I have to admit, I wasn't
looking forward to "Skizz" when I picked it up. I had never even heard of
it prior to doing this read-through, and my little bit of research told
me it was Alan Moore's attempt at writing E.T., with the same basic
starting premise (I have heard that the plot for "Skizz" was written entirely from seeing the first trailer for E.T. though I'm unsure if that's hyperbole or not. It wouldn't surprise me). For most I suppose this wouldn't be a problem, but get out the torches and pitchforks because I loathe E.T. and always have; when all of my young peers were fawning over the biggest thing in sci-fi since Star Wars, I found it to be incredibly boring, and nowadays I see it as one of the
most pure examples of the cinematic 'cheap shot' that goes for histrionics and emotion while skimping on the actual depth. So I went into "Skizz" with pretty low expectations, fully expecting this to be the first of Moore's work that was flat-out bad. With that being said, "Skizz" turned out to be a pleasant surprise, leagues better than its inspiration and proof that, at the time at least, Moore's dialogue could buoy even the feeblest of plots.
"Skizz" was originally presented in the pages of seminal British boys comic 2000 AD, home most notably of "Judge Dredd" as well as some minor works from Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, and obviously Alan Moore. Alan had written for the publication for a while prior to "Skizz", usually working on the 1-or-2-page "Future Shocks" which were brief sci-fi tales that usually had punchy gags as final panels. "Skizz" was different though: an ongoing story that stretched nearly 25 issues of 2000 AD, the plot concerns itself with the interplay of interstellar interpreter Zhcchz dealing with punks and pipefitters of lower-class Birmingham in the early 80s. Skizz' answer to Elliott is 15-year-old punk girl Roxy, who comes off as impulsive, defiant,
strong-willed, but ultimately good, and who I probably would've had a
crush on, had I been that age in 1983. The dialogue is great,
surprisingly funny given the nasty setting, Moore's world populated by surprisingly fleshed out characters like Roxy's parents and Lennie Small-esque giant-with-a-heart-of-gold Cornelius. The whole story exudes the same kind of class struggle Moore had begun in V for Vendetta but on a smaller scale: there is no fascist junta, no heroic anarchist. There's just an obsessed government agent and a teen girl trying to keep her new friend from being exploited or worse. Jim Baikie's art is sort of
angular but passable, considering most of the deck that came out in the
issues of 2000 AD, and while he's no John Totleben or David Lloyd or Alan Davis, the characters, especially Cornelius and Skizz himself, exude personality that meshes with Moore's dialogue to create a very well-done minor work in the canon. Moore does commit the ultimate comic writer sin of
denying pathos by bringing back an apparently-dead character with the
ol' "he's alright after all!" line, but then the same guy gave us
Marvelman and Watchmen so I'll cut him some slack for now.
"Skizz" doesn't reach the heights of Moore's work prior, and no doubt there will be plenty other works in the coming months that surpass it, but I was legitimately surprised that this small work, one that I had never even heard of before starting this project, was not only passable but actually pretty good. "Skizz" doesn't have characters spouting iambic pentameter like Ahab or Iago, but it has heart and soul, a perfectly slight tome to enjoy with a roaring fire and a cup of coffee. All in all,
Skizz is weaker than anything else I've read of Moore's, but I still
have a whole lot to go, and the dialogue is written well enough that you
might be surprised by it. I certainly was. ... Best quote: “They were cruel and ugly. There was so much hate and despair…and so
much love…/…some of them have style…/…and some of them have their
pride… / and some of them…/…some of them are stars.”
Up next: The Mad Hatter and the unstoppable cyborg killing machine in Captain Britain
V for Vendetta (1982-89) V for Vendetta was one of the Alan Moore stories I had read prior to starting this read-through, and when I first read it about 5 years ago it was the one I was least impressed with. The message is a good one of course, that security is not worth the price of freedom is something we should all remember. Mostly I was disturbed by how people latched onto the character of V, a somewhat superhuman anarchist, without worrying that he is a rather disturbed, vicious man who slaughtered innocents wholesale while he was freeing his country from fascists. I've softened my stance since re-reading the book though...while V for Vendetta is far from Moore's best work, it is an excellent start in the pulp genre that will take over so much of his latter-day projects, and as the average public's first proof that he can work outside of the superhero sphere and still craft a nuanced, gorgeously-written, impactful story.
