For my sins, I was definitely part of all that and after a few years, they decided to try and set up a little ‘Alan Moore farm’ with Karen Berger’s Vertigo imprint for DC. All the writers were instructed to “write this like Alan Moore.” This was not something I was in favour of, I thought it debased and diluted what I was trying to do. I’ve got no objection to a kind of agency, where genuinely talented writers like Warren, and Neil and Garth have been able to extend their careers and blossom into the genuinely talented writers that they are. It’s just irritating to have one’s stylistic quirks and outlook misunderstood and made into a formula.
Where people have tried to follow that formula, they seem to have got as far as striking a radical posture, but have never committed themselves to a political position or done anything radical to offend the companies on whom they depend for their income. The mainstream comic scene has been a tremendous disappointment to me over the years. I’d say the main effect of my influence in the US has been to unleash a lot of pretentious and posturing comics upon the world, when the world has never really done anything to hurt me.
Call me cynical, but I’d be very curious to hear from the initial wave of Vertigo writers – From memory, Peter Milligan, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Rachel Pollack, Garth Ennis and… who was writing Swamp Thing at the time? – for any conformation of whether they were told “write this like Alan Moore,” to be honest…
August 10th, 2012 at 5:27 pm
Considering that Alan Moore feels that everyone is continually stealing his work, even though his own work is so derivative of the work of others at times, I see this as most likely a figment of his imagination. I’m sure that writers were encouraged to emulate the explorations into horror that Moore pursued, but “write like Alan Moore” instructions? Yeah, right.
August 10th, 2012 at 8:41 pm
It’s been a while Alan speaks more than he should. And he has progressively become more and more sounding like a man with serious persecution issues.
August 10th, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Grant Morrison says in Supergods that his Animal Man run was his “best impression of Alan Moore”.
August 11th, 2012 at 4:38 am
Grant was only talking about his first arc of Animal Man, he mentions it in a biography someone did of him. It definitely shows there (in a Miracleman sort of way), but The Coyote Gospel and onwards are completely his own style.
August 11th, 2012 at 5:20 am
“I’d say the main effect of my influence in the US has been to unleash a lot of pretentious and posturing comics upon the world…”
As if he hadn’t turned out so many himself.
August 11th, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Also, there’s a big difference between a writer trying to write like Moore and being TOLD by editorial that he has to write like Moore.
I’ve yet to find any proof to back up what Moore claims.
August 11th, 2012 at 10:00 pm
I’d say that any writer told to “Write This Like Alan Moore” would quickly find themselves approaching insanity. Check out how the first page of The Killing Joke of a zoom out shot of falling rain on a puddle was described:
http://fourcolorheroes.home.insightbb.com/killingjokescript.html
August 12th, 2012 at 6:13 am
Neil and Garth have been able to extend their careers and blossom into the genuinely talented writers that they are. It’s just irritating to have one’s stylistic quirks and outlook misunderstood and made into a formula.
August 12th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
There is no question that Alan Moore’s works have been hugely, hugely influential. Everybody talks about him and most consider him the best comics writer ever. If his appraisal of the situation is not verbatim correct, I have little doubt that he is generally describing the situation of his influence very much as it is. Remember, he did the entire America’s Best Comics imprint to make amends for having turned the comics industry down a too-dark path.
August 12th, 2012 at 7:31 pm
I don’t believe this at all.
I mean it’s not like comic book artists were ever encouraged and even hired based on the fact that they were Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, or Marc Silvestri clones…oh wait…
I mean it’s not like the Dark Knight spawned a number of copycats who thought that ‘dark = money’ and completely missed the philosophical and political point of the film…oh wait…
Well it’s not like innovative musical acts that make money are ever converted into cynical formulas and then foisted onto artists that are then told to “sound like _______”…oh wait…
Yup. I just can’t believe anyone working in management would ever completely misunderstand the root of the success of Alan Moore and instead just try to get the writers to ape his style in a cynical quest to maximize profit.
SG
August 13th, 2012 at 9:20 am
No one thinks more highly of Alan Moore than Alan Moore.