Watchmen by Michael Zulli

Art by Michael Zulli

Above, on auction at Heritage, a stunning Watchmen illustration by the great American artist Michael Zulli.

Created in Acrylic on Bristol board with an image area of 27" x 19". It is signed, dated and inscribed in pencil just under the image. There is handling, and edge wear, corner creases and bumps, and creasing in the borders. In Very Good condition.

At the moment, current bid: $1. Time left: 16 days.

Make your move!

Jamie Hewlett and... Alan Moore

Art by Jamie Hewlett

Well, I accidentally found this by surfing the Web. It's on Jamie Hewlett's Instagram account, dated 10th of November 2018. He wrote: "Drew this for Alan Moore 10 years ago. He never said thank you."

I am sure there is a story behind it. Maybe related to that "lost" John Dee's opera? Who knows...

Moore and Prospero

Excerpt from Jess Nevins' Impossible Territories: The Unofficial Companion To The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Black Dossier, published in July 2008.

Jess Nevins: Some fans have read the final sequence of the Dossier where Prospero gives his speech as autobiography, the bearded magus withdrawing from the world and being unshackled from mundane authorities. How much did you intend it to be autobiographical, if at all?
Alan Moore: I didn't intend it to be autobiographical at all, no. I do happen to be a magus, I do happen to be English, I do happen to have largely withdrawn from-certainly from the comics world, although I'm still fairly present in this material world, where I'm sitting now. I think most people around Northampton are always surprised when I'm described as a recluse. I guess that there are similarities: Yeah, we've both got beards. But, no, I wasn't thinking about me at all. I was mostly thinking purely about the fascinating figure of Prospero, who as we construe him in the Black Dossier is connected with both Christopher Marlowe's Faust and Ben Jonson's John Suttle, the Alchemist, or I think he was just called Suttle, I think we added the John, because we wanted to try and underline all of these three figures were based on Elizabeth the First's astrologer and magician John Dee, and so that final sequence with Prospero, it wasn't even Prospero saying "I am retiring from the world," and indeed Prospero makes an appearance in Volume Three of the League, in the third book. But it was purely meant as a triumphal statement on behalf of the world of fiction. I was using Prospero as a spokesperson for my ideas concerning fiction and how important that world is, how dependent we are upon it, how it can hardly be regarded as fictional at all when it has such far-reaching effects on the nonfictional, physical world. So that was mainly why we put Prospero in such a strong role. And also, right at the end, we'd previously established that Prospero speaks in iambic pentameter, and I wanted the final scene of the book to be able to go out with a really rousing final speech delivered in full Shakespearean flow, that would be able to sum up what kind of statement the Dossier is trying to make, taken as a whole, all of its individual parts. And if you had to sum it up succinctly into one statement it would probably be pretty much what Prospero says. He's saying that the world of fiction is vital to the human world and fortunately the world of fiction is eternal and is beyond the reach of all mortal authorities, and where it can continue to carry on its work uninterrupted by mundane problems. So I suppose at least in that regard me and Prospero at least have that much in common. But I don't feel that I am withdrawing from my sense of engagement with the world. I'm working harder now than I've ever done before. I am turning out more stuff. I know that people aren't seeing it, because I'm two-thirds of the way of a three quarter of a million word novel, which will be finished in another couple of years, and so then people will be able to see what I've been doing.

How to disappear completely

Excerpt from an interview published in 2008 on Entertainment Weekly site, here.

Entertainment Weekly: San Diego Comic-Con is approaching. Have you ever attended it?

Alan Moore: No…well, I mean, I stopped going in the late ’80s. I just thought, I don’t really want to do this anymore, and I don’t really see why I am doing it. I did find it a bit overwhelming and creepy.

EW: Well, you’re a god there.

AM: And this is the last way that I want to be treated. The reason that I live in Northampton is because everyone here is kind of used to me. I mean, yeah, I do get a gratifying smattering of people coming up to me in the street and thanking me for me work, and shaking me hand and just wanting to wish me well.

EW: Although if you shaved your beard and cut your hair — no one would recognize you!

