Alan Moore's Writing For Comics Volume 1

From: Bought at the Helsinki Comic Book Festival.
When: Unclear. In the 00s, but almost certainly before I was ever asked to be a scriptwriter for comics myself.
Verdict: Mostly for fans; moderately useful for the beginning scriptwriter.
Fate: Gave it as a gift to Rachel, a classmate who wants a career in graphic novels.


This book is very strange in that most of it is written in the 1980s, but a last chapter glued onto the original fanzine content in the mid-90s documents Alan Moore's changing attitude to his own work and methods. He essentially says, that while everything in the booklet is sound advice, he himself would under no circumstances work in the described fashion any longer. Once you've mastered a style, it is time to move on, and some of the devices from the Swamp Thing years described and recommended in the first part were becoming clichés even as he wrote about them. (In my glorious master Moore's defense, although he does not say so, they were becoming clichéd because both instantly recognizable and widely copied).

To me, Writing For Comics is more interesting as a window onto a writer's thoughts about his method than as a tool of figuring one out for yourself (and, anyway, the kind of pseudo manga I work with is very, very different from graphic novels of this type). As far as I can tell there is no "Vol 2", but I quite wish there were: Alan Moore's work has changed so much, and he has spoken so very interestingly of it in interviews, that I can't imagine he wouldn't have a whole deal more to share should he wish to. In fact, for most readers, turning to the following Salon interviews, from 2004 and 2000 is probably a more sensible use of time than reading the book. Nevertheless, I passed my copy on to a mate who has graphic novelism as her career goal.


Buy Writing for Comics: 1 at Amazon UK.

One Additional Exception

My best friend Jaakko admitted that he had considered buying me any number of books for my birthday, then stopped himself, then considered buying them anyway and claiming to have done so before the Embargo, then not done so because he was actually a supporter of the Embargo, then threw his hands up in despair and asked whether the rule really, really had to apply to comics and graphic novels?

About a week in, I was starting to feel desperate myself, and said that he could, absolutely, give me comics. In retrospect, it was just book greed, but at the time I felt that it was reasonable, since comics are generally read faster, and I'm allowed to buy single issues anyway. Since I am actually in the industry, I could have added that all comics also qualify as necessary research, except that it's not really necessary, and I have plenty of comics I haven't had time to get around to on account of my Oxford Finals.

But the exception has been made, and it stands.

"Good idea, anyway, this Embargo," Jaakko says; he is an expert in all kinds of guilt and understood exactly how I felt. "But it requires its own blog."

So here we are.