Cronenberg, Moore and Campbell on Horror in the 1980s

In 1986 in the wake of the release of David Cronenberg's reimagining of 'The Fly' the BBC Two show Saturday Review sent Charles Shaar Murray out to interview authors Ramsey Campbell and Alan Moore to find out about the enduring appeal of horror.

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Alan Moore on Austin Osman Spare

Born in London's Snow Hill on 30 December 1886, the artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare has long been a beloved figure on those who favour the outer fringes of British art.  

His inclusion in the 1904 Royal Academy summer exhibition brought him early notoriety and a modicum of fame that, to varying degrees, followed him through a life that saw his artistic and his magical works increasingly entwined. In the decades following his death in 1956, he was embraced by the rising counterculture and his ideas permeate through it's various strands to this day.

Most recently Spare can be found as a major character in the first volume of Alan Moore's 'Long London' novel series, 'The Great When' and in the video below Moore takes on a short trip through the life and work of this singular artist.

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The Great When

Alan Moore
Bloomsbury Publishing

Having completed his conjuring to place his hometown of Northampton at the centre of the country's collective historical consciousness with his epic tour de force, 'Jerusalem', Alan Moore now turns his sights on London and the creative hold it's had on generations of artists, seers and mad(wo)men; those who can walk the streets of it's mythic, sidereal counterpart, 'The Great When'.

In this, the first of what's intended to be a five book series, we meet the hapless hero, 'Dennis Knuckleyard', who is thrust, entirely unprepared, into a world of imagination and danger, of archetypes, avatars and artists.  Arriving at 'The Great When' through the imaginings of Arthur Machen and traversing it with the aid of Austin Osman Spare, Dennis is tasked with the return of a book, a fictional book removed somehow from 'The Great When', that has found its way into his possession and which, if he can't get rid of it, could be the cause of him being turned inside out.

Obviously this is the first step in what will be a long journey and so there's a lot of worldbuilding, but Moore is a master of such things, and you rarely feel bogged down in exposition as the story weaves its way across post-war London, setting up events that'll take decades to resolve.  The story at this early stage is relatively straightforward, playful and populated by a delightful cast of rascals, reprobates, ruffians and wrong uns who variously embrace or are embraced by that other London.

For those, like me, who are long time Moore devotees it's an absolute joy to know that we are setting out on another journey with him, and you'll see an obvious kinship here with some of his previous work.  The London of 'From Hell' is just behind the curtain - although a very different Ripper is held responsible - as is 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', particularly the 'Century' trilogy, and it's cultural crate-digging that allowed Moore to play with the very character of the times, rooting around in its basements, unveiling secrets and dusting off intrigues, but 'The Great When' is it's own thing and has it's own story to tell, and I for one cannot wait to revisit.

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Bureau Of Lost Culture: Alan Moore (17/07/2022)

Here's the grand magus of Northampton being interviewed by The Bureau Of Lost Culture back in 2022 in an enjoyably wide ranging conversation 'about counterculture - in his own life and work and in the past, the present and in the future [...] the 60s, the 70s, Thatcherism, Britpop, the power of The Arts Lab, why he doesn’t watch the adaptions of his work, the power of limitations to foster creativity and much much more.'

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Alan Moore discusses The Great When

The year is 1949, the city London. Dennis Knuckleyard is a hapless eighteen-year-old who works and lives in a second-hand bookstore. One day, on an errand to retrieve rare books, Dennis discovers that one of them does not exist. It is a fictitious book, yet it is physically there in his hands nonetheless. How? It comes from the Great When, a dark and magical version of the city that is beyond time. There, epochs blend and realities and unrealities blur. If Dennis does not take this book back to the other London, he will be killed.

With the first book of his new 'Long London' series, 'The Great When', now out Northampton's finest Alan Moore has been appearing on various zoom interviews of late.  This one was hosted by a Canadian bookseller and in it we get an interesting overview of what the wizardly wordsmith is up to with the series.

It's a little tentative in parts and I look forward to other videos further down the line that have him in conversations with folks who are less in awe but this is still an interesting watch. 

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Don't Get Me Started: What's Wrong With Blasphemy?