Unlike Marvelman, V for Vendetta is readily available at the time of this writing, and considering Moore's celebrity, it's doubtful that will change anytime soon. As such I'll make this review a little simpler, mainly going through what works and what doesn't work in the story. The most obvious thing that words is David Lloyd's artwork, his use of color is incredible, soft, haunting watercolors give the book a dreamlike quality, as if the whole work is just a fever-dream of a Britain that might have been. It instantly distinguishes itself from contemporary work, even many comics put out today can only hope to emulate it.
For all my earlier complaining, V himself is another high point. He speaks like a Shakespearean in a book populated by beaten-down modern-day Britons, an enigmatic, flamboyant swashbuckler who speaks every line like he's on a stage. V is brutal and uncompromising, but that's the point and the beauty of his character: he's not someone to emulate, he's a dark mirror of Adam Susan, the leader of the fascist party ruling Briton during the events of the book. Both men do what they do because they must, for the good of the people of the country they love. The story wouldn't work as a simple good-vs-evil parable, in fact when you read between the lines it is V who does all the reprehensible things during the course of the story; Norsefire themselves are left to simply observe the populace, paranoid and ready to fall at a moment's notice. V for Vendetta isn't here to give us answers, it simply presents choices and leaves us to figure out what we want to get out of it.
The one thing that still doesn't work, even after the re-read and reevaluation of the material, is the 'real' protagonist of the story, Evey, though this might surprise some who haven't read far into the story. Evey is the surrogate for the audience, the young girl who is saved from a despicable fate by V early in the story and is gradually worked into his plans. She exists to ask the questions we would ask if a masked lunatic wanted us to pretend to be an underage prostitute for a lecherous man of God, and toward the end of the book she has an extended sequence where V tortures her to show her what Norsefire is capable of. It's easily the best moment of the book, uncomfortable enough to make your flesh crawl, and you feel for both Evey and V for having been put through this harrowing journey. Outside of the obvious problem, whether it's ever justified to torture someone until they see your ideology, it's what comes after that ruins her arc for me: Evey as a character becomes pretty uninteresting once she loses all her
emotional baggage (a plague that effects most Final Fantasy heroes as
well). She goes from a character we can relate to to essentially another V, seemingly unconcerned that this man just starved and tortured her for what felt like ages. I know that it was setting up that V's power was in planting ideas of change, and that he is a symbol which can't be killed and others could take up, but Evie herself loses the endearing qualities she had and simply espouses V's rhetoric for the small remainder of the story. It does pick up in time for a pretty explosive final issue, but
between V and Marvelman I'm starting to get the feeling that Moore had
trouble with middle sections of his early work.
In the end, V for Vendetta comes off as a very accomplished second work, showing that Moore was far from a one-trick pony and could deconstruct the pulps as well as he could Silver Age superheroes. Even with the lackluster middle section the book is still a home run and simply cements Moore's reputation as a comic writer who could do new things with the medium. Best quote: "Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap."
As our inception post of Sound'a'Roundus, I present to you 13 albums deemed the greatest by Christopher Bollweg of the blog Recycled Hot Air. The albums are in chronological order and each cap off with a Youtube link of his favorite track off the album. Chris has a long resume of musical projects, from industrial (CiRCLE No. 5) to punk (Not Will Porter) to showtunes (A Screaming Comes Across the Sky), all of which can find their beginnings in these 13 records. In retrospect I should've fashioned this like an interview, but it's too late this time...
1. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (1959)
I've always, "liked jazz", as
much as the next American who doesn't knee jerk say it sucks on
principle. When I joined Jazz Band in high school, I didn't know shit
for shit about jazz music except Kenny G tried to claim he made it, I
just wanted an easy A for playing bass. A friend passed me off a
vinyl dubbed cassette of this album and it was one of the first times
I listened to an album. I don't mean putting on some music and simply
enjoying, I mean the only activity I was doing was listening to Miles
and crew belt out some bluesy jazz.
This is an easy choice due in part to
its broad acceptance as one of the greatest recordings of all time,
Jazz or otherwise. While 'So What' is often pointed to for a shining
track, I've always been partial to 'All Blues'. It's the type of song
that's seen pain and knows it's coming back around again. I can
identify with that.
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet
Underground & Nico (1967)
Everything that can ever be considered
a splinter/sub/subsub genre of Punk, Alternative and Indie Rock music
can be traced back to this album. Anyone who made a CBGB's band had
this album. Michael Stipe, Stephen Malkmus, and Kim Deal all have
this album. The Velvet Underground's first album could be a greatest
hits album if they ever got any air play. Instead, the distorted
beauty of this avant garde, out of tune, pop rock disaster went on to
infect the minds of a bunch of disenfranchised youth with nothing to
do but sit inside and make a bunch of loud noise of their own. The
Velvet Underground + Nico is so good because it's four junkies and a German model junkie that recorded such a complex album that makes the
listener think they can do the same thing.
The Beatles hid behind their personas
and invented tales of other people who went and played about in rock
& roll music land while they were getting high on 'cid. Lou Reed
sold his ass for a gram of smack before playing a show to twelve
transvestites and wrote his next album about it. The Velvet
Underground were The Beatles of the heroin art chic of NYC's gutters
while all the hippies were moving to San Fran to smoke pot and fuck
each other till world peace happened. You don't listen to ...& Nico to
escape, you listen to ...& Nico to feel.
Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
(1973)
Led Zeppelin is the greatest rock band
ever and Houses of the Holy is their best album. Following that
logic, that would make Houses of the Holy the greatest rock album
ever, which is objectively true. Houses of the Holy is so amazing,
even Spider-Man feels inadequate around it.
On HotH, Zeppelin plays with genres
like toys, bending them to their will. Even 'The Crunge's' foray into
funk makes itself fun as the bridge it keeps on trying to find from
the jangled folk hard rock of 'Over the Hills and Far Away' into the
slinking boogie of 'Dancing Days'. 'No Quarter's dark psychedelia
always reminds me of coming down from ecstasy only to be ramped into
'The Ocean', which has the greatest guitar riff ever written. Houses
of the Holy from start to finish is satisfying and just so, damn,
good. Unfortunately, IV will probably continue to outshine it
for a good long while simply on the weight of Stairway, but whatever.
Metallica - Master of Puppets (1986)
Master of Puppets was the first time I
had ever heard Metallica. Sure, my folks loved Sabbath and Zeppelin,
but that was 70's dinosaur rock. It was 1986 and it was time for a
musical revolution, baby! Not even being school age yet, I didn't
know jack about music. I picked up my 14 year old uncle's Walkman and
examined the case of the loaded cassette. The cover was a field of
unmarked tombstones beneath an ominous red sky and a pair of hands
descending upon them to pull their strings. Instead of being
repulsed, I hit play in the middle of 'Damage Inc.' and was blown
away. It was turned up loud during the, "We chew and spit you
out! *jiggajuggaWAH* We laugh you scream and shout! *jiggajuggaWAH*,"
part and I was never the same after that. Metallica is woven into my childhood in
the same way that Star Wars is and Master of Puppets is my Empire
Strikes Back.
Everything about this album is so dark
and heavy. While Ride the Lightning pushed the limits of their speed
metal attack, when they slowed it down for jams like 'The Thing that
Should Not Be', 'Leper and 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)' Metallica
showed that it didn't matter what their tempo was, they could still
melt your face off with a cannon blast of metal up your ass. Cliff
Burton's thundering bass gallop, James Hetfield's lyrics about
eldritch abominations and how the rich wage war, Lars doing more than
sloppy double bass and Kirk Hammit's furious shredding came together
to make the album that cemented Cliff in the echelon's of Heavy Metal
Mythology before his death on this album's tour. May guitar stores
ring with the opening riff of 'Master of Puppets' to the chagrin of
their clerks forever!
Pixies - Doolittle (1989)
You know those albums where it can come
on at random and you think to yourself, "oh, I'll change it when
a bad song comes on," and you end up listening to the album at
least three times? That's Doolittle. From the opening bass of
'Debaser' to 'Gouge Away's' fade out there is not a bad note in it.
Doolittle is one of the few albums I would describe as perfect.
Everyone making rock music these days who doesn't steal from The
Velvet Underground is stealing from the Pixies. Doolittle is to
modern rock as Alan Moore's Watchmen is to modern storytelling. It's
a watershed moment where everyone who was influenced by it has
already had their generation with it, its revival and now the album's
impact has been woven into the fabric of the cultural memoriate.
Start-stop/loud quiet loud dynamics have existed at least since the
17th century, but David Lovering dropped some sweet backbeats to the
same methods in 1989. 23 years later, Doolittle sounds just as fresh
and new as the day it was released.
Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36
Chambers) (1993)
I'm from LA, I grew up steeped in
G-Funk, I was in a Gangsta Rock band that venerated the collected
works of N.W.A. and its crew. Dr. Dre is who I go to when I have
Chronic pain. But beat surgeon or no, if there's one album that
stands head and shoulders over every Hip Hop album to this day, it's
those cuts from the RZA, tha RaZoR.
