Happy Birthday to Alan Moore!

Just one day late, I want to wish a Happy B-Day to the Big Bard of Northampton, who is 66 now! ! !  
Here you can find an unpublished (until now, in English) interview to Alan about his novel Jerusalem, the Magic and being a magician (of course!), Anarchy, the Art of Writing and even Herbie the Fat Fury comic book!

Barry_Allen wrote:Just one day late, I want to wish a Happy B-Day to the Big Bard of Northampton, who is 66 now! ! !  
Here you can find an unpublished (until now, in English) interview to Alan about his novel Jerusalem, the Magic and being a magician (of course!), Anarchy, the Art of Writing and even Herbie the Fat Fury comic book!

Is Alan Moore allowed to have a "Happy" anything?

Well, of course you're right MajorHoy, it's that doubtful! Just read what old Alan said in the interview about the impact of popular heroes comic books in our culture:
"I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying. While these characters were originally perfectly suited to stimulating the imaginations of their twelve or thirteen year-old audience, today’s franchised übermenschen, aimed at a supposedly adult audience, seem to be serving some kind of different function, and fulfilling different needs. Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century. The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum. The superheroes themselves – largely written and drawn by creators who have never stood up for their own rights against the companies that employ them, much less the rights of a Jack Kirby or Jerry Siegel or Joe Schuster – would seem to be largely employed as cowardice compensators, perhaps a bit like the handgun on the nightstand. I would also remark that save for a smattering of non-white characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race. In fact, I think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks".
Other questions:
You have desconstructed an entire genre and exerted major influence in the adult comic books after the publication of Watchmen. How do you see it’s lasting impact on comics?
"Again, see my answer to previous question. Frankly, I don’t think about comics that much, I don’t think of Watchmen at all, and the lasting impact of one upon the other is really no longer my concern.
You have been in and out of the comic big publishers all your life. How do you feel about the industry at this point?
I’d imagine that after these last three questions, my feelings (such as they are) about the comics industry at this point would be fairly obvious. Other than finishing my commitments to those publishers such as Knockabout, Avatar and Top Shelf who have always treated me well, I don’t want anything to do with the comic industry in future. I still respect and love the comic medium and may very well work in the medium at some future point, but I genuinely want to put my connections with a comic industry that appears to me to be hopelessly dysfunctional far, far behind me".
And, finally....:
Could you tell a very strange thing that happened to you?
"Well, my younger brother once choked on a cough-sweet and went without breathing for between five and ten minutes with no obvious ill effects, but that’s something that I unpack more fully in Jerusalem. Other than that, I remember swimming in one of the deep-gouged and diamond-clear streams of Glen Nevis, back in the early 1970s. Electing to climb out of the stream up a twelve-foot rock-face, halfway up I discovered a jutting stone ledge, only a few inches across, upon which was resting a small pile of hair-clippings, the hair being fine, blonde and definitely human. It looked like it might have been that of a child. That was a thing which, for want of any likely or even conceivable explanation, I categorised as strange. Eerie, even".

MajorHoy wrote:Is Alan Moore allowed to have a "Happy" anything?    

I refer you to this:

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/11/18/alan-mooregrouchiness-cantankerousness/

Thank you for the reference Mbast1! I see that old Rich Johnston (Bleeding Cool founder and author of that article) took great "ispiration" from smokyman (noted italian Alan Moore biographer) blog!

Barry_Allen wrote:Thank you for the reference Mbast1!

You are very welcome. And it's Mike, please.

That's perfect, thanks Mike! Have you also read that old Alan plans to vote for the first time in 40 years and plans to vote for Corbyn Labour Party?

Barry_Allen wrote:That's perfect, thanks Mike! Have you also read that old Alan plans to vote for the first time in 40 years and plans to vote for Corbyn Labour Party?  

No, that's interesting. He's an anarchist, so I would think he wouldn't vote, but this at least makes sense.

Here's a BC article about what Leah Moore has written about why his Famous Father is retiring from active comic books writing:
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/11/23/all-items-offered-local-comic-shop-day-2019-lcsd/

Barry_Allen wrote:Here's a BC article about what Leah Moore has written about why his Famous Father is retiring from active comic books writing:
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/11/23/all-items-offered-local-comic-shop-day-2019-lcsd/

I read that piece online. Very heartfelt and well-written. That said, I think he has earned the right to ANY opinion he wants, AND I don't know that I disagree with some of the things he has said about the cultural saturation of superheroes.