This documentary was made by comedian Stewart Lee after far-right fundamentalist Christian groups whipped up a frenzy of protests about 'Jerry Springer: The Opera' that he co-wrote and produced organising protests at theatres, against the BBC showing and against Maggie's Centres, a cancer charity providing palliative care, to which the production had made a donation.  Lee's documentary takes these protests as his starting point to present a fascinating and funny investigation into religious intolerance and its impact on the arts via interviews with folks like Alan Moore and Polly Toynbee.

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"We Need More Ghosts" - Alan Moore in conversation with Robin Ince

"I don't want to be bound together in one belief with a lot of people who worship a sock puppet.  That would be mental!"

Today, 18th November 2023, marks the 70th birthday of Northampton's waywardest son (but probably it's truest champion), Alan Moore.  

"We need more ghosts, I don't know what all these exorcists are thinking!"

With a several decades long career in comics now behind him Moore has recently released a collection of short stories, 'Illuminations', and is embarking on a series of novels called 'Long London'.  Here, in conversation with Robin Ince, he discusses writing, magic, the collaborative process, lost histories, AI and more.

 "If everybody else is having their livelihoods threatened by automation, why not politicians?"

I've been a fan since first picking up 2000AD as a young lad and noticing that so many of my favourites were written by the same person and his work has been central to my reading habits ever since.  So,  happy birthday Mr. Moore, we probably wouldn't be here without you and all stellar work you put into warping our minds so, here's to many birthdays to come and to all the ideas that have yet to bump into each other.

"As humans we need, I think, on a fairly regular basis to transcend those sort of boundaries. Whether it's sort of, uh, you know, by mysticism, by poetry or by reading a lot of books about giant killer crabs".

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Providence Compendium

Alan Moore (words)
Jacen Burrows (art)
Avatar Press

Providence is Alan Moore's quintessential horror series! In it, he weaves and reinvents the works of H.P. Lovecraft through historical events. It is both a sequel and prequel to Neonomicon. The Providence Compendium is the complete series, all twelve issues by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows, in one 480 page volume.

It's no secret that Alan Moore has a deep and abiding love for H.P. Lovecraft and this lovely big collection from Avatar Press is Moore's 12 issue love letter to the various worlds and wonders Lovecraft brought into being.

'Providence' sends closetted journalist and budding novelist 'Robert Black' across the east coast of the US on the eve of prohibition into an America very different to the one he knows and into the world of the 'Stella Sapiente' a magic cult devoted to the writings of an Arab mystic found in the 'Kitab Al-Hikmah Al-Najmiyya' ('Book of the Wisdom of the Stars').

Black's misadventures on his road to finding the group, to reading the book and then on to his final ordained destination take us on a tour of many of the people and places that Lovecraft wrote about and even a fairly ambivalent Lovecraft reader like me can play spot the reference.

Alongside The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen this is perhaps Moore's last great comic creation as he's now retired from the form and paired with Jacen Burrows' beautiful clean and clear artwork it makes for a very fitting epitaph for a most singular career.

Buy it here - UK / US.

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V for Vendetta

1st March 2022 marks 40 years since the publication of the first issue of Warrior magazine featuring, amongst others,  the very first episode of Alan Moore and David Lloyd's groundbreaking 'V for Vendetta'.

Telling the story of the anarchist revolutionary 'V' as he unleases his plan to take down the fascist 'Norsefire' government that's come to power in the UK following a limited nuclear war that's left much of the world in ruins. He does this concealed behind the iconic imagery of the Guy Fawkes and with the (often unwitting / unwilling) help of his young protege Evey.

'V for Vendetta' was to live long past Warrior's demise in early 1985 with DC comics reprinting and completing a coloured version of the story between September 1988 and May 1989 and then of course there was the movie adaptation in 2005. 

Despite the superhero trappings 'V' is a far more complex character than was the norm in comics at that time and his actions throughout the book are often, at the very least, morally ambiguous as Moore led the charge to drag mainstream comics kicking and screaming out of it's comfortable little rut. Indeed one of the things that made Moore's work on 'V for Vendetta' so impressive is that he was writing it at the same time as he was writing other pioneering strips such as 'Marvelman' (later 'Miracleman') and 'The Bojeffries Saga' for the same magazine, 'D.R. & Quinch', 'The Ballad of Halo Jones', 'Skizz' and a barrel full of 'Future Shocks' for 2000AD, 'Captain Britain' for Marvel UK and 'The Saga of the Swamp Thing' for DC.  He even made time to release a 7" single with David J of Bauhaus as 'The Sinister Ducks'.