Tha Wu-Tang Clan truly ain't nuthin' ta
fuck wit on this raw and dirty album straight from the slums of Shao
Lin. The Wu-Tangs three most deadly weapons lie in RZA's hard jazz
beats (versus Dre's smoothed out West Coast funk style), Old Dirty
Bastard (who answers the question, 'what does it sound like to rap on
crack?') who ain't got no father to his style and a whole lotta
illegitimate children trying to claim his lineage, and M-E-T-H-O-D
Man with his street smart rhymes that are a playful counterbalance
with just a little hint of that hard ass motherfucker hiding behind
those bloodshot eyes. Even with those three, you can't forget Raekwon
the Chef, by far the most solid of the Wu, cooking up something in
most of the tracks on Enter the Wu-Tang.
The world of Wu-Tang is dark, scary and
surreal. They dare you to try and keep up with them, Word-Fuing up a
lyrical body count unheard of on the streets of Compton. Chronic 2001
set up the paradigm for party rap from 1999-2009, Wu-Tang set up the
paradigm for everything else back in '93. If N.W.A. is the Beatles of
hip hop (and they totally are) then Wu is The Velvet Underground.
The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie
and the Infinite Sadness (1995)
Billy Corgan is many things, and
incredibly talented is one of them. Mellon Collie was the first CD I
ever owned. I bought this double album it for 25 bucks, when CD's
were $11.99-$14.99, at Tower Records. I've listened to this album
more than any other, and have dissected, ignored, loved, hated and
felt every other emotion that a person can feel because of a silly
piece of music all because of this album. People joke about wearing
out cassette heads and needles or tapes and vinyl from playing a
single album too much. I did that with this CD. I played it so much
that both discs were scratched to hell from travel and play.
Mellon Collie is the final summation of
the first half of the 90's. A large sweeping opera that tells the
story of disenfranchised struggle that no one wants to listen to
because we're all living it. It's that beautiful baton handing off
point from extended adolescence to adulthood, or in Smashing Pumpkins
musical sound, teen angst to bald angst. Released in '95, a year
after Cobain's death, everyone's album had a sombre tone to it that
year. At least there's points of ecstasy mingled in with all those
sexually frustrated teenage songs.
Fun fact: The alternate vinyl track
listing makes it more of a cyclical story beginning en media res.
The Flaming Lips - Zaireeka (1997)
I just set up two computers, an iPod,
an Xbox and busted out with a fine bowl of sensory enhancement and
decided to listen to this masterwork as I write this article.
Zaireeka is a Four disc album born from what's been dubbed 'The
Parking Lot Experiments' in Flaming Lips canonical lore.
Basically, band leader Wayne Coyne recorded a bunch of music onto
cassettes, got 100 people together in their cars in a parking garage
and conducted each person when to play their tape. This blew Mr.
Coyne's mind and it pained him that traditional audio as we knew it
in 1996 was inefficient to capture the massiveness of sound as it
should be.
What The Flaming Lips produced was four
CD's each with a section of the full album on it. Each song's
instrumentation and arrangement was sectioned off and spread to be
simultaneously played on four separate sound systems simultaneously
to hear the album as it should. The reality behind this being that no
two sources will ever be in sync, so each disc/medium has some drift
and every playing is different. You can listen to each song in any
combination you like and the combinations of effect are limitless as
everything in the environment and the listener effects the event.
Now the important part, because of the
experimental nature of the songs, it's allowed the Flaming Lips to
craft some of the most powerful sonic expressions in the career of
the band. This album is the literal representation of its title's
meaning–a melding of anarchy and genius. Words really do fail to
describe what it's like to experience listening to the album as
intended, it's very akin to a
meditation/effervescence/psychedelic/orgasm experience. People have
come to deep understandings about themselves in front of my eyes
while listening to this album. If that's not what music is all about,
I don't know what is.
I'm so glad that The Flaming Lips are
the Pink Floyd of my generation (and as such, why there's no Pink
Floyd represented on this list except the specters of their
influence.)
Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (1999)
This is what it sounds like to fall
apart. Pink Floyd's The Wall was a world of cold isolation of the
world beating its way inwards. This is what happens after you go
'Outside The Wall'. The world is harsh, over expectant and doesn't
give a shit about your latest tragedy because you're a rock star so
you should be grateful as you laugh on the way to the bank.
