Quite Wicked Comics and Creators - Alan Moore

Hey, thanks for the lead in, Tom W. So, what sort of comics DO I like? Rather than write a tedious multi-page essay on every single comic and creator I’ve ever fawned over, I'll split this up into a tedious running feature, with the dynamic title of 'Quite Wicked Comics and Creators'.

First, the most obvious choice of them all:

Alan Moore

Alan Moore is the actual best, and that ain’t no lie. While a lot of comics creators might be drug-addled, self-indulgent, tantrum-prone jerks, few others are really as justified or as nutty as Moore. Examples of his genius should be unnecessary, but it never hurts to have just one.

Bold Statement: The pages of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing re-invigorated the DC Universe with a sense of wonder and possibility more than any other title in the last 30 years, despite always being a ‘fringe’ title.

Do you doubt me? MY GOD, YOU'VE GOT A NERVE. Just read the Crisis on Infinite Earths cross-over issue (#46, if memory serves) for an example of how Moore wrings more out of the concept of infinite worlds colliding in just a few pages than Marv Wolfman’s entire 12 issue event

Whereas Wolfman focussed on the various chaps in capes meeting each other to compare super-powers and stroke egos, Moore saw it as an opportunity to flip the rock over and examine what the ‘reality’ of such an insane situation would be. Culture clashes of the most extreme variety (space cowboys vs. pirates, anyone?) open up the bloated event to make it something infinitely more satisfying and tangible.

Having said that, it does fail to show Swamp Thing beat up a velociraptor while Hawkman, The Phantom Stranger and Batman look on, despite the front cover CLEARLY promising some kind of swamp god/dinosaur fight action.

I guess the lesson we can take from that is that even hairy genius magicians have their flaws, but thanks to the MS Paint powered Engarde, Comics Retconbulator 3000, this will be amended shortly.

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