AM: No one would recognize me.

EW: Would you ever do that?

AM: No, just the laziness that has enabled my beard to get to this length is not a habit that I’m going to shake now.

EW: But it would be your greatest act of magic: ”Where did Alan Moore go!?”

AM: Well, I saw the possibility, of course. I’ve always got this option. So should I need to disappear, then, if you see a sort of bald guy with a really bad shaving rash going around somewhere, then that will probably be me, yeah.

The complete interview is available here.

Chris Sprouse on Moore, Supreme and Tom Strong

Below, excerpts from an interview with CHRIS SPROUSE that I did in 2008. 

The complete piece is available HERE.

Were you more excited or a bit “frightened” to work with Moore considering his writing status?

CHRIS SPROUSE: Both excited to be working with someone as good as Alan and frightened because I wanted my art to be as good as his stories and I didn't know if I was up to the task.

Drawing Supreme, had you any direct contact with him or did you work only on his scripts? I think at that time he had already finished his scripts for Awesome and had no contact with the company... What’s about the “quality” of his scripts? Were they as detailed as the legend says?

No, I had no contact with Alan while working on Supreme. The scripts were indeed detailed and very long, but they were so much fun to read! I've kept them all!

After Supreme you followed Moore on his ABC line co-creating Tom Strong. What’s about your contribution to this modern classic hero? Was is only limited to the visual aspect of the characters, the city (even if Millennium City IS a character in itself), mecha design and so on.. or did you also contributed to the story in any way?

At first, I supplied purely visual input, but supposedly Alan created all the ABC books with the specific creators in mind, or at least tailored the stories to fit each of our strengths and interests. Later, around issue #10, Alan and I did discuss stories very briefly and decided together to focus on the Strong family as a sort of homage to the family feel of the old Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four, which we both loved. Otherwise, I was very content to let Alan write whatever he wanted to because it would always be interesting and fun to draw.

After Supreme and Tom Strong, how do you weight your collaboration with Moore? Do you consider it as the highest point of your career till now? Any "strange magical" anecdotes to share with us related to yr long professional relationship with him?

It was definitely my favorite time in comics. I don't know if I was always able to do the best I could have every single issue, but I'm very proud of the work I did on Tom Strong. No real magical anecdotes in the literal sense, but it was very magical to work with Alan. I'm honored to have had the chance.

The complete interview is available HERE. 

Alan Moore on The Wire

Excerpt from an interview published on Entertainment Weekly site in 2008, here. 

EW: Do you ever relax and just watch television?

Alan Moore: Selectively, mostly on DVD. The absolute pinnacle of anything I’ve seen recently has got to be The Wire. It’s the most stunning piece of television that has ever come out of America, possibly the most stunning piece of television full-stop.

That’s a great example of storytelling that takes its time.

Absolutely, that is grown-up television! It’s novelistic. 

You get to find out about all these tiny different aspects of Baltimore, to build up a huge picture of the city with all of its intricacies — from the wharf side, to the kids in the projects, to the power structure with the boardrooms and police department and governor’s office. And it’s got some great writers: it’s got George Pelecanos and David Simon. And so many wonderful characters, Bubbles, Omar. So yeah, everything else looks pretty lame next to The Wire.

Callum's Alan Moore anecdote

Art by Eddie Campbell.

Above, a panel from an unpublished page titled Callum's Alan Moore anecdote. 

Art and story by the amazing Eddie Campbell, of course! Published on Campbell's blog the 3rd of April 2008.

More HERE.

Alan Moore by Gianluca Costantini

Art by Gianluca Costantini.

Above, Alan Moore portrayed by Italian comic artist and graphic journalist Gianluca Costantini during the Comica festival in 2008.

Miracleman by David Hitchcock

Art by David Hitchcock.

Above, a stunning Miracleman portrayed by British artist David Hitchcock.

For more info about David Hitchcock visit his blog: here.

Alan Moore portrait by Brian Ralph

Art by Brian Ralph.

Above, a funny Moore's portrait by Brian Ralph, from the Watchmen sketchbook by a certain "Rickey". More sketches can be seen here.