So, Wyrd Britain would like to take this opportunity doff our capotain hats to thank Moore, Lloyd and the team at Warrior and then DC for bringing us one of the seminal stories of modern comics.

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Jerusalem

Alan Moore
Knockabout

Begging comparisons to Tolstoy and Joyce, this “magnificent, sprawling cosmic epic” (Guardian) by Alan Moore—the genre-defying, “groundbreaking, hairy genius of our generation” (NPR)—takes its place among the most notable works of contemporary English literature. In decaying Northampton, eternity loiters between housing projects. Among saints, kings, prostitutes, and derelicts, a timeline unravels: second-century fiends wait in urine-scented stairwells, delinquent specters undermine a century with tunnels, and in upstairs parlors, laborers with golden blood reduce fate to a snooker tournament. Through the labyrinthine streets and pages of Jerusalem tread ghosts singing hymns of wealth and poverty. They celebrate the English language, challenge mortality post-Einstein, and insist upon their slum as Blake’s eternal holy city in “Moore’s apotheosis, a fourth-dimensional symphony” (Entertainment Weekly). This “brilliant . . . monumentally ambitious” tale from the gutter is “a massive literary achievement for our time—and maybe for all times simultaneously” (Washington Post).

When this came out in 2016 I knew I'd read it at some point when I was less preoccupied with things like relearning how to walk and it was too big and too pricey for me at the time.  Roll on 3 and a half years and there's a hardback first edition sat in the shop and I have a discount card so the time had come.  All told it's taken me most of about 7 months to read it as I began by deliberately limiting myself to only reading a chapter and interspersing themwith other books but when lockdown hit I got my head into it and read about 900 of its 1174 pages in the ensuing fortnight.

So the burning question is "What's it like?" and the answer quite simply is "It's Alan Moore."  It's pure unadulterated Moore unfiltered by corporate diktat, unsullied by collaborators and unhinged by choice.

Like Moore's first novel, 'Voice of Fire', 'Jerusalem' is set almost entirely in his home town of Northampton, in particular it's set in a neglected and working class area called 'The Burroughs'.  It follows the fates of various members of one family - the Vernalls and later the Warrens - from the Victorian era to, well, to the end of time but mostly to around 2006 and from Lambeth and St Paul's Cathedral to the afterlife, the upstairs or 'Mansoul' as it's called.

The Vernalls / Warrens are eccentrics and artists touched by the Angles, they are the keepers of the boundaries even if, for the most part, they don't know this.  The story tracks various generations along with various folks both living and dead with whom their lives intersect over a couple of fateful days in 2006.  We meet Snowy and the two Mays, we meet Alma (essentially Moore himself) and her / his younger brother Mick, we meet cousin Audrey, Marla the saint, Lucia Joyce (in a painful chapter written in the style of her father's 'Finnegan's Wake' which I'd never wanted to read and now want to even less), John Clare, Thomas and Samuel Becket(t), former slave and now ghostly mayor Black Charlie and assorted other ne'er do wells and luminaries (sometimes simultaneously) but mostly we meet The Burroughs.

Jerusalem is a love story between an author and his home town, it's a travelogue, a love letter and a homage, albeit one with an entire second book set in a ghostly heaven where children run riot and Arch-Angles knock seven shades of gold out of each other with their billiard cues in a gloriously unrestrained cosmic Enid Blyton romp.

At the book's end I was exhausted but fizzing, there were parts that had me laughing aloud, parts that gripped my heart and parts that I'd pay money not to ever have to read again.  I've been reading Moore since I was a kid and in that time he has produced books that hold special places in my affections - DR & Quinch, Miracleman, V For Vendetta, From Hell,  Lost Girls, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and so many others - books that I love dearly.  I will essentially follow him anywhere he wants to go and to my mind he's more than earned the right to do whatever the fuck he wants and if that's a 1200 page cosmic exploration / meditation / conjuration that puts Northampton at the centre of the universe then I'm very happy to go along for the trip because you know that that's exactly what it's going to be.

