Dave McKean: V for Vendetta is the one!

Transcript from a short video in the great Bob Fish presents channel.

You can watch the video HERE.

Bob Fish presents channel HERE. Highly recommended! 

Dave McKean: [V for Vendetta] is the best book that Alan did.

Bob Fish: Better than Watchmen?
 

DMK: I'm not a fan of Watchmen anymore. I was. I loved it...

BF: Because of the superheroes?

DMK: Because of the superheroes. 
Whereas this one... it always seemed like a really strong personal vision, conceived with no pressures on it. It didn't have to use characters from here... 'cos Watchmen started with Charlton characters.

Whereas this is a total from scratch, "I can do anything I want and I feel passionate about this and I need to make this story". That's why I think this one survives. 

Watchmen now feels like the end of an era rather than this that feels much more like the beginning.

David Lloyd really was a terrific for this particular story. Endlessly inventive and beautifully crafted ideas. 

And I think this Alan's work will be the one that will be remembered from this particular era.

Moore Great Comics

From The Men's Health Comic Book Omnibus article published this June:

Finding a great comic can be tough. So we asked 45 of the most legendary, visionary, and unique creators in the business to make it easier. 

I selected the Moore's entries: we have 3 votes for Watchmen, 2 votes for both From Hell and V for Vendetta. You can read the complete article HERE.

 

Gail Simone
Writer of DC's Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman, and Marvel's Deadpool:

From Hell
by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
"To say this is a book about Jack The Ripper is like saying Moby Dick is about a guy who goes fishing. It’s comics wizard Alan Moore’s best, most compelling work, told from multiple points of view and containing worlds in its story of murder, corruption and class. Stunning visuals by Eddie Campbell carry it beyond."

 

Bruno Redondo
Artist of DC's Injustice and Nightwing:

V for Vendetta
by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

"This comic was the first that made me break into tears. It showed me how comics can be powerful, filled with emotions and ideas. Comics can change your mind, and V was this for me. Masterful and brave storytelling."

 

Nicola Scott
Artist of DC's Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey, and Image Comics' Black Magik:

Watchmen

by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

"Because DUH. Infinitely re-readable."

Sina Grace
Writer of DC's Superman: The Harvest of Youth, Self-Obsessed and Not My Bag:

V for Vendetta

by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
"Look, someone else is gonna say Watchmen, but I find myself revisiting V for Vendetta a lot in my life, and every time the graphic novel slaps harder than ever. It’s so much fun to read Alan Moore buildma political and ever-poignant dystopian narrative from the ground up, and the Guy Fawkes design for V makes for one of the most elegant and startling characters in comics history."

Joe Hill
Co-creator of Locke & Key and author of NOS4A2 and The Black Phone:

From Hell
by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
"If the graphic novel form has a Ulysses, this is it. Watchmen made Moore a legend, but From Hell is better, a knotty, salty, grand Guignol that paints the late 19th century so vividly, reading it is practically the same as time-travel."

Axel Alonso
Former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and founder and CCO of AWA Studios:

Watchmen
by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
"Easily the most pivotal, influential graphic novel of all time, you see two Maestros of the craft deconstructing the superhero paradigms of the past with an eye fixed firmly on the future."

Mike Deodato, Jr.
Artist of AWA Studios's Bad Mother, The Resistance, Not All Robots, and more:

Watchmen
by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
"My first pick goes to Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, for defining and changing the medium and what comics can achieve. One of the greatest comic books ever made."

The complete article is available HERE.

V for Vendetta special

Below, excerpts from the David Lloyd interview contained in Journey Planet n. 79. 

 

Journey Planet is an acclaimed sci-fi and comics fanzine. Its 79th issue, released this March, is a 92-page special fully focused on V for Vendetta.

You can download for free the complete pdf HERE. Highly recommended!

David Lloyd: [...] When I mentioned taking out thought bubbles and sound effects to Alan, he got on board with it, but what he did in response to that challenge was progressive. He turned thought balloons into captions–the thoughts of the characters into the streaming narrative. And we removed the lines around the captions and balloons, as I said. And the reason I did that is this: when you put lines around them, they’re on a different level, a different plane is created above the object of the art and separate from it. If you take them away, they become integral to the art, to the whole experience of the reading. That’s not some great idea of mine–I saw Alex Toth do it, who’s one of the great creators. When he did that, the art and the script became integrated. There was no separation. They were not on separate planes. When you take away the separation, you have a completely integrated experience. [...]

 

[...] But a lot of people don’t know it was a progression that was urged by an accident. Valerie Page’s appearance was an accident. 

After we revealed the existence of Surridge’s diary, Alan needed to write a lot of exposition in Finch’s meeting with the Leader, and he had no firm thoughts on what art might accompany some of that. So it was in my hands. I thought about it, and figured I’d set it in the Shadow Gallery, and figured it would be a great idea if there was a room in the Shadow Gallery where V might run old movies–or maybe home movies or slideshows of lost relatives, or something similar. One of the things I was concerned about at the time was that V was not seen as having any emotional depth at all. We’d seen him as a murderer with a philosophy, but we didn’t know anything of a backstory. I wanted to show him looking at some images in this private spot that might suggest one. At the time, I knew an actress who’d sent me some stage shots. I asked her if she’d mind if I used them as that anonymous character from V’s history, and she was fine with that. I wanted to show that there was someone who meant something to V. You don’t know why, you don’t know who it is on that screen. We just know he’s watching pictures of a lost love or maybe a lost sister, or whatever. We don’t know. So, I did that. And Alan bounced off that accident amazingly and created Valerie Page which became a central part of the whole story. Now, that was an accident that rachetted up the whole seriousness of the story’s tone. You can put that down to the cultural and social circumstances of the time, too, of course. But that moment illustrates one of the great values of V for Vendetta: that it grew organically and could. Alan could bounce off accidents like that, and create this character from nothing, because when we were first creating the comic, we were doing it in 6- to 8-page episodes per month. Slowly, with time to think. There was no great story arc we had to follow. We weren’t doing it like American comic books. That is the best of V–and we had complete control. And what Alan did with the completion of it all pulled it all together perfectly. [...]

Download the complete pdf HERE!

Cybermen are back!

In November, Panini UK will reprint all the classic Cybermen stories, included the ones written by Moore with art by David Lloyd in the 80ies.

Humanoids who rejected the weakness of flesh and blood millennia ago, the Cybermen are deadly armored warriors driven by cold logic! Across the stars, they have waged cyber-war on a thousand worlds, eager for more organic beings they can convert into obedient soldiers of the Cyber-Empire! Inside this epic collection, you can discover all of the Doctor's incredible encounters with this unrelenting foe, taken from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine. Featuring stories created by some of the very best British comic artist and writers, this volumes includes a comprehensive appendix featuring contributions and commentary from the artists and writers, plus a wealth of other behind-the scenes details. Contains over 20 comic strip adventures, including digitally remastered classic tales that have never been reprinted.
In Shops: Nov 01, 2023

 More info here, here and here (about Moore's stories).

DAILY MOORE [6]

Art by David Lloyd.
Color artist: David Lloyd, Siobhan Dodd.
From: V for Vendetta n. 1.
First edition: 1988, DC Comics.