Moore started writing for British underground and alternative fanzines in the late 1970s before achieving success publishingcomic strips in such magazines as2000 AD andWarrior. He was subsequently picked up byDC Comics as "the first comics writer living in Britain to do prominent work in America",[3]: 7 where he worked on major characters such asBatman (Batman: The Killing Joke) andSuperman ("Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?"), substantially developed the characterSwamp Thing, and penned original titles such asWatchmen. During that decade, Moore helped to bring about greater social respectability for comics in the United States and United Kingdom.[3]: 11 He prefers the term "comic" to "graphic novel".[5] In the late 1980s and early 1990s he left the comic industry mainstream and went independent for a while, working on experimental work such as the epicFrom Hell and the prose novelVoice of the Fire. He subsequently returned to the mainstream later in the 1990s, working forImage Comics, before developingAmerica's Best Comics, an imprint through which he published works such asThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the occult-basedPromethea. In 2016, he publishedJerusalem: a 1,266-page experimental novel set in his hometown of Northampton, UK.
Despite his objections, Moore's works have provided the basis for several Hollywood films, includingFrom Hell (2001),The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003),V for Vendetta (2005), andWatchmen (2009). Moore has also been referenced in popular culture and has been recognised as an influence on a variety of literary and television figures includingNeil Gaiman[8] andDamon Lindelof.[9] He has lived a significant portion of his life in Northampton, England, and he has said in various interviews that his stories draw heavily from his experiences living there.
The town centre ofNorthampton, the town where Moore has spent his entire life and which later became the setting of his novelJerusalem.
Moore was born on 18 November 1953,[10] at St Edmund's Hospital inNorthampton to a working-class family who he believed had lived in the town for several generations.[2]: 11 He grew up in a part of Northampton known as The Boroughs, a poverty-stricken area with a lack of facilities and high levels of illiteracy, but he nonetheless "loved it. I loved the people. I loved the community and ... I didn't know that there was anything else."[2]: 13–16 He lived in a house with his parents, brewery worker Ernest Moore and printer Sylvia Doreen, with his younger brother Mike, and with his maternal grandmother.[2]: 14 [11] He "read omnivorously" from the age of five, getting books out of the local library, and subsequently attended Spring Lane Primary School.[2]: 17 At the same time, he began reading comic strips, initially in British comics, such asTopper andThe Beezer, but eventually also American imports such asThe Flash,Detective Comics,Fantastic Four, andBlackhawk.[2]: 31 He later passed his11-plus exam and was, therefore, eligible to go toNorthampton Grammar School,[12] where he first came into contact with people who were middle class and better educated, and he was shocked at how he went from being one of the top pupils at his primary school to one of the lowest in the class at secondary. Subsequently, disliking school and having "no interest in academic study", he believed that there was a "covert curriculum" being taught that was designed to indoctrinate children with "punctuality, obedience and the acceptance of monotony".[2]: 17–18
In the late 1960s, Moore began publishing his poetry and essays infanzines, eventually setting up his fanzine,Embryo.[13] ThroughEmbryo, Moore became involved in a group known as theNorthampton Arts Lab. The Arts Lab subsequently made significant contributions to the magazine.[2]: 33–34 He began dealing the hallucinogenicLSD at school, being expelled for doing so in 1970 – he later described himself as "one of the world's most inept LSD dealers".[14] The headmaster of the school subsequently "got in touch with various other academic establishments that I'd applied to and told them not to accept me because I was a danger to the moral well-being of the rest of the students there, which was possibly true."[2]: 18
LSD was an incredible experience. Not that I'm recommending it for anybody else; but for me it kind of – it hammered home to me that reality was not a fixed thing. That the reality that we saw about us every day was one reality, and a valid one – but that there were others, different perspectives where different things have meaning that were just as valid. That had a profound effect on me.
While continuing to live in his parents' home for a few more years, he moved through various jobs, including cleaning toilets and working in atannery.[15] In late 1973, he met and began a relationship with Northampton-born Phyllis Dixon, with whom he moved into "a little one-room flat in the Barrack Road area in Northampton".[16] Soon marrying, they moved into a newcouncil estate in the town's eastern district while he worked in an office for a sub-contractor of the local gas board. Moore felt that he was not being fulfilled by this job, and so decided to try to earn a living doing something more artistic.[2]: 34–35
Abandoning his office job, he decided to instead take up both writing and illustrating his own comics. He had already produced a couple of strips for several alternative fanzines and magazines, such asAnon E. Mouse for the local paperAnon, andSt. Pancras Panda, a parody ofPaddington Bear, for the Oxford-basedBack Street Bugle.[3]: 16–17 His first paid work was for a few drawings that were printed inNME. In late 1979/early 1980, he and his friend, comic-book writerSteve Moore (whom he had known since he was fourteen)[17]: 20 co-created the violentcyborg characterAxel Pressbutton for some comics inDark Star, a British music magazine. (Steve Moore wrote the strip under the name "Pedro Henry", while Alan Moore drew them using the pseudonym ofCurt Vile, a pun on the name of composerKurt Weill.)
Not long afterward, Alan Moore succeeded in getting anunderground comix-type series about a private detective known asRoscoe Moscow (who is investigating the "death of Rock N' Roll") published (under the Curt Vile name) in the weekly music magazineSounds,[18] earning £35 a week. Alongside this, he and Phyllis, with their newborn daughterLeah, began claimingunemployment benefit to supplement this income.[2]: 36 After the conclusion ofRoscoe Moscow, Moore started a new strip forSounds – the serialized comic "The Stars My Degradation" (a reference toAlfred Bester'sThe Stars My Destination), featuring Axel Pressbutton. Moore wrote most of the episodes of "The Stars My Degradation" and drew all of them, which appeared inSounds from 12 July 1980, to 19 March 1983.
Beginning in 1979 Moore created a newcomic strip known asMaxwell the Magic Cat in theNorthants Post (based in Moore's hometown), under the pseudonym ofJill de Ray (a pun on the Medieval child murdererGilles de Rais, something he found to be a "sardonic joke"). Earning a further £10 a week from this, he decided to sign off of social security and to continue writing and drawingMaxwell the Magic Cat until 1986.[2]: 36–37 Moore has stated that he would have been happy to continue Maxwell's adventures almost indefinitely but ended the strip after the newspaper ran a negative editorial on the place of homosexuals in the community.[19] Meanwhile, Moore decided to focus more fully on writing comics rather than both writing and drawing them,[20] stating that "After I'd been doing [it] for a couple of years, I realised that I would never be able to draw well enough and/or quickly enough to actually make any kind of decent living as an artist."[17]: 15
To learn more about how to write a successful comic-book script, he asked for advice from his friend Steve Moore. Interested in writing for2000 AD, one of Britain's most prominent comic magazines, Alan Moore then submitted a script for their long-running and successful seriesJudge Dredd. While having no need for another writer onJudge Dredd, which was already being written byJohn Wagner, fellow writerAlan Grant saw promise in Moore's work – later remarking that "this guy's a really fucking good writer"[21] – and instead asked him to write some short stories for the publication'sFuture Shocks series. While the first few were rejected, Grant advised Moore on improvements, and eventually accepted the first of many. Meanwhile, Moore had also begun writing minor stories forDoctor Who Weekly and later commented that "I really, really wanted a regular strip. I didn't want to do short stories ... But that wasn't what was being offered. I was being offered short four or five-page stories where everything had to be done in those five pages. And, looking back, it was the best possible education that I could have had in how to construct a story."[17]: 21–22
From 1980 until 1986, Moore maintained his status as a freelance writer and was offered a spate of work by a variety of comic book companies in Britain, mainlyMarvel UK, and the publishers of2000 AD andWarrior. He later remarked that "I remember that what was generally happening was that everybody wanted to give me work, for fear that I would just be given other work by their rivals. So everybody was offering me things."[2]: 57 It was an era when comic books were increasing in popularity in Britain, and according toLance Parkin, "the British comics scene was cohering as never before, and it was clear that the audience was sticking with the title as they grew up. Comics were no longer just for very small boys: teenagers – even A-level and university students – were reading them now."[3]: 20
During this period,2000 AD accepted and published over fifty of Moore's one-off stories for theirFuture Shocks andTime Twisters science fiction series.[21][22] The editors at the magazine were impressed by Moore's work and decided to offer him a more permanent strip, starting with a story that they wanted to be vaguely based upon the hit filmE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The result,Skizz, which was illustrated byJim Baikie, told the story of the titular alien who crashes to Earth and is cared for by a teenager named Roxy, and Moore later noted that in his opinion, this work "owes far too much toAlan Bleasdale."[23]: 94 Another series he produced for2000 AD wasD.R. and Quinch, which was illustrated byAlan Davis. The story, which Moore described as "continuing the tradition ofDennis the Menace, but giving him athermonuclear capacity",[23]: 99 revolved around two delinquent aliens, and was a science-fiction take onNational Lampoon's charactersO.C. and Stiggs. The work widely considered to be the highlight of his2000 AD career,[23]: 100–110 and that which he described as "the one that worked best for me",[2]: 58 wasThe Ballad of Halo Jones.[23]: 99–102 Co-created with artistIan Gibson, the series was about a young woman in the 50th century. The series was discontinued after three books due to a dispute between Moore and Fleetway, the magazine's publishers, over the intellectual property rights of the characters Moore and Gibson had co-created.