The Fragile sprawls two discs on its
journey to nowhere. Held together by two intertwining musical themes,
The Fragile explores nothing cheery. Tainted sex, death, suicide,
failure of self-actualization, loss of hope/friends/family,
frustration, and stagnation all rear their heads through instrument
and voice. Trent Reznor's meticulous production adds a claustrophobic
feeling to densely packed songs such as 'Somewhat Damaged', 'No You
Don't', and 'Complication' while the sparseness of 'The Frail', 'Even
Deeper', and 'I'm Looking Forward to Joining You Finally' makes you
wish there was anything to hide behind.
The Fragile is not a party album, it's
a headphones album. Another album where something new can be
discovered with every listen, where instead of a cluster of
verse/chorus/verse Industrial Rock songs you get two hours of
textures laid upon textures upon song components. Still heavy and in
your face while on the next track you end up in a room with no
windows and something breathing a quiet breakdown into your ear. It
welcomes you 'Somewhat Damaged' and leaves you 'Ripe (With Decay)'.
Daft Punk - Discovery (2001)
Two robots from France made an awesome dance record back in the beginning of the Millennium. It was part
story, part party album and all grooving. As a straight up House
album, it falls flat and that's why it's great. Daft Punk already
proved they can make a standard EDM album with Homework. With
Discovery, it asks the listener to approach it with a childlike sense
of wonder, to step out of your zone of cool. 'One More Time' could be
an embarrassing song to be caught listening to if it didn't make
everyone want to jump up and move till sweat's beading all over your
skin. 'Something About Us' is a tender love ballad that wouldn't be
out of place in a porn movie. Sampling 'Harder, Better, Faster,
Stronger' made Kanye West seem relevant after the world got bored of
Late Registration.
Every song on this album has been, can
be, and will continue to be dropped or reworked by DJ's around the
world. Discovery's scope is wide and pulls you along for the ride
before you even realize it's been an hour and 'Too Long' has been
going on for "too long" (after all, you felt it after the
first few, "Can you feel it"'s).
Coupled with the DVD Anime Interstella
5555 it makes for a full audio/visual epic story about being a
hijacked Alien pop star. Worth the watch as well as a listen.
Explosions in the Sky - The Earth Is
Not A Cold Dead Place (2003)
If the world ever gets upset enough at
Texas to try and wipe it off the map, Explosions in the Sky would be
the only thing worth saving the state on this weight of this album
(sorry, Richard Linklater). 'First Breath After the Coma' opens the
series of 5 songs that never dip below 8 minutes in length, creating
a sweeping and fluid connection of music for 45 minutes. Explosions
In the Sky's post-rock offerings are always a full experience. They
don't just have series of songs, they write movements much in the
same vein as Richard Strauss' tone poems of the late 1800's.
Dynamically shifting from settled to storm, from liquid fluidity to
bombastic chop, chiming out with sustained harmonics and
unconventional instrument sounds from a standard rock band set up.
Each song is a long sprawling movement
of beauty, bringing smiles just as easily as tears of joy and sorrow.
It almost makes you believe that The Earth isn't a cold and dead
place just by virtue of this album being.
Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to
Paralyze (2005)
It's easy to paralyze yourself by
snapping your neck. It's easy to snap your neck by nodding your head
in agreement with how much this album fucking ROCKS. Queens of the
Stone Age has been an outlet for awesome hard rocking since their
debut and Lullabies to Paralyze is by far their best offering. Song
for song, especially in the context of the full album, very few other
albums can contend with how well written, produced and performed LtP
is.
Plunking out a pretty melody on a toy
piano, crooning in a gravely falsetto, carving out chunky low end
power chords to rattle your bong, then shredding a psychedelic solo
all in the space of the same song is the norm for this album. From
heady whisky blues soaked hard rock, to wailing guitars and staccato
groove metal, and even some fun little bits tossed in at the end to
round out the flavor, Lullabies to Paralyze keeps itself firmly
planted in greatest album territory.
Kinetic Stereokids - Kid Moves (2009)
This is the album I imagine the least
amount of people have heard and that's really fucking sad.
Kinetic Stereokids is a band that I'm
not sure is together anymore, but when they were they made some of
the most amazing music I've ever heard. Their mix of Alternative,
Rap, Folk, Electronic and Experimental forms of music meld together
in an odd melange. It's like if Beck didn't take himself so seriously
and did a Pet Sounds or Piper at the Gates of Dawn mash up cover album
while he was supposed to be writing Odelay. Or Animal Collective if
they had distortion pedals, turntables and less goofy lyrics.