I'm never reading it again though, that thing was really bloody heavy.

Buy it here - UK / US

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Moorcock and Moore in conversation

Dating from 2006 and convened to mark the publication of his 3875th novel* (that week) 'Vengeance of Rome' (the fourth of the Pyat Quartet) this video shows Michael Moorcock and Alan Moore engaged in a wide and free roaming conversation about Moorcock's life and work that takes in his post-war childhood, his editorship of 'New Worlds', modernism and the modern author, Jerry Cornelius, being left wing in Texas and of course, due to the occasion, Colonel Pyat and the holocaust.

It's fascinating stuff that finds these two fantastic writers, counter cultural icons and, I think most crucially here, friends really connecting in a way you don't often see in these sort of things. 

*please note that it wasn't actually his 3875th novel.  No one actually knows the true number of Michael Moorcock novels as it's potentially greater than mathematics can accomodate.



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The Sinister Ducks

In 1983 a trio of unholy gentlemen by the names of Max Akropolis, Capt. José Da Silva and Translucia Baboon, known collectively as 'The Sinister Ducks', decided to warn the world about their nefarious namesakes by releasing an obscure 7" single which is of course the perfect vehicle for doing so.

It is only after undertaking extensive research - i.e. typing the band's name into google - and some 35 years after they were already widely known - can the true identities of these campaigning troubadours finally be revealed as itinerant saxophonist Alex Green, guitarist David J (bassist with popular musical combo of a 'gothic' persuasion Bauhaus) and purveyor of menacing magical missives Alan Moore.

Here we'll ask mind-bending minstrel PK Chown to take up the tale of how these reprehensible rapscallions initiated their furore against the feathery fiends...

"They formed spontaneously at an event I used to organise in Northampton called the Deadly Fun Hippodrome. I'd booked some god-awful band called the Bishops to play and when they arrived they turned their noses up at our old wooden stage and refused to play. So Alan,Dave and Alex stepped up and did a completely improvised set, which of course most of the punters hated because they weren't famous then and it was pretty off the wall.....But thus were born the Sinster Ducks."

The artwork for this timely warning against these malcontented mallards was provided by regular Moore henchman, Kevin O'Neill and perfectly encapsulates their perfidy and who also provided a comic strip to further illustrate the degenerate deeds of the gangsters that graced the records flip side.

As governmental and social outcry with regard to these felonious fowl has been lacking of late Wyrd Britain feels that the time is right to revive this rallying cry against them.

Here are the lyrics so you can sing along with the video below...

Everyone thinks they're such sweet little things
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Soft downy feathers and nice little wings
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
But there's a poison I'd like to administer,
You think they're cuddly but I think they're sinister.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!

What are they doing at night in the park?
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Think of them waddling about in the dark.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Sneering and whispering and stealing your cars,
Reading pornography, smoking cigars.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!

Nasty and small undeserving of life.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
They smirk at your hairstyle and sleep with your wife.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Dressed in black jackets and horrible shoes,
Getting divorces and turning to booze.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!

Forcing old ladies to throw them some bread.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Who could deny they'd be better off dead?
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Look closer and you may recoil in surprise,
At web-footed fascists with mad little eyes.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!

(lyrics copyright to whomever owns them, presumably Translucia Baboon)



The flip side of this masterpiece of audio alarum tells a tale of the human equivalents of those avian anarchists in the shape of the late night jazz of 'Old Gangsters Never Die'.

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Alan Moore on the 20th Century

I became a fan of Alan Moore immediately on reading D.R.& Quinch and The Ballad of Halo Jones in 2000AD as a kid and I remained so over the intervening years with books like Swamp Thing, From Hell, Lost Girls, Miracleman, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and so very many more holding very dear places in my heart.

Here, in a free-wheeling discussion with journalist and author John Higgs, Mr. Moore gives forth on his theories of the artistic and cultural life of the 20th century via H.P. Lovecraft as a barometer of his time, the development of science fiction, politicians and pigs.

I will happily listen to Moore talk on any topic as he's always captivating and full of interesting connections and insights but here especially he is talking about things I find particularly fascinating and hopefully you do too.