Another comic company to employ Moore was Marvel UK, who had formerly purchased a few of his one-off stories forDoctor Who Weekly andStar Wars Weekly. Aiming to get an older audience than2000 AD, their main rival, they employed Moore to write for the regular stripCaptain Britain, "halfway through a storyline that he's neither inaugurated nor completely understood."[24] He replaced the former writer Dave Thorpe but maintained the original artist, Alan Davis, whom Moore described as "an artist whose love for the medium and whose sheer exultation upon finding himself gainfully employed within it shine from every line, every new costume design, each nuance of expression."[24]
Guy Fawkes serves as physical and philosophical inspiration for the titular protagonist ofV for Vendetta.
The third comic company that Moore worked for in this period wasQuality Communications, publishers of a new monthly magazine calledWarrior. The magazine was founded byDez Skinn, a former editor of both IPC (publishers of2000 AD) and Marvel UK, and was designed to offer writers a greater degree of freedom over their artistic creations than was allowed by pre-existing companies. It was atWarrior that Moore "would start to reach his potential".[3]: 21 Moore was given two ongoing strips inWarrior:Marvelman andV for Vendetta, both of which debuted inWarrior's first issue in March 1982.V for Vendetta was a dystopian thriller set in a future 1997 where a fascist government controlled Britain, opposed only by a loneanarchist dressed in aGuy Fawkes costume who turns to terrorism to topple the government. Illustrated byDavid Lloyd, Moore was influenced by his pessimistic feelings about theThatcheriteConservative government, which he projected forward as a fascist state in which all ethnic and sexual minorities had been eliminated. It has been regarded as "among Moore's best work" and has maintained a cult following throughout subsequent decades.[3]: 22
Marvelman (later retitledMiracleman for legal reasons) was a series that originally had been published in Britain from 1954 through to 1963, based largely upon the American comicCaptain Marvel. Upon resurrectingMarvelman, Moore "took a kitsch children's character and placed him within the real world of 1982".[3]: 23 The work was drawn primarily byGarry Leach and Alan Davis.[25] The third series that Moore produced forWarrior wasThe Bojeffries Saga, a comedy about a working-class English family ofvampires andwerewolves, drawn bySteve Parkhouse.Warrior closed before these stories were completed,[26][27][28] but under new publishers bothMiracleman andV for Vendetta were resumed by Moore, who finished both stories by 1989. Moore's biographer Lance Parkin remarked that "reading them through together throws up some interesting contrasts – in one the hero fights a fascist dictatorship based in London, in the other anAryan superman imposes one."[3]: 26
Although Moore's work numbered amongst the most popular strips to appear in2000 AD, Moore himself became increasingly concerned at the lack of creator's rights in British comics.[23]: 105–106 In 1985, he talked to fanzineArkensword, noting that he had stopped working for all British publishers bar IPC, "purely for the reason that IPC so far have avoided lying to me, cheating me or generally treating me like shit."[7][29] He did join other creators in decrying the wholesale relinquishing of all rights, and in 1986 stopped writing for2000 AD, leaving mooted future volumes of theHalo Jones story unstarted.[23]: 110–111 Moore's outspoken opinions and principles, particularly on the subject of creator's rights and ownership, would see him burn bridges with a number of other publishers over the course of his career.[7][29]
Meanwhile, during this same period, he – using the pseudonym of Translucia Baboon – became involved in the music scene, founding his own band, The Sinister Ducks, withDavid J (of goth bandBauhaus) and Alex Green, and in 1983 released a single,March of the Sinister Ducks, with sleeve art by illustratorKevin O'Neill. In 1984, Moore and David J released a12-inch single featuring a recording of "This Vicious Cabaret", a song featured inV for Vendetta, which was released on the Glass Records label.[3]: 95 Moore wrote the song "Leopardman at C&A" for David J, and it was set to music by Mick Collins for the albumWe Have You Surrounded by Collins' groupThe Dirtbombs.[30]
Moore's work in2000 AD brought him to the attention ofDC Comics editorLen Wein,[31] who hired him in 1983 to writeThe Saga of the Swamp Thing, then a formulaic and poor-selling monster comic. Moore, with artistsStephen R. Bissette,Rick Veitch, andJohn Totleben,[32] deconstructed and reimagined the character, writing a series of formally experimental stories that addressed environmental and social issues alongside the horror and fantasy, bolstered by research into the culture ofLouisiana, where the series was set.[26][27] ForSwamp Thing he revived many of DC's neglected magical and supernatural characters, including theSpectre, theDemon, thePhantom Stranger,Deadman, and others, and introducedJohn Constantine,[33] an English working-class magician based visually on the British musicianSting; Constantine later became the protagonist of the seriesHellblazer, which became Vertigo's longest-running series at 300 issues. Moore wroteSwamp Thing for almost four years, from issue No. 20 (January 1984) through to issue No. 64 (September 1987) with the exception of issues No. 59 and 62.[3]: 82 Moore's run onSwamp Thing was successful both critically and commercially, and it inspired DC to recruit British writers such asGrant Morrison,Jamie Delano,Peter Milligan, andNeil Gaiman to write comics in a similar vein, often involving radical revamps of obscure characters.[26][27] These titles laid the foundation of what became the Vertigo line.