Kid Moves is a schizophrenic mix of
complimentary conflicting genres. 'Have a Nice Day' stomps like a
southern Baptist church revival junk blues. 'Twisted Thoughts'
samples old personal development records on top of a trip-hop beat
and melancholy guitar leads with catchy lyrics laid on top. 'Assisted
Living' is an acoustic, high energy, power pop song that bleeds into
its partner track 'Convalescent Feelings', which turns the tempo on
its head and cranks the reverb up to 11 with the eerie chanting of
"Convalescent feelings take me away". Their second, rappin'
vocalist, takes the lead on tracks like the palm muted 'Proper
Etiquette' and psychedelic 'Drugs is a Drag' with the majority of the
vocals being a somewhat frail, sometimes warbled, but always aching
in its beauty.
Overall, Kid Moves is the most playful
and unpredictable of this list. Twelve songs of incredible
composition that is little like anything else that came before. In
the whole musically dark decade of the 00's, Kid Moves by Kinetic
Stereokids is a capper to the whole awful mess of new jacks smeared
in white foundation and running mascara that makes it all worth the
drollness of the mainstream music scene we had to share.
(This isn't actually the song Christopher picked, but 'Planes With Teeth' doesn't seem to be on Youtube.)
That's the list! Read it, learn something new, maybe find a new jam or two. Don't forget to follow Christopher at Recycled Hot Air! V for Vendetta coming soon!
Well, now that Marvelman is all done, and V for Vendetta is well underway, it's time for something different to whet our appetites both intellectual and scatological. As sort of a thread connecting us here with Klen House Radio I'm happy to announce the imminent arrival of new column Sound'a'Roundus: Top 13 Album lists from bloggers, musicians, film-makers and whoever else from around our lovely web. We kick off soon enough with Christopher Bollweg, he of Recycled Hot Air, and what should be an enlightening set of records. Dig it!
Holy
hell, Moore knows how to close off a saga; the storyline starts off
exponentially more widescreen and epic than the last, and just grows
from there. Marvelman's third act uses a framing story, a monologue by Marvelman himself as he wanders the empty halls of some sort of supremely opulent palace, describing the events that allowed this construction of 'Olympus'. Moore is in rare form, even more so than the first act, his pen dripping with symbolism and long, poetic soliloquys from Marvelman, the newly discovered Marvelwoman (but not Liz Moran, Marvelman's human wife, who is increasingly sidelined until she simply leaves), and their new alien companions, the highly advanced Qys and Warpsmiths, who put aside their centuries-old rivalries in order to bring the newly-'intelligent' Earth into some sort of galactic community. One of the main themes running through Marvelman has been whether the presence of superhumans among men is a good thing or ill,and act three is pregnant with the question. We still have yet to see Marvelman do anything at all heroic during the story, and as the story reaches its conclusion many of the things that he does for the 'greater good' border on despicable: Johnny Bates finally loses control of the beast inside him that is Kid Marvelman, which precedes the utter devestation of issue 15, Nemesis (all the chapters of the final act are named after Greek Gods and Demigods). Kid Marvelman obliterates London, and John Totelben shows his chops drawing some absolutely horrific imagery: heads on pikes, women and children eyeless and armless, human skins draped on walls...most of the work in the issue was apparently influenced by Goya, which comes as no surprise at all. After a chapter-long battle in which several of Marvelman's new 'pantheon' is killed or wounded to put Kid Marvelman back into the body of 13 year old Bates, Marvelman himself ends the problem by unceremoniously snapping the boy's neck. Nice going, superhero.
All that's left after the battle, now that there's no question the world knows of the superhuman's existence, is to take control of the world in a kind of fascist utopia, Marvelman, Marvelwoman, the Qys and Warpsmiths, and even Marvelman's goddesslike daughter Winter all keeping a very Big Brother-style eye on the humans of Earth to make sure they live in peace and happiness, or else. Baby Winter even spearheads the eugenics program, naturally. The End. The last act of Marvelman is indescribably good. If we're still using the Shakespeare analogy, Marvelman ends up being the superhero Richard III, only unlike Richard, what was once Michael Moran ends up on top, untouchable, and stays there when the story closes; there may be rumbles of discontent among the populace, but they go unheeded and in the end are only an uneasy footnote in Moore's tale (he'll use a similar hinting of what badness might befall the plot after the final curtain in Watchmen). John Totelben's art is light years beyond Chuck Bekham's
scribbles, and though I still miss Alan Davis and Garry Leach's dark,
vicious shadows of the first book, Totelben's work on Marvelman's
Ragnarok in issue 15 is impressively shocking and appalling. Moore is in
full flower again, a story that posits superheroes as literal gods and
takes an unsurprising dig at organized religion as a result...when gods
walk the earth, how can society not end up fascist? Mind-blowingly
well-written, crushingly depressing, beautiful and horrific in equal
turns, Marvelman's final act really shows how forward-thinking Moore
was, and how ripples of this work are still felt today, in comics,
movies, and literature. We are robbed at a very base level that this
masterwork isn't available for all to read, taken together it has to be
one of the great trilogies of our lifetime.