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The Dandelion Set - A Thousand Strands 1975 - 2015

Buried Treasure

So, as some of you know I spent much of the second half of  last year pretty immobile due to numerous broken bones and the ensuing surgical procedures.  Truth to say it wasn't a whole lot of fun.  I was on quite a lot of morphine and as such watching films or reading books was out as I couldn't follow a plot and so I found myself staring at a lot of daytime TV - side note:  not even morphine makes Jeremy Kyle any less noxious - and listening to copious amounts of music, so much in fact that I quickly ran out of what was to hand and so began searching around for new delights to do interesting things in my ears and my opiate addled brain.

Alan Moore

One of the things I stumbled across was the Buried Treasure label whose John Baker Vendetta Tapes became one of my most played albums of last year.  In fact, if you check out my end of year list you'll find several Buried Treasure releases on there with several others not making the list simply due to numerical considerations.  So it was with real excitement that I opened the promo copy sent by label honcho Alan Gubby of this, the first B.T. release of 2016 by psychedelic troubadours The Dandelion Set here ably assisted by one of the spiritual godfathers of what we do here at Wyrd Britain,  Mr. Alan Moore.

Expectation, as we all know, can be a real bitch and I'd heard some Dandelion ditties on the recent B.T. comp, 'The Delaware Road', and I know now that Alan G. has an ear for the wonderful so this had a lot to live up to; an awful lot to live up to.  We've all been down that road of getting all 'kid at xmas' about a new release only for it to turn out to be more of a 'kid at dentist' experience but now and again under the tree, wrapped in some beautifully psychedelic wrapping is that perfect gift and it surpasses all expectations.

From the opening moments of 'Pristina Strawberry Girl' we know that we're in for a trip of a ride as dreamy psyche-pop insinuates itself into the room before the wordy wizard of Northampton weaves a weirdy, wandering narrative over a skronking frug noir soundscape and so the scene is set.

Angular prog excursions make way for forays into the realms of opiated French jazz pop.  Playful dances of electronic fireflies throw themselves through animated radiophonic swirls of psychedelic colour as tales of love, loss, hopes, delusions and a trip to the cinema stand square, stark and unflinching basking in the hallucinatory haze and calling you into this twisting, writhing, mesmerising world.  A technicolour playground of lysergic intensity and intent filled with love and magic.

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'A Thousand Strands 1975 - 2015'  is released on 22nd April and Bandcamp pre-orders of the physical editions - LP / CD / Cassette - are sold out from the label - that's how good this album is - but will be available from an independent music supplier - shop independent and say no to tax avoiding multinationals - near you upon release.

Meanwhile here is a taster featuring the mighty Alan Moore, below that a video montage featuring live footage from 'The Delaware Road' launch gig and later this week you can hear a track on the next Wyrd Britain show on Mixcloud.

Lost Girls

Alan Moore (author)
Melinda Gebbie (artist)
Knockabout / Top Shelf

For more than a century, Alice, Wendy and Dorothy have been our guides through the Wonderland, Neverland and Land of Oz of our childhoods. Now like us, these three lost girls have grown up and are ready to guide us again, this time through the realms of our sexual awakening and fulfillment. Through their familiar fairytales they share with us their most intimate revelations of desire in its many forms, revelations that shine out radiantly through the dark clouds of war gathering around a luxury Austrian hotel. 

Drawing on the rich heritage of erotica, Lost Girls is the rediscovery of the power of ecstatic writing and art in a sublime union that only the medium of comics can achieve. Exquisite, thoughtful, and human, Lost Girls is a work of breathtaking scope that challenges the very notion of art fettered by convention. This is erotic fiction at its finest.

On the eve of the first World War three remarkable women meet at a hotel in Austria.  Alice, the Lady Fairfax, Wendy Potter and Dorothy Gale.  The three are immediately drawn together in the heady sexualised surroundings of the Hotel Himmelgarten and over one summer relate to each other the stories of their lives.

What Moore and Gebbie have created here is a tour de force of erotic fiction (for the prudish) or pornography (for the specific).  They have taken three beloved characters from 'classic' literature and reimagined their stories as a series of sexual experiences; Dorothy's Kansas farm as OZ, Wendy's London park Neverland and Alice's Wonderland of English high society.  Each characters story is seamlessly transported from their respective books as locations and characters become mundane (even if the events do not) and each adventure is given a splash page coda that provides a single easily understood direct reference to the apposite chapter of the source material.