Moore began producing further stories for DC Comics, including a two-part story forVigilante which dealt with domestic abuse. He was eventually given the chance to write a story for one of DC's best-known superheroes,Superman, entitled "For the Man Who Has Everything", which was illustrated byDave Gibbons and published in 1985.[34] In this story,Wonder Woman,Batman, andRobin visit Superman on his birthday, only to find that he has been overcome by an alien organism and is hallucinating about his heart's desire.[3]: 37 He followed this with another Superman story, "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?", which was published in 1986. Illustrated byCurt Swan, it was designed as the last Superman story in the pre-Crisis on Infinite EarthsDC Universe.[35][36]
The limited seriesWatchmen, begun in 1986 and collected as a trade paperback in 1987, cemented Moore's reputation. Imagining what the world would be like if costumed heroes had really existed since the 1940s, Moore and artistDave Gibbons created aCold War mystery in which the shadow ofnuclear war threatens the world. The heroes who are caught up in this escalating crisis either work for the US government or are outlawed, and are motivated to heroism by their various psychological hang-ups.Watchmen is non-linear and told from multiple points of view, and includes highly sophisticated self-references, ironies, and formal experiments such as the symmetrical design of issue 5, "Fearful Symmetry", where the last page is a near mirror-image of the first, the second-last of the second, and so on, and in this manner is an early example of Moore's interest in the human perception of time and its implications for free will. It is the only comic to win theHugo Award, in a one-time category ("Best Other Form").[37] It is widely seen as Moore's best work, and has been regularly described as the greatest comic book ever written.[3]: 39–40 Alongside roughly contemporary works such as Frank Miller'sBatman:The Dark Knight Returns,Art Spiegelman'sMaus, andJaime andGilbert Hernandez'sLove and Rockets,Watchmen was part of a late 1980s trend in American comics towards more adult sensibilities.[38]Comics historianLes Daniels noted thatWatchmen "called into question the basic assumptions on which the superhero genre is formulated".[39] DC Comics writer and executivePaul Levitz observed in 2010 that "As withThe Dark Knight Returns,Watchmen set off a chain reaction of rethinking the nature of superheroes and heroism itself, and pushed the genre darker for more than a decade. The series won acclaim ... and would continue to be regarded as one of the most important literary works the field ever produced."[40] Moore briefly became a media celebrity, and the resulting attention led to him withdrawing fromfandom and no longer attending comics conventions (at oneUKCAC in London he is said to have been followed into the toilet by eager autograph hunters).[41]
He and Gibbons had earlier created the characterMogo as part of DC'sGreen Lantern Corps[42] and a short story by Moore and artistKevin O'Neill published inGreen Lantern Corps Annual No. 2 (1986) was one of the inspirations for the "Blackest Night" storyline in 2009–2010.[43]
In 1987, Moore submitted a proposal for a miniseries calledTwilight of the Superheroes, the title a twist onRichard Wagner's operaGötterdämmerung (meaning "Twilight of the Gods"). The series was set in the future of the DC Universe, where the world is ruled by superheroic dynasties, including the House of Steel (presided over by Superman and Wonder Woman) and the House of Thunder (led by theCaptain Marvel family). These two houses are about to unite through a dynastic marriage, their combined power potentially threatening freedom, and several characters, including John Constantine, attempt to stop it and free humanity from the power of superheroes. The series would also have restored the DC Universe's multiple earths, which had been eliminated in the continuity-revising 1985 limited seriesCrisis on Infinite Earths. The series was never commissioned, but copies of Moore's detailed notes have appeared on the Internet and in print despite the efforts of DC, who consider the proposal their property.[3]: 43–44 Similar elements, such as the concept ofhypertime, have since appeared in DC comics. The 1996 miniseriesKingdom Come byMark Waid andAlex Ross, was also set amid a superheroic conflict in the future of the DC Universe. Waid and Ross have stated that they had read theTwilight proposal before starting work on their series, but that any similarities are both minor and unintended.[28] DC Comics confirmed that the full text of the story would be released in December 2020.[44][45]
Moore wrote the lead story inBatman Annual No. 11 (1987) drawn byGeorge Freeman.[46] The following year saw the publication ofThe Killing Joke, written by Moore and illustrated byBrian Bolland. It revolved aroundThe Joker, who had escapedArkham Asylum and gone on a killing spree, and Batman's effort to stop him. Despite being a key work in helping to redefine Batman as a character,[47][48] along withFrank Miller'sThe Dark Knight Returns andBatman: Year One, Lance Parkin believed that "the theme isn't developed enough" and "it's a rare example of a Moore story where the art is better than the writing,"[3]: 38–39 something Moore himself acknowledges.[2]: 121
Moore's relationship with DC Comics had gradually deteriorated over the issues of creator's rights and merchandising. Moore and Gibbons were not paid any royalties for aWatchmen spin-off badge set, as DC defined them as a "promotional item",[49] and according to certain reports, he and Gibbons gained only 2% of the profits earned by DC forWatchmen.[3]: 44 Meanwhile, a group of creators including Moore, Frank Miller,Marv Wolfman, andHoward Chaykin, fell out with DC over a proposed age-rating system similar to those used for films.[3]: 44–45 After completingV for Vendetta, which DC had already begun publishing, thus enabling him to finish the final few episodes, in 1989,[50] Moore stopped working for DC.
Moore later claimed thatfine print in the contracts regardingWatchmen andV for Vendetta, which stipulated that the ownership rights would revert to Moore and the artists after the stories had gone out of publication, had tricked him into believing he would eventually retain ownership, only to discover that DC had no intention of ceasing publication of the stories, effectively preventing the ownership from ever returning to Moore.[51]
In a 2006 interview withThe New York Times, Moore recalled telling DC, "I said, 'Fair enough. You have managed to successfully swindle me, and so I will never work for you again'".[51]
Abandoning DC Comics and the mainstream, Moore, with his wife Phyllis and their mutual lover Deborah Delano, set up their own comics publishing company, which they named Mad Love. The works they published in Mad Love turned away from the science fiction and superhero genres that Moore was used to writing, instead focusing on realism, ordinary people, and political causes. Mad Love's first publication,AARGH, was an anthology of work by a number of writers (including Moore) that challenged the Thatcher government's recently introducedClause 28, a law designed to prevent councils and schools "promoting homosexuality". Sales from the book went towards the Organisation of Lesbian and Gay Action, and Moore was "very pleased with" it, stating that "we hadn't prevented this bill from becoming law, but we had joined in the general uproar against it, which prevented it from ever becoming as viciously effective as its designers might have hoped."[2]: 149 [52] Moore followed this with a second political work,Shadowplay: The Secret Team, a comic illustrated byBill Sienkiewicz forEclipse Comics and commissioned by theChristic Institute, which was included as a part of the anthologyBrought to Light, a description of theCIA's covert drug smuggling and arms dealing.[3]: 47 In 1998Brought to Light was adapted by Moore in collaboration with composerGary Lloyd as a narrative and music work which was released on CD.