...
Best quote: "Oh Earth, look up/Look up beyond the century's horizons, where the light of the millennium to come already stain the skies with colours strange and new/Look up: we have repealed the laws of gravity, torn off the ceiling of the world that was so very low/The skies are yours, new beaches made of cirrus-cloud, new valleys made of strato-cumulus/Lift up your heads! You were not made to gaze at gutters, mud and puddles all your lives, but have not dared to raise your sights in case the thing you longed for was not there/Look up and see it now, the shape that's haunted human dreams and legends since we first peered from the jungles long ago and wondered what might dwell upon those blue and distant hills, upon those mountains there.../Oh Earth, look up."
Miracleman, Book II: The Red King Syndrome (1984-85)
One thing you immediately notice upon flipping through the middle book in the Marvelman trilogy is the inherit problem with comic series that aren't explicitly designed as miniseries: the revolving door of art teams. In its inception Marvelman was the work of Alan Moore and Garry Leach, but that duo lasted a whole issue before Alan Davis was introduced, and by issue 3 Leach had gone. The problem is exacerbated in Book II: not only are there three different artists between issue 4 and issue 10, but they've got such wildly different styles that it can really take you out of the overall narrative. Add this to the fact that Moore himself isn't firing on all cylinders, and The Red King Syndrome falls well short of the first book.
The book really contains two separate arcs: we start first with Marvelman hunting Dr. Emil Gargunza, the man who made Mickey Moran into this being to begin with, enslaving him and creating a false reality for his entire life. Alan Davis starts the arc, and with the exception of a clumsily-done kidnapping scene, the issues aren't too bad, with Gargunza narrating his life to Moran's wife Liz being a high point. Davis' work is as good as ever, dark and severe, and while none of it reaches the heights of the first three issues of the story, things are looking to be very satisfying. So what happened?
In a name, Chuck Beckham. In a phrase, corny revenge plot.
To be fair, I'm sure there are those out there who would love this story. Once Marvelman arrives at Gargunza's Central American hideout, there's plenty of action and a few interesting plot twists, introducing the vicious Marveldog. It's just that Alan Moore proved he could work beyond the confines of genre with the first three issues, and this simple 'superbeing gets revenge on creator' trope should be something he explodes, not follows rigorously. It's got action, and a satisfying conclusion in Marvelman taking his creator into orbit and then throwing him back to Earth as a falling star, but it's rather rote all in all. Beckham's art doesn't help this in the least, being a bog-standard 'How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way' style artist who gives everyone, even elderly Gargunza and out-of-shape Evelyn Cream, toned, muscled bodies. Thankfully he only sticks around till the end of the revenge arc, but his emotionless faces and bland bodies sap any sense of ethos out of an already not-so-great script.
So where to go after Gargunza (literally) fizzles out? Childbirth!
Art for the second arc of the book comes by way of Rick Veitch, who had already began working with Moore on Swamp Thing by this point (one more thing Alan's early works were known for were extremely protracted publishing schedules). Light years more accomplished than Chuck Beckham, Veitch is immediately put to the test in penciling Liz Moran giving birth, in a clinically unflinching scene that lasts nearly the entire issue. After the Gargunza snoozer, Moore was ready to start doing things differently again, and an explicit birth scene is one very strong, unexpected way to do this. Add in the fact that the baby talks seconds after being born, and...seems like Moore and Veitch were able to tap into that Swamp Thing creepiness just fine. The arc ends with the arrival of alien beings here to contain the rampant superheroism...and Johnny Bates, aka Kid Miracleman, in a coma and psychically attacked by his alter ego, is still a variable that I can't wait to see resolved.
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Best quote: "It leapt then, its breath slamming into my face, a hot and rancid wall/And then there was a movement too fast to see, a pain too swift to experience/...and all that was a second ago. Where am I now?"
Up next: I married an alien in Marvelman Book III.
Miracleman Book I: A Dream of Flying (1982) A quick note on terminology: for those who don't know, Moore, Davis, and Leach's original comic was called 'Marvelman' from 1982 to 1985, at which time the character was changed to 'Miracleman' due to pressures from Marvel Comics. These days Marvel actually owns the rights (to the character, not to Moore's comics, though that's a story for another time), so now he's called 'Marvelman' again, but as you can see on that picture up there, it says 'Miracleman' on the cover. So for these three essays, it'll be 'Miracleman' for the title, but 'Marvelman' for any mentions in the essays. Got it? Good.
