Flat Characters in a Round Space

I was first exposed to Alan Moore through his 1996 novel Voice of the Fire.  His writing style immediately struck a chord within me.  I have always found pleasure delving into writing that was linguistically different and challenging. I discovered that works like Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh and Song of Solomon penned by Toni Morrison, brought with them not only a challenge, but also an insatiable need for more.  This style allowed me to become part of a true inner monologue of a character, and in doing so; I often found part of myself in those characters.  Along the way, however, I had developed a naive concept that the writer was showing me who the character was through their personal descriptions and statements.  I was looking at dialect and linguistics from a scientific (almost mathematical) side.  It was so black and white in my mind that I had forgotten these words were always intended to be part of the character; not dissected and set aside for later criticism.  Some characters may explain how grass is green, the dirt is brown, and a tree is a combination of the two but the characters of Voice of the Fire showed me something entirely different.  They unveiled a layer of psyche I had overlooked in my personal adventures throughout the years of reading.  These characters described a setting that yelled out to me loud and clear “No the grass wasn't all green!  In fact there were some weeds that chocked and killed a portion of this not square yard.  And that tree, well that tree has a disease that has deadened a few limbs and really its leaves are just barely there”.  Unlike any writing I had ever been aware of (though I am quite certain it was always there) Moore’s characters did all this and more without every saying it but by the way they spoke through my pages.  I suddenly became a new reader with an understanding that writers do not write characters to be interpreted; but rather to be someone.  And most people aren't as flat as “the grass is green”.  

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Fisk, Phil.  Alan Moore.  Photograph.  The Guardian.  Guardian News and Media, December 2012.  Web.  28 April 2013.

Moore, Alan. Voice of the Fire. Marietta: Top Shelf Production, 2009. Print

A Magician from Northampton

Alan Moore was born in Northampton England and has remained there.   Many of his works are inspired by the area, particularly an area called the Boroughs that was heavily instilled in poverty during Moore’s youth and adult life (“Alan Moore”).  By observing the way the Boroughs were treated by others and the government in his lifetime, his newer writings reflect the anger that he not only feels for that treatment, but the anger the citizens of the borough feel (Lamont).  He is currently married to his second wife Melinda Gebbie whom he created Lost Girls with.  Moore is a self-professed magician and believes strongly in the body’s ability to respond through meditation—not by curses or voodoo.  Moore made his break in the industry with his unforgiving Halo Jones from 2000AD and since then, has had many of his graphic novels move from press to reel but in doing so he has a growing resentment for Hollywood (Knight).  It is well known that Alan Moore is an individualistic man that is passionate about protecting his writings from degradation after his recent experiences with V for Vendetta and Watchmen.  However, even early in his career Moore had multiple run-ins with collaborators, including Ian Gibson, who worked on Halo Jones with him.  The problems range from author rights to royalty rights (Knight).  Moore often makes light of the immense amount of money missing from his coffers as a result of those fights and has taken on much of his own publishing and production in recent years.

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“Alan Moore.”  The Internet Movie Database. IMDB.com, Inc, n.d. Web. 30 April 2013.

“Alan Moore.”  Top Shelf Productions.  Topshelf Productions, Inc, n.d. Web. 30 April 2013. 

Knight, James.  “Alan Moore.”  Vice.  Vice Media, May  2010.  Web.  29 April 2013.

Lamont, Tom.  “Alan Moore: why I turned my back on Hollywood.”  The Guardian.  Guardian News and Media, December 2012.  Web.  28 April 2013.

Voice of the Fire

The Voice of the Fire is set within the same ten mile radius of Northampton that Alan Moore has spent most of his life in ("Alan Moore").  The setting of the story entails twelve different people at different moments in time within a roughly six thousand year time span.  Each character discovers something new and telling about the land and all are a mixture of reality, history, and Moore’s vivid imagination.  Moore chooses to use dialect and linguistics to the extreme from the start of the book.  He introduces you to a man that is a mentally retarded caveman who regales his misadventures to the reader in his broken, simple, and imaginary speech.   As Moore leaves the caveman’s story behind he ventures on to the next eleven stories all with progressively growing vocabulary but distinctly different dialects.  True to his style he implements original female characters that do not display normal stereotypes that are the go to in literature.  These women are cunning, sometimes magical or mythological, and intelligent.  Moore uses elements of Northampton mythology and history to give the story a reality that can only be found in something that is half-truth.  The last epoch of the novel is presumably from Moore himself though it remains a work of fiction.  Fittingly enough, Moore’s protegee  Neil Gaiman, introduces the book with his own insight into the exciting, yet often heart wrenching, adventures of the group. 