After prompting by cartoonist and self-publishing advocateDave Sim,[12] Moore then used Mad Love to publish his next project,Big Numbers, a proposed 12-issue series set in "a hardly-disguised version of Moore's native Northampton" known as Hampton, and deals with the effects of big business on ordinary people and with ideas ofchaos theory.[3]: 48 Illustration of the comic was begun by Bill Sienkiewicz, who left the series after only two issues in 1990, and despite plans that his assistant,Al Columbia, would replace him, it never occurred and the seriesremained unfinished.[3]: 48–49 [53] Following this, in 1991 the companyVictor Gollancz Ltd published Moore'sA Small Killing, a full-length story illustrated byOscar Zárate, about a once idealistic advertising executive haunted by his boyhood self. According to Lance Parkin,A Small Killing is "quite possibly Moore's most underrated work".[3]: 49 Soon after this, Mad Love itself was disbanded as Phyllis and Deborah ended their relationship with Moore, taking with them much of the money that he had earned from his work in the 1980s.[3]: 25
Meanwhile, Moore began producing work forTaboo, a small independent comic anthology edited by his former collaboratorStephen R. Bissette. The first of these wasFrom Hell, a fictionalised account of theJack the Ripper murders of the 1880s. Inspired byDouglas Adams' novelDirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency,[54] Moore reasoned that to solve a crimeholistically, one would need to solve the entire society it occurred in, and depicts the murders as a consequence of the politics and economics of the time. Just about every notable figure of the period is connected with the events in some way, including "Elephant Man"Joseph Merrick,Oscar Wilde,Native American writerBlack Elk,William Morris, artistWalter Sickert, andAleister Crowley, who makes a brief appearance as a young boy. Illustrated in a sooty pen-and-ink style byEddie Campbell,From Hell took nearly ten years to complete, outlastingTaboo and going through two more publishers before being collected as a trade paperback by Eddie Campbell Comics. It was widely praised, with comics authorWarren Ellis citing it as his "all-time favourite graphic novel".[55]
The other series that Moore began forTaboo wasLost Girls, which he described as a work of intelligent "pornography".[56] Illustrated byMelinda Gebbie, with whom Moore subsequently entered into a relationship, it was set in 1913, whereAlice fromAlice in Wonderland,Dorothy fromThe Wizard of Oz andWendy fromPeter Pan – who are each of a different age and class – all meet in a European hotel and regale each other with tales of their sexual encounters.[3]: 49–50 With the work, Moore wanted to attempt something innovative in comics, and believed that creating comics pornography was a way of achieving this. He remarked that "I had a lot of different ideas as to how it might be possible to do an up-front sexual comic strip and to do it in a way that would remove a lot of what I saw were the problems with pornography in general. That it's mostly ugly, it's mostly boring, it's not inventive – it has no standards."[2]: 154–155 LikeFrom Hell,Lost Girls outlastedTaboo, and a few subsequent instalments were published erratically until the work was finished and a complete edition published in 2006.
Meanwhile, Moore set about writing a prose novel, eventually producingVoice of the Fire, which was published in 1996. Unconventional in tone, the novel was a set of short stories about linked events in his hometown of Northampton through the centuries, from theBronze Age to the present day, which combined to tell a larger story.[3]: 92
Return to the mainstream and Image Comics: 1993–1998
In 1993 Moore declared himself to be aceremonial magician. The same year marked a move by Moore back to the mainstream comics industry and back to writing superhero comics. He did so throughImage Comics, widely known at the time for its flashy artistic style, graphic violence, and scantily clad large-breasted women, something that horrified many of his fans.[3]: 55 His first work published by Image, an issue of the seriesSpawn, was soon followed by the creation of his own mini-series,1963, which was "a pastiche ofJack Kirby stories drawn forMarvel in the sixties, with their rather overblown style, colourful characters and cosmic style".[3]: 56 According to Moore, "after I'd done the1963 stuff I'd become aware of how much the comic audience had changed while I'd been away [since 1988]. That all of a sudden it seemed that the bulk of the audience really wanted things that had almost no story, just lots of big, full-page pin-up sort of pieces of artwork. And I was genuinely interested to see if I could write a decent story for that market."[2]: 173
He subsequently set about writing what he saw as "better than average stories for 13- to 15-year olds", including three mini-series based upon theSpawn series:Violator,Violator/Badrock, andSpawn: Blood Feud.[3]: 56 In 1995, he was also given control of a regular monthly comic,Jim Lee'sWildC.A.T.S., starting with issue No. 21, which he continued to write for fourteen issues. The series followed two groups of superheroes, one of which is on a spaceship headed back to its home planet, and one of which remains on Earth. Moore's biographer Lance Parkin was critical of the run, feeling that it was one of Moore's worst, and that "you feel Moore should be better than this. It's not special."[3]: 56 Moore himself, who remarked that he took on the series – his only regular monthly comic series sinceSwamp Thing – largely because he liked Jim Lee, admitted that he was not entirely happy with the work, believing that he had catered too much to his conceptions of what the fans wanted rather than being innovative.[2]: 174
Next he took overRob Liefeld'sSupreme, about a character with many similarities with DC Comics'Superman. Instead of emphasising increased realism as he had done with earlier superhero comics he had taken over, Moore did the opposite and began basing the series on theSilver Age Superman comics of the 1960s, introducing a female superhero Suprema, a super-dog Radar, and aKryptonite-like material known as Supremium, in doing so harking back to the original "mythic" figure of the American superhero. Under Moore, Supreme proved a critical and commercial success, announcing that he was back in the mainstream after several years of self-imposed exile.[3]: 59–60
When Rob Liefeld, one of Image's co-founders, split from the publisher and formed his own company Awesome Entertainment, he hired Moore to create a new universe for the characters he had brought with him from Image. Moore's "solution was breathtaking and cocky – he created a long and distinguished history for these new characters, retro-fitting a fake silver and gold age for them." Moore began writing comics for many of these characters, such asGlory andYoungblood, as well as a three-part mini-series known asJudgment Day to provide a basis for the Awesome Universe.[3]: 60–61 Moore was not satisfied with Liefeld, saying "I just got fed up with the unreliability of information that I get from him, that I didn't trust him. I didn't think that he was respecting the work and I found it hard to respect him. And also by then I was probably feeling that with the exception of Jim Lee,Jim Valentino – people like that – that a couple of the Image partners were seeming, to my eyes, to be less than gentlemen. They were seeming to be not necessarily the people I wanted to deal with."[2]: 175
Image partner Jim Lee offered to provide Moore with his own imprint, which would be under Lee's companyWildStorm Productions. Moore named this imprintAmerica's Best Comics, lining up a series of artists and writers to assist him in this venture. Lee soon sold WildStorm – including America's Best Comics – to DC Comics, and "Moore found himself back with a company he'd vowed to never work with again". Lee and editorScott Dunbier flew to England personally to reassure Moore that he would not be affected by the sale, and would not have to deal with DC directly.[57] Moore decided that there were too many people involved to back out from the project, and so ABC was launched in early 1999.[3]: 62
Another of Moore's ABC works wasTom Strong, a post-modern superhero series, featured a hero inspired by characters pre-dating Superman, such asDoc Savage andTarzan. The character's drug-induced longevity allowed Moore to include flashbacks to Strong's adventures throughout the 20th century, written and drawn in period styles, as a comment on the history of comics andpulp fiction. The primary artist wasChris Sprouse.Tom Strong bore many similarities to Moore's earlier work onSupreme, but according to Lance Parkin, was "more subtle", and was "ABC's most accessible comic".[3]: 64–65
Moore'sTop 10, a deadpanpolice procedural drama set in a city called Neopolis where everyone, including the police, criminals, and civilians has super-powers, costumes, and secret identities, was drawn byGene Ha andZander Cannon.[3]: 65–66, 71 The series ended after twelve issues but has spawned four spin-offs: a miniseriesSmax, which was set in a fantasy realm and drawn by Cannon;Top 10: The Forty-Niners, a prequel to the mainTop Ten series drawn by Ha;[3]: 68 [59] and two sequel miniseries,Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct, which was written byPaul Di Filippo and drawn byJerry Ordway, andTop 10: Season Two, written by Cannon and drawn by Ha.
