clip from the same panel, Moore also talks about the legendary Will Eisner and what an influence he was and refers to him as a master of the medium. Something I personally could not agree with more.
I shared this particular video because it's the most entertaining part of his talk, though the same youtube member has the panel split into 5 videos so you can check them all out if you feel motivated and are a big enough fan of the man.

In closing, I'd like to share this quote from another site that covered this event which made me laugh:

Moore discussed his work at Awesome Comics for "that ridiculous individual" Liefeld, saying that he enjoyed his time there.

Till next time folks, I'll see you around the bend.
Cheers!

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Akshay Dhar
A writer when life permits, a music and nature lover, attempted humourist, arm-chair philosopher and random road traveller… a strangely hopeful cynic first and foremost from all accounts. Slacker, nerd, scribbler, Wayfarer and day-dreamer - somehow ended up as Editor here at CA so miraculous that anything gets out on time, shows the skill and efficiency of the writers! 
Once a young geek-in-the-making who migrated and "matured" from comics to literature and more esoteric reading and thought, eventually found his way back to the graphic fold a few years back. Loves to let his mind wander and at times it takes forever to find its way home. Loves all comics so long as they are not just pretty pictures - but will make exceptions for masters like Geof Darrow and J.H.Williams III.
His homepage - http://anansisweb.wordpress.com/