Dr. Manhattan by Matt Kindt

Art by Matt Kindt.

Above a great Dr. Manhattan watercolour sketch by Matt Kindt.

Captain Nemo by Stephane Roux

Art by Stephane Roux.

Above a great Captain Nemo portrait by French comic book artist Stephane Roux.

More about Stephane Roux at his site: here.

Gaiman talks about Moore, Morrison, himself and... pop music!

Moore, Gaiman, Morrison... through the years!

Excerpt from Los Angeles Times Hero Complex site.

Neil Gaiman: One of the things I had in common with Alan Moore and a whole generation of comics writers around us — certainly Grant Morrison — was a love and respect for what had gone before but also a healthy interest in seeing where we could go with it. It was a combination of those the two impulses. We were in a period then in mainstream American comics that things had gotten a bit hidebound. Comics read very much like a mixture of what had come before. And I think at the time you had this wonderful little transatlantic thing that happened, this mini-British Invasion. Looking back on it, the analogy of what happened to pop music in the 1960s was probably pretty accurate. Alan Moore got to be the Beatles and, along with Grant Morrison, I was Gerry and the Pacemakers. 

GB: Well, don’t sell yourself short. What about the Kinks or the Stones?

NG: Right, maybe the Kinks or the Stones. But maybe I was Herman’s Hermits. …

GB: I’ve got it: the Animals. Then you can have a spooky Eric Burdon, “House of the Rising Sun” kind of thing going on.

NG: The Animals, yes. That would be cool. But yeah, the idea that you had Brits listening to this [American] stuff and fell in love with it and for all the right reasons, and then realized they could do something new with it, something with different cultural impulses. The British Invasion did that in music, and in a way, we did it in comics.

The complete interview can be read here.

Alan Moore about the Italian erotic comics artists

A page from Lost Girls. Art by Melinda Gebbie.

In the following a small excerpt from an interview I conceived with friend Antonio Solinas some years ago. It was conducted via phone by A. Solinas on 19th February 2008.

Originally printed in Italy on Scuola di Fumetto (N. 60, May 2008, Coniglio Editore) and Blue magazine (N. 189, May 2008, Coniglio Editore) in the occasion of the Italian edition of Lost Girls published by Magic Press. Lost Girls originally published by Top Shelf.

The complete interview can be read here.

Do you know the work of Italian erotic comics artists at all?
Alan Moore: Yes, I mean, I am familiar with a number of the erotic comics artists. For some of them, I think their drawing ability is fine, and there have been a couple of works that I thought were particularly ok. Generally, it’s not to my taste. That’s not to say there is anything wrong with it, simply the majority of it is not to my taste. Even with, say, somebody like Milo Manara, who I recognise as an incredibly good draughtsman (I mean, he did some work with Hugo Pratt, the Indian Summer, that was I think some of the best stuff of his that I have seen, possibly because of the pairing with Pratt), when I have seen some of Manara’s solo erotic work, the draughtsmanship is perfect, but it’s not to my taste. The women seem to be pretty much the same woman with different wigs on, there doesn’t seem to be any individuation of the female characters and they do seem to be largely sex mannequins, which is fine if that is the kind of material that you like, but I never really responded to it. In Guido Crepax, I can see the stylishness of his work, but his women have a starved quality, they look like concentration camp images a lot of the time, which I recognise it’s just his style, but it tends to make the work appear morbid, in my eyes.
Like I said, while I can admire the technical excellence of a lot of these people, the actual material produced is very seldom to my taste, which is not in any way meant as a criticism, but simply to say that I suppose you can’t please all the people all the time.
Robert Crumb is someone I have got unreserved admiration for, although I don’t’ know if he is classed along with the glamour artists. I don’t know if he would be classed in quite the same category, but his stuff I can engage with: it seems human to me, whereas in a lot the more glamour-oriented artists there’s a coldness, a certain inhumanity, or at least in my perception. Not to take anything on their abilities, it’s just something about the atmosphere of the scripts or the presentation of the people in them. It kind of leaves me a bit cold.

The complete interview can be read here.