Moore's seriesPromethea, which told the story of a teenage girl, Sophie Bangs, who is possessed by an ancient pagan goddess, the titular Promethea, explored many occult themes, particularly theQabalah and the concept ofmagic, with Moore stating that "I wanted to be able to do an occult comic that didn't portray the occult as a dark, scary place, because that's not my experience of it ... [Promethea was] more psychedelic ... more sophisticated, more experimental, more ecstatic and exuberant."[2]: 188 Drawn byJ. H. Williams III, it has been described as "a personal statement" from Moore, being one of his most personal works, and that it encompasses "a belief system, a personal cosmology".[3]: 68
ABC Comics was also used to publish an anthology series,Tomorrow Stories, which featured a regular cast of characters such asCobweb, First American,Greyshirt,Jack B. Quick, and Splash Brannigan.Tomorrow Stories was notable for being an anthology series, a medium that had largely died out in American comics at the time.[3]: 66
Despite the assurances that DC Comics would not interfere with Moore and his work, they subsequently did so, angering him. Specifically, inLeague of Extraordinary Gentlemen No. 5, an authentic vintage advertisement for a "Marvel"-branddouche caused DC executivePaul Levitz to order the entire print run destroyed and reprinted with the advertisement amended to "Amaze", to avoid friction with DC's competitorMarvel Comics.[60] ACobweb story Moore wrote forTomorrow Stories No. 8 featuring references toL. Ron Hubbard, American occultistJack Parsons, and the "Babalon Working", was blocked by DC Comics due to the subject matter. DC had already published a version of the same event in theirParadox Press volumeThe Big Book of Conspiracies.[61]
In 2003, a documentary about him was made by Shadowsnake Films, titledThe Mindscape of Alan Moore, which was later released on DVD.[62]
With many of the stories he had planned for America's Best Comics brought to an end, and with his increasing dissatisfaction with how DC Comics were interfering with his work, he decided to once more pull out of the comics mainstream. In 2005, he remarked that "I love the comics medium. I pretty much detest the comics industry. Give it another 15 months, I'll probably be pulling out of mainstream, commercial comics."[17]: 65 The only ABC title continued by Moore wasThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; after cutting ties with DC he launched the newLeague saga,Volume III: Century, in a co-publishing partnership ofTop Shelf Productions andKnockabout Comics, the first part, titled "1910" released in 2009, the second, titled "1969", released in 2011, and the third, titled "2009", released in 2012. He continues to work withKevin O'Neill on theirLeague of Extraordinary Gentlemen spin-off,Nemo, with three graphic novels published, "Heart of Ice", "The Roses of Berlin", and "River of Ghosts".
In 2006, the complete edition ofLost Girls was published, as a slipcased set of three hardcover volumes. The same year Moore published an eight-page article tracing out the history of pornography in which he argued that a society's vibrancy and success are related to its permissiveness in sexual matters. Decrying that the consumption of contemporary ubiquitous pornography was still widely considered shameful, he called for a new and more artistic pornography that could be openly discussed and would have a beneficial impact on society.[63][64] He expanded on this for a 2009 book-length essay entitled25,000 years of Erotic Freedom, which was described by a reviewer as "a tremendously witty history lecture – a sort ofHorrible Histories for grownups."[65]
In 2007, Moore appeared in animated form in an episode ofThe Simpsons – a show of which he is a fan[66] – entitled "Husbands and Knives", which aired on his fifty-fourth birthday.
In 2010, Moore began what he described as "the 21st century's first underground magazine". TitledDodgem Logic, the bi-monthly publication consisted of work by a number of Northampton and Midlands-based authors and artists, as well as original contributions from Moore.[69][70] Despite Dodgem Logic's content not being particularly regional or parochial, its advertising sales remained mainly Midland's based, limiting its financial stability, and making it unusually dependent upon sales revenues. It ran for eight issues and folded in April 2011.
In 2010 Moore began publishing a series of comics set in theH. P. Lovecraft universe returning to an earlier interest in the work and worlds of the author.Avatar Press had previously publishedAlan Moore's Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths, a compilation of unpublished scripts and strips and comic adaptations of previously published poems by Moore themed around or based upon Lovecraft's work in 2003, followed by the two partThe Courtyard adapted from a previously published Lovecraftian Moore short story. The horror mini-seriesNeonomicon, the first of Moore's original comic works released by Avatar Press, were illustrated byJacen Burrows who had also illustrated the earlier adaptations, and the fourth and final issue was released in January 2011.[71] In 2014 a twelve-part series reuniting Moore with Jacen Burrows was announced titledProvidence on Lovecraft and the sources of theCthulhu Mythos forming a prequel toNeonomicon. It was published in twelve issues from 2015 to 2017.[72]
Moore has appeared live at music events collaborating with a number of different musicians, including a 2011 appearance withStephen O'Malley at theAll Tomorrow's Parties 'I'll Be Your Mirror' music festival in London.[73]
Alan Moore has joined theOccupy ComicsKickstarter project. Moore contributed an essay on comics as counter-culture.[78]
In 2014, Moore announced that he was leading a research and development project to "create an app enabling digital comics to be made by anyone".[79]Electricomics premiered in 2015.[80] It is an open source app for reading and creating interactive comics. Moore wrote the storyBig Nemo, a dystopian sequel to Winsor McCay'sLittle Nemo. It was illustrated byColleen Doran and animated by Ocasta Studios with colours by Jose Villarubia.The Guardian chose it as one of the best iPhone/iPad apps of 2015.[81] Pipedream Comics named it the Digital Comics App of the Year.[82]
In 2016, Moore confirmed that after authoring a finalLeague of Extraordinary Gentlemen book, he planned on retiring from regularly writing comic books.[83]
In April 2016, Moore began curating a comic book anthology series entitledCinema Purgatorio published byAvatar Press, each issue opening with a story written by Moore and illustrated byKevin O'Neill. The book also features the writing and artist team-ups ofGarth Ennis andRaulo Cáceres (Code Pru),Max Brooks and Michael DiPascale (A More Perfect Union),Kieron Gillen and Ignacio Calero (Modded), andChristos Gage and Gabriel Andrade (The Vast). The anthology series has been described as "Classic tropes of pulp fiction, either turned on their head, given new filters or explored in ridiculous detail, by some of the very best comic creators we have today."[84]
In 2018, Moore contributed to the comic anthology24 Panels. The publication was curated by Kieron Gillen and intended to raise funds for those affected by theGrenfell Tower fire of 2017.[85]
With the end of the fourth volume ofLeague of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the conclusion of his Lovecraft sequence and some short stories appearing inCinema Purgatorio, Moore has retired from comics as of mid-2019.[86] In 2022 he confirmed it, saying "I'm definitely done with comics, I haven't written one for getting on for five years. I will always love and adore the comics medium but the comics industry and all of the stuff attached to it just became unbearable."[87]
In 2023, it was announced that Moore is a writing a new fantasy series calledThe Long London. The first book of the series,The Great When, released on 1 October 2024. This series will consist of five books.[75] The second book of the series is named asI Hear A New World.[88]
In a number of his comics, where he was taking over from earlier writers, includingMarvelman,Swamp Thing, andSupreme, he used the "familiar tactic of wiping out what had gone before, giving the hero amnesia and revealing that everything we'd learned to that point was a lie."[3]: 58 In this manner he was largely able to start afresh with the character and its series and was not constrained by earlier canon. While commenting on the artistic restrictiveness of serialised comic books, artistJoe Rubinstein gave the example that a comics creator would be limited in what he could do withSpider-Man, and added, "unless you're Alan Moore, who would probably kill him and bring him back as a real spider or something".[89]
