Britain
Alan Moore
Alan Moore · born 1953
- Classification
- Writer. British. The bearded magus of Northampton, who has spent forty years arguing with the industry that made him famous.
- Habitat
- 2000 AD and Warrior (1980s), DC Comics (1983–1989), independents (Taboo, Top Shelf), America's Best Comics (1999–2005), Avatar Press
- Distinguishing marks
- Scripts of legendary length, dense structure and patterns, the history of London and Northampton, magic, and superheroes that nobody would want to meet
- Often seen with
- Dave Gibbons, David Lloyd, Kevin O'Neill, Eddie Campbell, J.H. Williams III, Alan Davis, Ian Gibson
- Conservation status
- Thriving. Nearly all of it is in print.
Field-guide card
Moore was expelled from school in Northampton, worked in a sheepskin tannery and an office, and started drawing and writing comics for the music press in the late 1970s. By the early 1980s he was writing short stories for 2000 AD and reviving Marvelman in Warrior, and in 1983 he was hired by DC to take over Swamp Thing. Watchmen followed, and it changed the way the world saw comics. Since then he has written some of the most ambitious comics ever published, as well as the vast novel Jerusalem, and announced himself a magician.
You've seen his work without knowing it in films he has disowned: From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and, with his name taken off the credits at his request, V for Vendetta, Watchmen and Constantine. The Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta is now a global symbol of protest, which is about as influential as a comic can get.
The gateway drug is The Ballad of Halo Jones, a short, funny and moving space opera that shows his range. The deep end is From Hell, a book that is less a Jack the Ripper story than a theory of the twentieth century. The curio is D.R. & Quinch, a pair of alien juvenile delinquents, which shows that Moore could be very silly indeed.
The Crowsnest verdict: the most important writer in the history of comics, and he would like you to know that he has never seen any of the films.