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“Alan Moore.”  Top Shelf Productions.  Top Shelf Productions, Inc, n.d. Web. 30 April 2013.  

Moore, Alan. Voice of the Fire. Marietta: Top Shelf Production, 2009. JPEG file.

Moore, Alan. Voice of the Fire. Marietta: Top Shelf Production, 2009. Print

Moore, Moore, Moore

After putting down “Voice of the Fire” I went into Moore, Moore, and Moore zone.  Everything I read for several months was Moore, and he did not disappoint.  I ripped through his “Watchmen”, “V for Vendetta”, “Halo Jones”, and other graphics in lightning speed wanting to make sure I started from his early career and became progressive.  Recently I began investigating his somewhat unusual and, at times, unnerving underground newsletter “Dodgem Logic”.  The newspaper is dedicated to an array of styles from government discussions to comic discussion, but the original basis of the collection was Northampton’s impoverished areas that should never have been ignored (Moore).  I even ventured into Lost Girls, a work created with his now wife, Melinda Gebbie.  I say ventured because the piece itself is pretty unusual—who would have thought Alice (from Alice in Wonderland), Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz) and Wendy (from Peter Pan) would all be thrown into a graphic novel that when described as sexually explicit does not really prepare a reader for just how explicit the content may get (Moore).  Alan Moore takes on the government with scorn in his work V for Vendetta and sees the film subsequently as an ironic disgrace to what the graphic novel was meant to represent (Lamont).  When it comes to Hollywood, Moore is just not impressed.  He has turned down most of the money that he should have made from Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and V for Vendetta and has ventured into the indie world of low budget films.  He has continued his writing in recent years with his soon to be released Jerusalem that is rumored to be longer than the bible itself (O Mealoid).  Never shying away from his own path he recently released new comics following his League comics under the title Nemo.

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“Alan Moore.”  Top Shelf Productions.  Topshelf Productions, Inc, n.d. Web. 30 April 2013.

Lamont, Tom.  “Alan Moore: why I turned my back on Hollywood.”  The Guardian.  Guardian News and Media, December 2012.  Web. 28 April 2013.

Moore, Alan . "Dodgem Logic." Dodgem Logic. Dodgem Logic, 04 Aug. 2009.                Web. 30 Apr 2013.

Moore, Alan, writer.  Lost Girls.  Art by Melinda Gebbie.  Marietta: Top Shelf Production, 1992.  JPEG file.

Moore, Alan, writer.  Lost Girls.  Art by Melinda Gebbie.  Marietta: Top Shelf Production, 1992.  Print.

Moore, Alan, writer.  V for Vendetta.  Art by David Loyd.  New York: Vertigo, 2008. JPEG file.

O Mealoid, Padraig. "Interview: Alan Moore on Providence, Jerusalem, League and more - Part 1." The Beat.  Comicsbeat.  16 Apr. 2013. Web. 5 May 2013

A Different Kind of Comic

Works like Halo Jones broke many of the stereotypes previously attached to female characters within comic book land. With the help of artist Ian Gibson, the two collaborated to create a lead female that was void of the big bust, big gun, or distressed victim character (Jahanzee).  They instead created a woman that seemingly belonged to the world she lived in and was made of her time, surroundings, and choices (Knight).  Halo Jones would only be the beginning of Moore’s vivid (and still going) career.  He would go on to poignantly point out the flaws of government, create story lines that fed themselves on continuation, and changed the world of comics.  Moore has been credited as starting what can be referred to as a revolution within comics and graphic novels in the 1980s (Knight).  Although he waited until 1996 to release his first novel, Voice of the Fire, the novel is the epitome of imagination and exploration.  Moore continually enterprises on his own spiritual inspiration of magic and more often than not some element can be found within his writings (O Mealoid).  Following the same style as Halo Jones; the majority of his characters reflect a composition of their world, and their choices.  They are rarely contrived and almost always a representation of their situation.

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Jehanzee.  "The Objectification of Women in Comic Books." Fantasy.  Lightspeed, Aug. 2008.  Web. 28 April 2013

Knight, James.  “Alan Moore.”  Vice.  Vice Media, May  2010.  Web.  29 April 2013.

Lamont, Tom.  “Alan Moore: why I turned my back on Hollywood.”  The Guardian.  Guardian News and Media, December 2012.  Web.  28 April 2013.

Moore, Alan, writer.  The Complete Ballad of Halo Jones.  Art by Ian Gibson.  United Kingdom: Titan Books Ltd, 2003. Print.

O Mealoid, Padraig. "Interview: Alan Moore on Providence, Jerusalem, League and more - Part 1." The Beat.  Comicsbeat.  16 Apr. 2013.   Web.