Moore's work in the comic book medium has been widely recognised by his peers and by critics. Comics historianGeorge Khoury asserted that "to call this free spirit the best writer in the history of comic books is an understatement"[2]: 10 while interviewer Steve Rose referred to him as "theOrson Welles of comics" who is "the undisputed high priest of the medium, whose every word is seized upon like a message from the ether" by comic book fans.[102] Douglas Wolk observed: "Moore has undisputably made it into the Hall of Fame: he's one of the pillars of English language comics, alongside Jack Kirby and Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman and not many others. He's also the grand exception in that hall, since the other pillars are artists – and more often than not, writer/artists. Moore is a writer almost exclusively, though his hyper detailed scripts always play to the strengths of the artists he works with. That makes him the chief monkey wrench in comics author theory. The main reason that almost nobody's willing to say that a single cartoonist iscategorically superior to a writer/artist team is that such a rule would run smack into Moore's bibliography. In fact, a handful of cartoonists who almost always write the stories they draw have made exceptions for Moore –Jaime Hernandez,Mark Beyer and most memorably Eddie Campbell."[103]: 229
Moore won numerousJack Kirby Awards, including for Best Single Issue forSwamp Thing Annual No. 2 in 1985 with John Totleben and Steve Bissette,[105] for Best Continuing Series forSwamp Thing in 1985,[105] 1986[106] and 1987[107] with Totleben and Bissette, Best Writer forSwamp Thing in 1985[105] and 1986[106] and forWatchmen in 1987,[107] and withDave Gibbons for Best Finite Series and Best Writer/Artist (Single or Team) forWatchmen in 1987.[107]
Moore has won multipleEagle Awards, including virtually a "clean sweep" in 1986 for his work onWatchmen andSwamp Thing. Moore not only won "favourite writer in both the US and UK categories", but had his work win for favourite comic book, supporting character, and new title in the US; and character, continuing story and "character worthy of own title" in the UK (in which last category his works held all top three spots).[109]
Moore has been nominated for theComics Buyer's Guide Fan Awards several times, winning for Favorite Writer in 1985, 1986, 1987, 1999, and 2000. He won the CBG Fan Award for Favorite Comic Book Story (Watchmen) in 1987 and Favorite Original Graphic Novel or Album (Batman: The Killing Joke withBrian Bolland) in 1988.[110]
He was given the "Best Comics Writer Ever"National Comics Award in 2001, 2002,[111] and 2003.[112] In addition, he was added to the National Comics Award's Roll of Honour in 2002.[111]
Due to the success of his comics, a number of filmmakers have expressed a desire to make film adaptations over the years. Moore himself has consistently opposed such ventures, stating that "I wanted to give comics a special place when I was writing things likeWatchmen. I wanted to show off just what the possibilities of the comic book medium were, and films are completely different."[122] Expressing similar sentiments, he also remarked that:
If we only see comics in relation to movies then the best that they will ever be is films that do not move. I found it, in the mid 80s, preferable to concentrate on those things that only comics could achieve. The way in which a tremendous amount of information could be included visually in every panel, the juxtapositions between what a character was saying and what the image that the reader was looking at would be. So in a sense ... most of my work from the 80s onwards was designed to be un-filmable.[62]
The first film to be based upon Moore's work wasFrom Hell in 2001, which was directed by theHughes brothers. The film included a number of radical differences from the original comic, altering the main character from an older, conservative detective to a young character played byJohnny Depp. This was followed in 2003 withThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a film that also departed radically from the books, changing the ending from a mob war over the skies of London to the infiltration of a secret base inTibet. For these two works, Moore was content to allow the filmmakers to do whatever they wished and removed himself from the process entirely. "As long as I could distance myself by not seeing them," he said, he could profit from the films while leaving the original comics untouched, "assured no one would confuse the two. This was probably naïve on my part."[123]
His attitude changed after producerMartin Poll and screenwriterLarry Cohenfiled a lawsuit against20th Century Fox, alleging that the filmThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen plagiarised an unproduced script they had written entitledCast of Characters. According to Moore, "They seemed to believe that the head of 20th Century Fox called me up and persuaded me to steal this screenplay, turning it into a comic book they could then adapt back into a movie, to camouflage petty larceny." Moore testified in a deposition and found the process to be extremely unpleasant. Fox's settlement of the case insulted Moore, who interpreted it as an admission of guilt.[123] In 2012, Moore claimed that he had sold the rights to these two works simply for the money; he did not expect the films ever to be made. He was simply "getting money for old rope". Moore said in an interview in 2012 that he had seen neither film.[124]
In 2005 a film adaptation of Moore'sV for Vendetta was released, produced byThe Wachowskis and directed byJames McTeigue. ProducerJoel Silver said at a press conference for theWarner Bros.'V for Vendetta that fellow producerLana Wachowski had talked with Moore, and that "[Moore] was very excited about what [Lana] had to say."[125] Moore disputed this, reporting that he told Wachowski "I didn't want anything to do with films ... I wasn't interested in Hollywood," and demanded that DC Comics force Warner Bros to issue a public retraction and apology for Silver's "blatant lies". Although Silver called Moore directly to apologise, no public retraction appeared. Moore was quoted as saying that the comic book had been "specifically about things like fascism and anarchy. Those words, 'fascism' and 'anarchy,' occur nowhere in the film. It's been turned into aBush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country."[126]
Moore also publicly criticised details of the script before the film's release, pointing to apparent laziness in the writing. "They don't know what British people have for breakfast, they couldn't be bothered [to find out]. 'Eggy in a basket' apparently. Now the US have 'eggs in a basket,' which is fried bread with a fried egg in a hole in the middle. I guess they thought we must eat that as well, and thought 'eggy in a basket' was a quaint and Olde Worlde version", he stated.
This conflict between Moore and DC Comics was the subject of an article inThe New York Times[49] on 12 March 2006, five days before the US release. In theNew York Times article, Silver stated that about 20 years prior to the film's release he had met with Moore and Dave Gibbons when Silver acquired the film rights toV for Vendetta andWatchmen. Silver stated, "Alan was odd, but he was enthusiastic and encouraging us to do this. I had foolishly thought that he would continue feeling that way today, not realizing that he wouldn't." Moore did not deny this meeting or Silver's characterisation of Moore at that meeting, nor did Moore state that he advised Silver of his change of opinion in those approximately 20 years. TheNew York Times article also interviewed David Lloyd about Moore's reaction to the film's production, stating, "Mr Lloyd, the illustrator ofV for Vendetta, also found it difficult to sympathize with Mr Moore's protests. When he and Mr Moore sold their film rights to the comic book, Mr Lloyd said: 'We didn't do it innocently. Neither myself nor Alan thought we were signing it over to a board of trustees who would look after it like it was theDead Sea Scrolls.'"[49]
Moore has subsequently stated that he wishes his name to be removed from all comic work that he does not own, includingWatchmen andV for Vendetta, much as unhappy film directors often choose to have their names removed and be credited as "Alan Smithee". He also announced that he would not allow his name to be used in any future film adaptations of works he does not own, nor would he accept any money from such adaptations.[127] This request was respected by the producers of the subsequent screen adaptations of his works:Constantine (2005) (based on a character created by Moore), the2009 Warner BrothersWatchmen film, the2016 animatedBatman: The Killing Joke film and the2019 HBOWatchmen TV series.