Moore is, of course, the consummate storyteller and as such the book is a joy to read.  Through their actions, their conversations and their reactions to the stories told by those around them the central characters grow and evolve and we are allowed deeper insights into the lives of these three generations of women.

The art is provided by American artist Melinda Gebbie who displays a style grown out of the US underground comix scene and I can see elements of both the Crumbs (Aline Kominsky- and Robert), Spain and more in her art which at times means it feels an odd fit with the style and setting of the story but this doesn't detract from the fact that it is utterly beautiful.  It's never going to be to everyone's taste but I am a long time fan of the artists I mentioned and so to my eyes it's spectacular.  It becomes even more so when she pastiches the styles of other, period, artists such as Aubrey Beardsley, and the frankly stunning level of skill on display is breathtaking.

As a book 'Lost Girls' was problematic from the start and the time between the story's original appearance and it's completion was quite considerable.  It's eventual publication in 2006 was accompanied by an article by Moore (in Arthur magazine and reprinted by Harry N. Abrams as a hardback book entitled '25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom') that is very much a continuation of the dialogue he is having in 'Lost Girls' which makes for a vivid and bold discussion on the very nature of pornography and the roles it plays and also on both personal freedom and repression.  The stories and behaviour of the three women and the supporting cast are presented without judgement.  Those characters who indulge and those who with-hold are treated equally so it's left up to the reader to make of the events what they will.  For myself I found it to be a beautiful and poignant read that, as Moore has been want to do throughout his career, challenged, intrigued and entertained in equal measure.

Buy it here -  Lost Girls

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century

Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill
Knockabout

A round up of the three 'Century' books that took the League through the 20th Century and into the 21st.
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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910

The new volume detailing the exploits of Miss Wilhelmina Murray and her extraordinary colleagues, Century is a 240-page epic spanning almost a hundred years. Divided into three 80-page chapters - each a self-contained narrative to avoid frustrating cliff-hanger delays between episodes - this monumental tale takes place in three distinct eras, building to an apocalyptic conclusion occurring in our own, current, twenty-first century. 
Chapter one is set against the backdrop of London, 1910, twelve years after the failed Martian invasion and nine years since England put a man upon the moon. In the bowels of the British Museum, Carnacki the ghost-finder is plagued by visions of a shadowy occult order who are attempting to create something called a Moonchild, while on London's dockside the most notorious serial murderer of the previous century has returned to carry on his grisly trade. Working for Mycroft Holmes' British Intelligence alongside a rejuvenated Allan Quartermain, the reformed thief Anthony Raffles and the eternal warrior Orlando, Miss Murray is drawn into a brutal opera acted out upon the waterfront by players that include the furiously angry Pirate Jenny and the charismatic butcher known as Mac the Knife

In this first book of the new LOEG series we return to the League some years after the adventures of the first two series but some time before the adventures of the Black Dossier with the League still working for the British Government.  

The team now consisting of the youthful and now immortal Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain along with Orlando, ghost hunter Thomas Carnacki and, gentleman thief, Raffles are drawn into investigating the occult underworld they suspect of trying to bring forth the Moonchild (whatever that is).

Nemo’s daughter Janni meanwhile has run away to London where the patrons of the depraved little dive that she finds work at eventually attack her in the most vile manner leading her to summon the Nautilus, of which she is now the captain, and exact her revenge.

I like this book a lot. It’s blatantly only a third of a story and I much prefer to read my books fully formed so this was slightly frustrating. The next volume is going to be the same but hey ho, some LOEG is better than no LOEG.

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1969

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1969 Volume III, Number 2 Chapter two takes place in the psychedelic daze of swinging London during 1969, a place where Tadukic Acid Diethylamide 26 is the drug of choice, and where different underworlds are starting to overlap dangerously. The vicious gangster bosses of London's East End find themselves brought into contact with a counter-culture underground of mystical and medicated flower-children, or amoral pop-stars.

This was excellent. It’s been a long time coming but well worth the wait.

Our three heroes wash up on the coast of England courtesy of a much older and mellower Janni and the Nautilus. Making their way to London they begin once more to investigate Oliver Hado and his Moonchild.