The most arresting thing about Marvelman is that, right out of the gate, Alan Moore proved that he could write comics better than anyone else. Marvelman would be an incredible work for even a journeyman writer, but for a man not even 30, whose previous works involved a bunch of shorts for 2000 A.D. and a Doctor Who one-off, it is absolutely unreal. Moore's prose is self-assured and poetic from the outset, especially in his descriptions:
"The fear is there, coiled in his stomach as he watches, unable to look away. The spider is laying an egg! An egg that burns like the sun..."
Prior to Moore's involvement, Marvelman was a goofy Silver Age character, basically a copyright-free riff on Captain Marvel. In Moore's hands, he becomes something much more: in just these three issues the tables are turned, Marvelman is cathartic and meaningful in ways that Captain Marvel never could even dream of. Props must be given to the artists; Alan Davis and Garry Leach's work is arresting, all dark shadows, grit, and ugly characters, which only makes the contrast greater when Marvelman comes on the scene, glittering and perfect like an Aryan superman (it's not for nothing that Moore quotes Nietzsche in the first issue). Marvelman predicts the entire thrust of comics in the Eighties and since; before The Dark Knight Returns or even Moore's own The Killing Joke and Watchmen, Marvelman was there doing the same thing, and doing it better (well, maybe not better than Watchmen, but certainly earlier). And already Moore is deconstructing superhero archetypes: Marvelman has no prayer against disturbed, disturbing former sidekick Kid Marvelman (surely one of the better villains in recent memory, can't wait to see what Moore does with him later) and only wins the battle on a technicality. Additionally, his attempt to catch a falling baby ends not in cheers and relief, but in broken bones and burns and regret. Try as he might, Marvelman seems ill-equipped to be a superhero, and there's question whether just his returning to the scene caused Kid Marvelman to go ballistic (which has become THE trope used endlessly in Batman, to good effect for sure).
The book ends with Marvelman learning his origins, not as a hero for mankind but as an experiment, his memories toyed with by Dr. Gargunza, a recurring villain in the old, Silver Age issues. An ill-equipped superhero perhaps, but he still has the power of a god, and now the rage to match.
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Best quote: "Her name is Stephanie. She likes Adam and the Ants. Her boyfriend's name is Brian. She collects wedgwood. Her insides have turned to water. She is only human."
Up next: Clash of the Titans in Marvelman Book II.
It has long been the assumption of anyone who has even the passing interest in the comic book form that Alan Moore is the greatest writer to be contained in the medium. I mean hell, I know it, you know it, anybody that knows comics beyond the basic "Batman, Spider-Man, Superman" triumvirate knows it. And yet comic fans are as beaten down as video game fans by proponents of the 'higher arts' who think that the medium is entirely populated by children and mouth-breathers who have nothing worthwhile to give the artistic world as far as rational thought. So, in the interest of this supposed Shakespeare of the sequential art form, I've decided to plow through Mr. Moore's major works, to see if what he has to say is really worthwhile for discussion on a higher level. Read with me, if you will, and let's see what parts of Alan's oeuvre deserve to be discussed in academia...and which, uh...don't.
The works I'll be commenting on are:
Marvelman, Books I-III V for Vendetta
"Skizz" Captain Britain Swamp Thing, Books I-VI D. R. & Quinch The Ballad of Halo Jones, Books I-III Watchmen Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? The Killing Joke
DC Short Work Roundup From Hell
"In Pictopia" Big Numbers A Small Killing Spawn: Blood Feud Violator Violator vs. Badrock 1963 Alan Moore's WildC.A.T.s
Image Short Work Roundup Supreme books I-II Judgement Day
"The Spirit's New Adventures" #1-3 Tom Strong Books I-VI Tom Strong's Terrific Tales Promethea Books I-V Top 10 books I-II Top 10: Smax Top 10: The 49ers Tomorrow Stories, Books I-II Lost Girls League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Books I-III Neonomicon
As I wrote out this list I realized, with a certain amount of dread, that I had only previously read a very small contingent of Mr. Moore's works, and even worse that there was a lot of material I hadn't even HEARD of. This is to be a very long, very daunting task, but with any luck it'll bring me to a better understanding of the medium, as well as its pagan king. Keep an eye out for Marvelman book I to start things off soon enough, and feel free to read along and give your own comments.
