New at Reason

California Tim Cavanaugh pages through Alan Moore's latest and stickiest volume of pornographic claptrap.

Comments

damon | October 19, 2006, 11:58am | #

Oh, SNAP.

I'll have to check it out, but honestly it sounds like I won't be shelling any cash for this particular silly-mess. Moore is oh so very hit-or-miss. When I was younger, Watchmen seemed like an amazing ride, and it still is very good, but the ending.... oy.

Oh Tim Cavanaugh, you're my hero. (eyelashes batting)

Mark Borok | October 19, 2006, 12:14pm | #

To be fair, with a build-up like the Watchmen, it's hard to imagine an ending that would have lived up to it.

Todd | October 19, 2006, 12:46pm | #

Ahh, a truly libertarian article, answering a question only uber-geeks could comprehend or care about: can we spank it to the latest Moore comic? This is why our movement will never get mainstream traction.

dhex | October 19, 2006, 12:58pm | #

what's wrong with the end of watchmen?

note, i'm not a comic book guy so i may not understand what he did wrong.

Jon H | October 19, 2006, 1:03pm | #

It would have been much hotter if Swamp Thing were involved.

Jeff P | October 19, 2006, 1:03pm | #

Watchmen should have ended with Ozy's plan backfiring, and the NYC disaster leading to a small but deadly nuclear war. The coda at Ozy's retreat would be the same, except now Manhattan can't let Rorshach tell the world about a hero screwing up that badly. In the end we see Ozy, fortune spend, wandering homeless and mad through the rebuilt NYC.

Oh, and Nixon has to kill himself.

I'll be all over League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier when it comes out.

For Moore's best I gotta vote for JR and Quinch, Tom Strong, Promethea, and his run on Supreme.
The recent miniseries based on his Hypothetical Lizard was also pretty sweet.

AC | October 19, 2006, 1:25pm | #

Articles like these make for big shoes to fill if another reason writer is going to cover pop culture.

highnumber | October 19, 2006, 2:15pm | #

When I was reading comic books regularly, the two heavyweights were Moore and Frank Miller. Moore was too dry and sometimes akward for my tastes. Miller, more noir, was the guy I liked. After Dark Knight Returns, and Batman Year One, I fell out of the habit of reading comics, but a few years later I picked up some of his Sin City titles. Wow! He took what worked in his earlier works and turned it up to 11. (He & Robert Rodriguez did a great job translating it to the big screen, too.)
This article makes me doubt I'll ever go back to revisit Moore.

Tragdor | October 19, 2006, 2:41pm | #

I am dispointed he didn't mention Alan Moore's run on Supreme. Which in MHO is one of the best things he ever did

highnumber | October 19, 2006, 2:46pm | #

Thanks for the reminder, Tragdor. I picked up an issue of Supreme the same time I picked up the Sin City issues. It was the most enjoyable Moore I have read. Funny stuff.

Grummun | October 19, 2006, 3:52pm | #

For my money, V for Vendetta's warmed-over 1984 plot is the height of bogusness, a story that congratulates itself for daring to stand against a right-wing totalitarian state so over the top that nobody would support it in the first place.

Yup, no one would put up with a government that spies on it's citizens, tells them what to think, and abducts them for no reason and with no oversight. Completely unrealistic.

Les | October 19, 2006, 4:37pm | #

I recently read "Top 10" and was thoroughly entertained. It's a great read. Needless to say, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is amazing and "From Hell" is just a fucking masterpiece.

NeonCat | October 19, 2006, 4:57pm | #

I was under the impression that this collection is a reprint of work Moore did in the early 80s. Cavanaugh is acting as if this is something recent.

Lazlo | October 19, 2006, 6:22pm | #

The earliest Lost Girls material came out in the early '90s, but this is the first time it's all been collected in one place. At a cover price of $75, I think I'll wait for the trade edition, thanks.

Alas, D.R. & Quinch was funnier as "O.C. & Stiggs" in the National Lampoon (leading, unfortunately, to the only movie NatLamp ever *didn't* want to put their name on).

joshua corning | October 19, 2006, 7:17pm | #

Watchmen should have ended with Ozy's plan backfiring, and the NYC disaster leading to a small but deadly nuclear war. The coda at Ozy's retreat would be the same, except now Manhattan can't let Rorshach tell the world about a hero screwing up that badly. In the end we see Ozy, fortune spend, wandering homeless and mad through the rebuilt NYC.

someone needs you to give you a comic book writting gig.

seriously.

ajay | October 20, 2006, 6:13am | #

Yes, anyone who's been at all conscious for any the last hundred years or so should really know that totalitarian states can go really quite far over the top and still maintain popular support.

By 20th century standards, Adam Susan's (or Chancellor Sutler's) England was fairly mild. He hadn't emptied London of its population in an attempt to recover peasant virtues on the collective farm. He hadn't conscripted most of the population into an immense army/synchronised gymnastics operation. He hadn't declared war on basically everybody else in the world. He hadn't forced women to wear bags on their heads and banned television.

All these things have been done by regimes that nevertheless retained significant popular support.