Swinging London was always going to fire up Mr. Moore and what we get is a massive mash-up of the era with Haddo jumping from body to body and trying to find his way into the lead singer of the Stones analogue, The Purple Orchestra.

The three mains are looser and more in touch with each other but Mina is struggling to incorporate herself and as such has leaped into the requisite personality with almost unseemly alacrity.

Once more the story leaves us hanging. This time on a monstrous cliffhanger and it’ll probably be several years before the final part. I can hardly wait.

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 2009
In Chapter Three, the narrative draws to its cataclysmic close in London 2008. The magical child whose ominous coming has been foretold for the past hundred years has now been born and has grown up to claim his dreadful heritage. His promised aeon of unending terror can commence, the world can now be ended starting with North London, and there is no League, extraordinary or otherwise, that now stands in his way. The bitter, intractable war of attrition in Q'umar crawls bloodily to its fifth year, away in Kashmir a Sikh terrorist with a now-nuclear-armed submarine wages a holy war against Islam that might push the whole world into atomic holocaust, and in a London mental institution there's a patient who insists that she has all the answers.

And so the League's century comes to an end. And what an end it is. 

This final volume picks up 30 years on from the previous. Alan is a homeless addict, Mina is hospitalised and heavily sedated and Orlando is back from fighting a war overseas to find the UK a dystopian mess and himself once more swapping gender.

Upon arrival at the the Leagues old haunt Orlando is contacted by Prospero and tasked with dealing with the now imminent arrival of the Antichrist.  In her attempts to locate her fellow League members she is forced to travel to various locations familiar to lovers of teenage wizardry in order to locate the Moonchild / Antichrist before the final battle wherein one beloved character is destroyed and nanny punishes a very naughty boy.

It's a glorious and melancholy end to a key chapter in this fabulous series.  With each issue of the League they release Moore and O'Neill drag me further and further into a world that I don't want to see end.  Luckily it seems they don't either and the books keep coming.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo

Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill - Nemo: Heart of Ice

(Knockabout / Top Shelf)

In the grim cold of February surfaces a thrilling new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book - Nemo: Heart of Ice, a full-color 48-page adventure in the classic pulp tradition by the inestimable Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. It's 1925, fifteen long years since Janni Dakkar first tried to escape the legacy of her dying science-pirate father, only to accept her destiny as the new Nemo, captain of the legendary Nautilus. Now, tired of her unending spree of plunder and destruction, Janni launches a grand expedition to surpass her father's greatest failure: the exploration of Antarctica. Hot on her frozen trail are a trio of genius inventors, hired by the megalomaniacal Charles Foster Kane to retrieve the plundered valuables of an African queen. It's a deadly race to the bottom of the world - an uncharted land of wonder and horror where time is broken and the mountains bring madness.

A very unexpected surprise when this appeared.  I'd heard that they were going to do these spin-offs but I wasn't expecting one to turn up this soon.

What we have is a missing tale of the second Captain Nemo and her attempt to traverse Antarctica in the footsteps of her father.  In pursuit of her and her crew is a trio of American adventurers in the employ of Charles Foster Kane and Ayesha (the Queen from 'She').  On their disastrous journey they discover various Lovecraftian locations and creatures.

It's a fairly slight (by Moore's terms) little romp but one that adds layers to the character of Janni (Nemo) and very nicely bridges the gap between the vengeful Janni of the first volume of 'Century' and the mellower mature one that turned up later.

I've loved all the League stories and this one was no exception.

(Jess Nevins' annotations to this volume can be found here)

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Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill - Nemo: The Roses of Berlin

(Knockabout / Top Shelf)

Sixteen years ago, notorious science-brigand Janni Nemo journeyed into the frozen reaches of Antarctica to resolve her father's weighty legacy in a storm of madness and loss, barely escaping with her Nautilus and her life.
Now it is 1941, and with her daughter strategically married into the family of aerial warlord Jean Robur, Janni's raiders have only limited contact with the military might of the clownish German-Tomanian dictator Adenoid Hynkel. But when the pirate queen learns that her loved ones are held hostage in the nightmarish Berlin, she has no choice save to intervene directly, travelling with her ageing lover Broad Arrow Jack into the belly of the beastly metropolis. Within that alienated city await monsters, criminals and legends, including the remaining vestiges of Germany’s notorious ‘Twilight Heroes’, a dark Teutonic counterpart to Mina Murray’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And waiting at the far end of this gauntlet of alarming adversaries there is something much, much worse.
Continuing in the thrilling tradition of Heart of Ice, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill rampage through twentieth-century culture in a blazing new adventure, set in a city of totalitarian shadows and mechanical nightmares. Cultures clash and lives are lost in the explosive collision of four unforgettable women, lost in the black and bloody alleyways where thrive THE ROSES OF BERLIN. 

