boyajian@akov68.DEC (JERRY BOYAJIAN) (01/24/86)
> From: cory!cc-30 (Kathy Li) > For anybody who likes Alan Moore, but doesn't know where to find his > stuff, take heart. 2000 AD is back in monthly format. "D.R. and Quinch > Go to Hollywood" graces the first issue of this now-regular title. > [...] > One of the other stories is also by Moore: "Skizz". I think it's a > kangaroo. Weird. > Also, the British magazine Warrior has numerous Moore works: V for > Vendetta, Big Ben, Marvelman (reprinted as Miracleman) and a few others. > All the Warrior Marvelmans will be printed in Miracleman 1-6, and DC has > picked up V for Vendetta (it's being colored!--and Alan Moore says it's > being done well! I'll believe it when I see it.) so you don't HAVE to > rush out and buy a complete run. > The 2000 AD is also thinking of running Moore's Halo Jones stuff. > If you're wondering about getting the 3-D Miracleman, it's a reprint of > the Marvelman Special (in 3-D, of course), which has only about three pages > scripted by Moore. A good three pages, but only three pages, so if it's > not worth it to you, I wouldn't suggest getting it. In AMAZING HEROES #71 (15 May 1985), there was an Alan Moore checklist, though there are a few things missing, as well as a couple of mistakes (for instance, one of the stories listed is not by Alan Moore, but by Alan Hebden, unless the credit in the original 2000 AD issue was wrong). Look for a copy if you want to find out just what he's done. The quick and dirty summary, from memory: 2000 AD: OK, you know about "D.R. & Quinch", "Skizz", and "Halo Jones". Moore also did a bunch of non-series shorts. WARRIOR: "Marvel-/Miracleman" and "V for Vendetta" you know about. "The Bojeffries Saga" (only 4 installments) is slated to be reprinted in the back of DALGODA, starting with the next issue (#8). The two-part "Warp- smith" story was reprinted in the second issue of Eclipse's AXEL PRESS- BUTTON (the first, Baxter series). Although Moore created the character of Big Ben in his Marvelman continuity, he *did not* write any of the Big Ben stories that appeared in WARRIOR; Dez Skinn wrote them, and they are part of another continuity altogether, seemingly with no connection to the universe of Marvelman. There is one Marvelman story from WARRIOR #4 (dubbed their "Summer Special" on the cover) that for reasons too com- plex to get into probably won't be reprinted for a good while. Suffice it to say that it takes place a few years down the road, features a returned Johnny Bates, and co-stars Warpsmith. There was also a new Young Marvelman story in #12 that I assume will be reprinted at some point in MIRACLEMAN. Pressbutton: The very first appearance (but chronologically last --- it features his death) of Axel Pressbutton occurred in a strip entitled "Three-Eyes McGurk and His Death Planet Commandos", which was reprinted in the US in the underground comic RIP-OFF COMICS #8. It was written by "Pedro Henry" (in reality Steve Moore -- no relation to Alan) as all the Pressbutton stories are, but the artist was Alan Moore under the pen-name "Curt Vile" (obviously a pun on the opera composer Kurt Weil). Bet you didn't know that Moore was an artist. Well, he isn't. :-) Seriously, he does a better job than I could do, but don't expect another George Perez. The only bulk of Moore's work that will probably never see reprinting in the US is his Captain Britain work for Marvel-UK. He took it over during its creative nadir and made a superb strip out of it, first in a comic called MARVEL SUPERHEROES, then in DAREDEVILS, then in MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL. Marvel had plans to reprint this in the back of the Baxter DR. WHO comic, but Moore stopped them, presumably getting back at them for their forcing the name change on Marvelman. You see, "work for hire" contracts in Britain are illegal, so Moore owns all the rights to his work for them (he doesn't own the characters, though, which prevents him from reprinting them elsewhere). Thus, they can't reprint them without his permission. He doesn't get mad, he gets even. Speaking of the forced name-change... I was recently looking over the Captain Britain stories that I have (I've got all but 4 installments of Moore's tenure) and I noticed a bit of fun on Moore's part. His tenure was one long sequence involving a series of alternate Earth's, each with its own version of Captain Britain (Capt. UK, Capt. England, Capt. Albion, et al.). On one of these alternate Earths, superheroes had been "outlawed" back in the early 60's. A character named Jaspers invented a Sentinel-like killing machine, the Fury, which killed off all of the superheroes of that Earth. One of those heroes, shown half- hidden in flashbacks, looked very much like Marvelman (Alan Davis was the artist working with Moore at that time on both Marvelman and Captain Britain), and he was called Miracleman. Obviously, Moore was playing a game, offering another explanation of why the "original" Marvelman disap- peared in the early 60's. I also find it amusing that when Marvel forced a name change on Marvelman, Moore picked as a replacement something that he used in a Marvel comics. Oh, and for the record, MIRACLEMAN 3-D #1 is not an exact reprint of the British MARVELMAN SPECIAL #1. This posting is getting long enough as it is, so I'll detail the differences in another posting. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...} !decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM