Alan Moore is the bestest!

[Shoegaze99]

There are threads on some of his specific works, but none on the broader scope of his work (or the man himself, for that matter) ... so here it is.

For my money, there is no better writer in the history of comics, nor any writer with a longer resume of simply fantastic work under his belt. He has created not one, not two, but at least five works that are as good as the art form gets:

Watchmen
V For Vendetta
From Hell
Promethea
Swamp Thing

Any of these five can be argued as being landmark comics, worth reading not just for comics fans, but for anyone interested in intelligent, well-crafted work. Many call Watchmen the greatest superhero story ever, a release that helped change the face of comics; V For Vendetta is dystopian brilliance, poetic and challenging; From Hell is one of the great works in comic history, layered and detailed in a way that lousy film never was; Promethea is a recent work, but already stands as a remarkable achievement for comics, utilizing the form in ways few others could pull off; and Swamp Thing was totally revolutionary for its time, a brilliant work that took a B-grade character and worked wonders with "him".

Even his 'secondary" work is light years ahead of most other comic writers:

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Tom Strong
Top Ten
The Forty-Niners
Miracleman
Batman: Killing Joke
Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?
Supreme
Lost Girls
1963
Captain Britain

He can switch gears from sepia-toned nostalgia designed to harken back to the Golden Age of comics to grim realism to pure artful fancying; parody; humor; drama; adventure. He's done it all and done it well.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Watchmen is quite possibly the high point of the comic as a literary form - I haven't read the other major works listed, but of the secondaries, Killing Joke I found somewhat disappointing - pretty much run-of-the-mill Batman story of no distinction.

The Superman episodes I believe are the ones written just before the big DC Universe changeover, and were effectively "what if" stories? Interesting, but it keeps within the Superman format and again I'm not sure he does anything there that any other writer could have done.

Maybe the problem I have is that I was introduced to the post-Moore world of Sandman and Hellblazer - so I was already reading boundaries broken, rather than seeing them challenged so that they could follow in the first place.

I guess perhaps even pioneers can look outdated?

Or is that overly critical?

 

[Shoegaze99]

I guess perhaps even pioneers can look outdated?

Or is that overly critical?

Not overly critical, just wrong.

Honestly, there is nothing dated at all about V For Vendetta, which remains a better work than much of what it went on to influence, or From Hell, which is a remarkable accomplishment by any measure. Swamp Thing continues to be as good as most Vertigo titles despite pre-dating the Vertigo imprint by a good number of years, and Promethea ... well, considering that it's current, it's rather hard for it to be dated. That, and the fact that it pushes what can be done with the comic form about as well as anything Moore has done, and "dated" is the last word I'd use. On a technical and structural level, it's as impressive as Watchmen.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

What Post-Moore world? Superhero comics by and large have hardly grown up since the 80s! They've just become more self-important, ponderous, violent and grimey. I speak in generalisms, by the way. I realise there are many honourable exceptions.

Moore could and can write intelligent, thought-provoking stories that were and are also wonderfuly gripping entertainments.

League, while one of his 'lesser' works is decidedly on par with some of the best work being done in mainstream comics at the time (things like Fables or Y The Last Man, if you want an idea of my critical yardstick here).

It's time, I think, to see Moore less as the writer who punched holes in the superhero tradition and more for the excellent, intelligent storyteller he is. Far more than just another tread-on-the-past revisionist (I'm thinking of some of Miller's worse moments here) he is a genuine fictional visionary, and I am exceedingly glad that he chose to work in the comics medium, because it's a medium I love, but it certainly has no excess of practitioners who may truly be called geniuses working in it.

 

[Shoegaze99]

It's time, I think, to see Moore less as the writer who punched holes in the superhero tradition and more for the excellent, intelligent storyteller he is. Far more than just another tread-on-the-past revisionist (I'm thinking of some of Miller's worse moments here) he is a genuine fictional visionary, and I am exceedingly glad that he chose to work in the comics medium, because it's a medium I love, but it certainly has no excess of practitioners who may truly be called geniuses working in it.

It's unfortunate that in the eyes of many, that's all Moore is: A guy who "deconstructed" superheroes. (If you browse the cringe-inducing John Byrne message board, you'll find that all anyone, most notably head Moore-hater John Byrne, thinks.) Unfortunate because the scope of his career is far deeper than that. Heck, even within the narrow confines of the superhero genre, he did far more than "deconstruct." Wonderful Golden Age homages like Supreme or pitch-perfect parodies like 1963 are hardly superhero deconstruction.

Moore is, first and foremost, a dazzling storyteller who utilizes the specific strengths of the comics medium to his fullest advantage. It's really that latter point, when coupled with his remarkable skill and vision, that makes him the incredible creator he is. Some of his methods of story structure or page layout are mind-boggling. Promethea is littered with such examples.

Knivesout, I think we're on the same page here, as the two series you mention (Y and Fables) are two of the last mainstream series I follow with any sort of devotion. And you're right, here, 20 years after the work that made Moore a legend, he's still producing work that can stand side-by-side with the best of what's on the shelves right now, as League demonstrates. Even better, the work he's doing now bears no resemblance to what he did before. Far from staying stagnant, this is a guy who has grown, constantly pushing himself to try new things and styles and techniques and genres. While so many writers walk the “imitate Watchmen” treadmill (all while failing to understand that “grim and gritty” was the most minor of things that made it special), the creator of Watchman moved on a long time ago.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Honestly, there is nothing dated at all about V For Vendetta, which remains a better work than much of what it went on to influence, or From Hell, which is a remarkable accomplishment by any measure. Swamp Thing continues to be as good as most Vertigo titles despite pre-dating the Vertigo imprint by a good number of years, and Promethea ... well, considering that it's current, it's rather hard for it to be dated. That, and the fact that it pushes what can be done with the comic form about as well as anything Moore has done, and "dated" is the last word I'd use. On a technical and structural level, it's as impressive as Watchmen.

Oh, I certainly wouldn't aim my criticisms at the primary works - I'm thinking as much in terms of the secondaries.

 

[topspin]

Quite often (but not always) Moore can still pull out the element of surprise in his works. So many other writers come up with the same predictable stories that you can see the end for before you turn the first page. But i didn't get any of that - with stuff like Promethea, where they are going next is anyone's guess.
Its giving a sense of the fantastic or original back, something loads of writers don't seem to have any more. I'm quite into the DC universe, but you can often tell exactly whats coming up next in each issue of JLA or whatever.