This is the second League of Extraordinary Gentleman spinoff books to feature the exploits of everyone's favourite sub aquatic pirate goes off to Germany to rescue her daughter and her son in law, the air pirate Robur.

The book mixes in The Great Dictator, Metropolis, Cabinet of Doctor Cagliari, She and more to great effect. I've got to say though that if it wasn't for the majesty of Jess Nevins and his explanatory website - http://jessnevins.com/annotations/rosesofberlin.html - much of it would have been incomprehensible to me as it was written in German and I don't currently have a friendly German to hand..

It's a quest book (of sorts) and as such is a little thin on plot but what there is is typical Moore and there is plenty of distraction in the always beautiful art from O'Neill who as ever brings the most absurd worlds to life in stunning, awe inspiring and eye popping glory.

Not the best of them but still wonderful.

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Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill - Nemo: River of Ghosts
(Knockabout / Top Shelf)

In a world where all the fictions ever written coalesce into a rich mosaic, it’s 1975. Janni Dakkar, pirate queen of Lincoln Island and head of the fabled Nemo family, is eighty years old and beginning to display a tenuous grasp on reality. Pursuing shadows from her past — or her imagination — she embarks on what may be a final voyage down the vastness of the Amazon, a last attempt to put to rest the blood-drenched spectres of old. With allies and adversaries old and new, we accompany an aging predator on her obsessive trek into the cultural landscape of a strange new continent, from the ruined city of Yu-Atlanchi to the fabulous plateau of Maple White Land. As the dark threads in her narrative are drawn into an inescapable web, Captain Nemo leads her hearse-black Nautilus in a desperate raid on horrors believed dead for decades. Through the exotic spectacle of an imagined South America, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill steer their fifty-year-long Nemo trilogy to its remarkable conclusion, borne upon a River of Ghosts. 

And with this volume - the third - the story of Janni Nemo comes to a close and the next inheritor of the mantle takes their place.

This time out  it's a much more straight forward read - particularly in comparison to it's immediate predecessor for which you needed a handy German to translate large swathes of the dialogue.  Here, the aged and dying Nemo sets out on one last adventure to investigate the apparent reappearance of Ayesha despite having killed her in the previous volume's Germany of Adenoid Hynkel.

As ever the references abound and as ever I'm missing loads of them but a few of the more obvious ones include The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Stepford Wives, Desperate Dan and The Lost World.

This isn't Moore at his most engrossing it's simply Moore cutting loose and letting the grand lady have the blood and fire send off and decisive conclusion she deserves (and desires).  O'Neill is, as ever, flawless.

An explosive final chapter to an excellent series.  Hopefully not the last we'll see of the League though as it's easily one of my favourite things.

(Jess Nevins' annotations to this volume can be found here)

Unearthing

Alan Moore
Top Shelf Productions and Knockabout

This was an utterly astounding audiobook read by the man himself with music from a variety of experimental musicians including Justin Broadrick, Stuart Braithwaite & Mike Patton.

The story or let's say narrative concerns the biography of friend and fellow comic writer Steve Moore. It is an examination of both man and place and the very personal forms of magick that these things conjure up.

Steve Moore it transpires has lived in the same house his entire life. The house is situated on Shooters Hill in London and in typical Alan Moore fashion this location becomes as central to the narrative as Steve Moore is.

Steve Moore (R.I.P.)

As a biography it's a tale of a life defined by a series of obsessions - sci-fi, arcana, writing - that would, in lesser hands, be a fairly tedious read. In Alan Moore's hands however (and with the beautifully subtle background music) it becomes a lyrical and evocative dance through passion and loss, obsession and loneliness, creativity and magick.

Absolutely superb.