In a 2012 interview withLeftLion magazine, Moore was asked to put a figure on how much money he had turned down by refusing to be associated with these film adaptations. He estimated it to be "at least a few million dollars" and said:
You can't buy that kind of empowerment. To just know that as far as you are aware, you have not got a price; that there is not an amount of money large enough to make you compromise even a tiny bit of principle that, as it turned out, would make no practical difference anyway. I'd advise everyone to do it, otherwise you're going to end up mastered by money and that's not a thing you want ruling your life.[128]
Moore has expressed criticism of modernsuperhero movies in general, which he once called a "blight" to cinema and "also to culture to a degree". He said in an October 2022 interview withThe Guardian that the popularization of the genre on the part of adults is an "infantilization" that can act as "a precursor to fascism". Lamenting at how deeply such films became part of the culture, Moore commented:[129][130]
I will always love and adore the comics medium but the comics industry and all of the stuff attached to it just became unbearable... Hundreds of thousands of adults [are] lining up to see characters and situations that had been created to entertain the 12-year-old boys – and itwas always boys – of 50 years ago. I didn't really think that superheroes were adult fare. I think that this was a misunderstanding born of what happened in the 1980s – to which I must put my hand up to a considerable share of the blame, though it was not intentional – when things like Watchmen were first appearing. There were an awful lot of headlines saying 'Comics Have Grown Up'. I tend to think that, no, comics hadn't grown up. There were a few titles that were more adult than people were used to. But the majority of comics titles were pretty much the same as they'd ever been. It wasn't comics growing up. I think it was more comics meeting the emotional age of the audience coming the other way.[129][130]
During a September 2023 interview withThe Telegraph, Moore reiterated this view, saying that what had appealed to him most about output from comics publishers was "no more", saying, "Now they're called 'graphic novels', which sounds sophisticated and you can charge a lot more for them. These innocent and inventive and imaginative superhero characters from the '40s, '50s and '60s are being recycled to a modern audience as if they were adult fare." During that same interview, journalist Jake Kerridge asked Moore if it was true that he divided the money he had received from onscreen adaptations of his work among the writers and other staffpersons of those productions. Moore replied, "I no longer wish it to even be shared with them. I don't really feel, with the recent films, that they have stood by what I assumed were their original principles. So I asked for DC Comics to send all of the money from any future TV series or films toBlack Lives Matter."[11][130]
Since his teenage years Moore has had long hair, and since early adulthood has also had a beard. He has taken to wearing a number of large rings on his hands, leading him to be described as a "cross betweenHagrid and Danny fromWithnail and I" who could be easily mistaken for "the village eccentric".[102] Born and raised inNorthampton, he continues to live in the town, and used its history as a basis for his novelsVoice of the Fire andJerusalem.
With his first wife Phyllis, whom he married in the early 1970s, he has two daughters,Leah and Amber. The couple also had a mutual lover, Deborah, although the relationship between the three ended in the early 1990s as Phyllis and Deborah left Moore, taking his daughters with them.[2]: 158–159 [136] On 12 May 2007, he marriedMelinda Gebbie, with whom he has worked on several comics, most notablyLost Girls.[137]
His "unassuming terraced" Northampton home was described by an interviewer in 2001 as "something like an occult bookshop under permanent renovation, with records, videos, magical artefacts and comic-book figurines strewn among shelves of mystical tomes and piles of paper. The bathroom, with blue-and-gold décor and a generous sunken tub, is palatial; the rest of the house has possibly never seen a vacuum cleaner. This is clearly a man who spends little time on the material plane."[102] He likes to live in his home town, feeling that it affords him a level of obscurity that he enjoys, remarking that "I never signed up to be a celebrity."[62] He has spoken in praise of the town's former Radical MP,Charles Bradlaugh at the annual commemoration. He is also a vegetarian.[138]
As of September 2023, Moore was said to be living "a quiet life in Northampton, England."[130]
In 1993, on his fortieth birthday, Moore openly declared his dedication to being aceremonial magician, something he saw as "a logical end step to my career as a writer".[62] According to a 2001 interview, his inspiration for doing this came when he was writingFrom Hell in the early 1990s, a book containing muchFreemasonic and occult symbolism: "One word balloon inFrom Hell completely hijacked my life ... A character says something like, 'The one place gods inarguably exist is in the human mind'. After I wrote that, I realised I'd accidentally made a true statement, and now I'd have to rearrange my entire life around it. The only thing that seemed to really be appropriate was to become a magician."[102] Moore associates magic very much with writing; "I believe that magic is art, and that art, whether that be music, writing, sculpture, or any other form, is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words or images, to achieve changes in consciousness ... Indeed to cast a spell is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change people's consciousness, and this is why I believe that an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world to ashaman."[62]
Monotheism is, to me, a great simplification. I mean theQabalah has a great multiplicity of gods, but at the very top of the Qabalic Tree of Life, you have this one sphere that is absolute God, theMonad, something which is indivisible. All of the other gods, and indeed everything else in the universe, is a kind of emanation of that God. Now, that's fine, but it's when you suggest that there is only that one God, at this kind of unreachable height above humanity, and there is nothing in between, you're limiting and simplifying the thing. I tend to think ofpaganism as a kind of alphabet, as a language, it's like all of the gods are letters in that language. They express nuances, shades of meaning or certain subtleties of ideas, whereas monotheism tends to just be one vowel and it's just something like 'oooooooo'. It's a monkey sound.
Connecting his esoteric beliefs with his career in writing, he conceptualised a hypothetical area known as the "Idea Space", describing it as "... a space in which mental events can be said to occur, an idea space which is perhaps universal. Our individual consciousnesses have access to this vast universal space, just as we have individual houses, but the street outside the front door belongs to everybody. It's almost as if ideas are pre-existing forms within this space ... The landmasses that might exist in this mind space would be composed entirely of ideas, of concepts, that instead of continents and islands you might have large belief systems, philosophies,Marxism might be one,Judeo-Christian religions might make up another." He subsequently believed that to navigate this space, magical systems like thetarot and the Qabalah would have to be used.[62]
Taking up the study of the Qabalah and the writings of the early 20th-century occultistAleister Crowley, Moore accepted ideas from Crowley's religion,Thelema, aboutTrue Will being connected to the will of thepantheistic universe.[62] In some of his earlier magical rituals, he used mind-altering psychedelic drugs but later gave this up, believing that they were unnecessary, and stated, "It's frightening. You call out the names in this strange incomprehensible language, and you're looking into the glass and there appears to be this little man talking to you. It just works."[102]
Moore took as his primary deity the ancient Roman snake godGlycon, who was the centre of a cult founded by a prophet known asAlexander of Abonoteichus, and according to Alexander's criticLucian, the god itself was merely a puppet, something Moore accepts, considering him to be a "complete hoax",[6][139] but dismisses as irrelevant. According to Pagan Studies scholar Ethan Doyle-White, "The very fact that Glycon was probably one big hoax was enough to convince Moore to devote himself to the scaly lord, for, as Moore maintains, the imagination is just as real as reality."[140] Moore has an altar to Glycon at his home.[102]
Moore politically identifies as ananarchist,[7] and outlined his interpretation of anarchist philosophy, and its application to fiction writing in an interview withMargaret Killjoy, collected in the 2009 book,Mythmakers and Lawbreakers:
I believe that all other political states are in fact variations or outgrowths of a basic state of anarchy; after all, when you mention the idea of anarchy to most people they will tell you what a bad idea it is because the biggest gang would just take over. Which is pretty much how I see contemporary society. We live in a badly developed anarchist situation in which the biggest gang has taken over and have declared that it is not an anarchist situation – that it is acapitalist or acommunist situation. But I tend to think that anarchy is the most natural form of politics for a human being to actually practice.[142]
I can't think of any reason why as a population we should be expected to stand by and see a gross reduction in the living standards of ourselves and our kids, possibly for generations, when the people who have got us into this have been rewarded for it – they've certainly not been punished in any way because they're too big to fail. I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who's too big to fail. As an anarchist, I believe that power should be given to the people whose lives this is actually affecting.[149]
In August 2016, Moore endorsedJeremy Corbyn'scampaign in theLabour Party leadership election.[151] In the2017 general election, Moore expressed guarded support for theLabour Party, mainly due to the left-wing socialist Corbyn being elected leader, although he does not vote as a matter of political principle.[152] In November 2019, Moore again expressed guarded support for Labour, saying that he was voting for the first time in over forty years. "Although my vote is principally against the Tories rather than for Labour," he wrote, "I'd observe that Labour's current manifesto is the most encouraging set of proposals that I've ever seen from any major British party. Though these are immensely complicated times and we are all uncertain as to which course we should take, I'd say the one that steers us furthest from the glaringly apparent iceberg is the safest bet."[153][154][155]
Doing research intoconspiracy theories for his work onBrought to Light, Moore came to develop his own view about why people accept conspiracy theories, stating that:
Yes, there is a conspiracy, indeed there are a great number of conspiracies, all tripping each other up ... the main thing that I learned about conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in the conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not theJewish banking conspiracy, or thegrey aliens, or the twelve-footreptiloids from another dimension that are in control, the truth is far more frightening; no-one is in control, the world is rudderless.[62]
Despite his advocacy for creator-owned comics, Moore has expressed dissatisfaction with the output of independent comic companies, stating in a 1985essay that, "With a very few bold exceptions, most of the creator-owned material produced by the independent companies has been indistinguishable from the mainstream product that preceded it."[157] Moore has also criticized his own overuse of "a basic elliptical plot structure, where elements at the beginning of the story mirror events which are to happen at the end ... acting as bookends to give the story that takes place in between a sense of neatness and unity." He has also faulted his own excessive use of overlapping or coincidental dialogue in scene transitions.[157]
Moore explained his preference for comic book writing over other mediums: "In comics, I have complete control, other than the input of my artists... every full stop and comma that I put down on that script is going to end up in the finished comic."[158]
Moore complimentedFrank Miller's realistic use of minimal dialogue in fight scenes, which "move very fast, flowing from image to image with the speed of a real-life conflict, unimpeded by the reader having to stop to read a lot of accompanying text".[157]
^Kavanagh, Barry (17 October 2000)."The Alan Moore Interview". Blather.net.Archived from the original on 26 February 2014. Retrieved1 January 2013. On the term "graphic novel": "It's a marketing term. I mean, it was one that I never had any sympathy with. The term "comic" does just as well for me. The term "graphic novel" was something that was thought up in the '80s by marketing people ..."
^Olson, Stephen P. (2005).Neil Gaiman. New York: Rosen Publishing Group. pp. 16–18.ISBN978-1-4042-0285-6. Retrieved13 January 2011.gaiman - moore - friendship.
^abcBongco, Mila (17 May 2000).Reading Comics: Language, Culture, and the Concept of the Superhero in Comic Books.Taylor & Francis. pp. 182–183.ISBN978-0-8153-3344-9.
^abKhoury, George (July 2004).True Brit. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing. pp. 23–25.ISBN978-1-893905-33-7.
^Ho, Richard (November 2004). "Who's Your Daddy??".Wizard (140):68–74.
^Manning, Matthew K.; Dolan, Hannah, eds. (2010). "1980s".DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle. London, United Kingdom:Dorling Kindersley. p. 206.ISBN978-0-7566-6742-9.Writer Alan Moore was creating a whole new paradigm ... Jumping on boardThe Saga of the Swamp Thing with issue No. 20, Moore wasted no time in showcasing his impressive scripting abilities. Moore, with help from artists Stephen R. Bissette and Rick Veitch had overhauled Swamp Thing's origin by issue #21.
^Manning "1980s" in Dolan, p. 213: "John Constantine, the master magician and future star of Vertigo'sJohn Constantine: Hellblazer, was introduced in a Swamp Thing story from writer Alan Moore, with art by Rick Veitch and John Totleben."
^Manning "1980s" in Dolan, p. 214: "The legendary writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons teamed up once again with the just-as-legendary Man of Tomorrow for a special that saw Superman ... held in the sway of the Black Mercy."
^Manning "1980s" in Dolan, p. 220: "In 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?', a two-part story written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Curt Swan, the adventures of the Silver Age Superman came to a dramatic close."
^Mohan, Aidan M. (February 2013). "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? An Imaginary Story".Back Issue! (62). Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing:76–80.
^Manning "1980s" in Dolan, p. 220: "The story itself was a masterful example of comic book storytelling at its finest ... Filled with symbolism, foreshadowing, and ahead-of-its-time characterization thanks to adult themes and sophisticated plotting,Watchmen elevated the superhero comic book into the realms of true modern literature."
^Wilkins, Alasdair (16 June 2011)."A beginner's guide to Green Lantern".io9.Archived from the original on 11 September 2015. Retrieved20 September 2015.DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore features three absolutely crucial Green Lantern stories: 'Mogo Doesn't Socialize', which introduced everyone's favorite sentient planet.
^Manning, Matthew K. (2014). "1980s".Batman: A Visual History. London, United Kingdom:Dorling Kindersley. p. 169.ISBN978-1465424563.Alan Moore crafted yet another timeless tale in this annual. It featured the art of George Freeman and starred Clayface III.
^Greenberger, Robert; Manning, Matthew K. (2009).The Batman Vault: A Museum-in-a-Book with Rare Collectibles from the Batcave.Running Press. p. 38.ISBN978-0-7624-3663-7.Offering keen insight into both the minds of the Joker and Batman, this special is considered by most Batman fans to be the definitive Joker story of all time.
^Manning "1980s" in Dolan, p. 233: "Crafted with meticulous detail and brilliantly expressive art,Batman: The Killing Joke was one of the most powerful and disturbing stories in the history of Gotham City."
^Manning "1980s" in Dolan, p. 234: "A fable of revolution and a cautionary tale of lost freedoms,V For Vendetta was a triumph for Moore, this time aided by the shadowy pencils of David Lloyd."
^Cowsill "2000s" in Dolan, p. 320: "A graphic novel prequel to the award-winningTop 10 series,The Forty-Niners proved to be one of the best books of the year."
^abcdefghiDeZ Vylenz (Director) (30 September 2008).The Mindscape of Alan Moore (Documentary). Shadowsnake Films.Archived from the original on 27 July 2018. Retrieved29 June 2018.
^Floor, Alison (20 August 2018)."'Disgrace and shame': Alan Moore points to Boris Johnson in Grenfell fire comic".The Guardian.Archived from the original on 1 September 2018. Retrieved20 August 2018.Alan Moore, who announced he was 'pretty much done' with the medium two years ago, is making a brief foray out of retirement to point an excoriating finger at Boris Johnson over the Grenfell Tower fire.
^Eno, Vincent; Csawza, El (May–June 1988)."Alan Moore interview, 1988".Strange Things Are Happening.Archived from the original on 16 December 2008. Retrieved13 June 2006.
^Moore, Alan (1993). "Writer From Hell: The Alan Moore Experience".Comics Forum 4 (Interview). Interviewed by Dave Windett; Jenni Scott; Guy Lawley. p. 46.
^Whitaker, Steve (January 1989). "Neil Gaiman interview".FA (109):24–29.
^abSutherland, Kev F. "NATIONAL COMICS AWARDS 2002: THE 5TH NATIONAL COMICS AWARDS RESULTS," 2000ADonline.org.Archived at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
^"The Honest Alan Moore Interview – Part 2: The Occupy Movement, Frank Miller, and Politics". Honestpublishing.com. 2 December 2011.Archived from the original on 6 November 2013. Retrieved26 April 2013.Well, Frank Miller is someone whose work I've barely looked at for the past twenty years. I thought theSin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny,300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided ... [The Occupy movement] is a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I'm sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he'd be more in favour of it.
^abcMoore, Alan (2003).Alan Moore's Writing For Comics. Avatar Press, Inc. p. 6.ISBN9781592910120.
^Christensen, William and Seifert, Mark (November 1993).Wizard Magazine - Alan Moore Interview "The Unexplored medium". pp. 42–45.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Young, Robert (2004). "Zero Sum Masterpiece: The Division of Big Numbers".The Comics Interpreter.2 (3). (The definitive behind-the-scenes story of the demise of Moore's magnum opus.)
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