LXG in 1999
Might have made
Vertigo Fables in 2002
Possible
I enjoyed that series immensely.
Anyone who wants
To dip into the series
Might find the
Cinderella as
Super Spy
Stand Alone
Mini Series
A good start
From Fabletown with Love
And
Fables Are Forever
Can be borrowed
From
Comixology Unlimited
There are only
The first 5 issues of
Fables available
4 of Watchmen
20 of Sandman
@TurokSonOfStone1950 @Razzzcat @scoop001 @CaptainYesterday @RexRebel @Jay_Kay @flashlites @discordia57 @TheSandmanofGotham and anyone else who wants to join the Roundtable. New question posed to the group.
I donāt know that his books left an impact on me, exactly. Watchmen is iconic, of course, a series I have read more than once. He definitely had an impact on the comics industry. I like the more mature stories, but I think there is a place for simpler stories with clear heroes and villains as well.
Alan Moore, along with Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, made comic books that were at the level of fine literature.
Reading his work, we see a great mind at work. Someone who has ideas.
But unlike the other three, I rarely feel anything when reading his stories
I should feel something when reading the Anatomy Lesson. A being has had his entire belief system, all that kept him going, ripped from him, abruptly and permanently.
I donāt.
What I remember reading it for the first time:
The pseudo scientific explanation on how Hollandās consciousness got into a plant.
How poorly Woodrue was treated by his boss.
How if the Boss had a little empathy instead of being snotty, he might still be alive.
And, for all the shock, despair and horror he endured at the moment of relevation, Swampy got over it, in a very few issues.
Sometimes
A series echoes
One of Mooreās work.
Both Watchmen
And New Frontier
Have scenes in Vietnam.
Again
I feel nothing about those scenes in Watchmen
While
Superman, Wonder Woman and the Vietnamese women
Bring out emotion in me.
The Comedian kills a woman, pregnant with his own child and I feel nothing.
I donāt like that I donāt feel anything
Here is the end of the Batman story in
Detective Comics 500
Our Batman
Has saved the parents
Of a young Bruce Wayne
On an alternate Earth.
Here are the last panels
Why canāt I get something like that
From reading the works
Of Alan Moore?
@TurokSonOfStone1950 that is really interesting. Iām going to have to think about that and respond more on Wednesday. Because, I find Moore, for me, to be the emotionally most evocative of those writers. And, not just Swamp Thing for me. Reading V for Vendetta again recently the strong emotional reactions I had, both positive and negative, were the strengths of the story and overshadowed some of its weaknesses.
Mooreās writings
Enforced
But did not create
Concepts I carry
Within me to this day.
I learned
You could change
How you looked
At a character
In a issue.
As Neil Gaiman
Wrote
At Dreamās funeral
āThereās a new Dream?
Then what died?ā.
āA point of view.ā
But I learned that
In the treatment of
Morgan le Fay in
Mists of Avalon
One of many books
Where a minor character
Gets a chance
To be
Explored
And re evaluated
That what I read
For pleasure
Could be literature
But I learned
That already in
The Science Fiction books
More than Human
The Stars My Destination
That Horror
And the Super Hero
Genres can explore
Themes better
Than traditional literature
Like
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Original versions of
Thing and Haunting
Super Folks
That a group
With varying personalties
And talents
Could accomplish
What an individual
Could not
The Magnificent Seven
Secret Invasion (not a good movie but powerful in spite of itself)
If Moore can make Hyde a hero
So can a follower
Of Cthulhu be such
One of the best books
I have read
That illustrates
What I wrote
In the above post
The novelette (for free)
The best review I ever read
(Part of which is a critique
On the Superhero)
What a teacher
She must be
A quote from the story
āSome people think that āpowerā is a good answer, and it isnāt. The power that can be found in magic is less than what you get from a gun, or a badge, or a bombā I pause. "Iām trying to remember all the things I need to tell you, now, at the beginning. What magic is āforā is understanding. Knowledge. And it wonāt work until you know how little that gets you.
"Sharhlyda - Aeonism - is a bit like a religion. But this isnāt the Bible - most of the things Iām going to tell you are things we have records of histories older than man, and sometimes the testimony of those who lived them. The gods you can take or leave, but the history is real.
"All of manās other religions place him at the center of creation. But man is nothing - a fraction of the life that will walk the Earth. Earth is nothing - a tiny world that will die with its sun. The sun is one of trillions where life flowers, and wants to live, and dies. And between the suns is an endless vast darkness that dwarfs them, through which life can travel only by giving up that wanting, by losing itself.
Even that darkness will eventually die. In such a universe, knowledge is the stub of a candle at dusk."
"You make it all sound so cheerful.:
āItās honest. What our religion tells us, the part that is a religion, is that the gods created life to try and make meaning. Itās ultimately hopeless, and even gods die, but the effort is real. Will always have been real, even when everything is over and no one remembers.ā
Here is the
Empathy
That
Moore
Often lacks
In his superb storytelling.
@msgtv I vote yes! I mentioned thereās a lot of necessary setup at the beginning, but once you settle in: 
Also (fair warning), 9 books were originally planned apparently, but he left 2000AD and the rest of the story has never been told. 
If youāve ever read Tank Girlāit seems inspired by Halo Jones to meā¦only it wasnāt written by Alan Moore, lol! Hereās this:
Iāll be back for the next Q soon! 
I really wish I could say yes. I think his impact is felt across the medium more than myself. I enjoy plenty of his books but I canāt say it has left a lasting impact. If I were stretching it, I would say he made me interested in Batgirl/Barbara Gordon. However, I was already into Birds of Prey when I first read Killing Joke so it was more of an āOh, so that is what happenedā type of thing.
At the time, the supernatural hero team-up where Swamp Thing goes to fetch Abby from purgatory seemed like the best comic ever written (Swamp Thing #49-50?). To be fair, there were a number of months in the early 80ās where the latest issue of Swamp Thing created a new ābest comic ever writtenā.
I was introduced to Moore by the Comics Journal raving about him, which allowed me to catch his work right at the start of his Swamp Thing run
By far, Swamp Thing had the most profound impact because of how it feels like a meditation on what it means to be human. āThe Anatomy Lessonā is finding ones true self, āLove and Deathā is finding love in this world, āAmerican Gothicā is the horrors of human nature, āEarth to Earthā is commitment to a relationship and your loved one, and Reunion is peacefully living out your life. Itās incredible touching to read and is something that I always love about the run.
@TheSandmanofGotham, I very much relate to what youāre saying about Swamp Thing. Iām guessing most here have read what I wrote about reading Swamp Thing to my wife last year. If you havenāt, please give this a look.
But, thereās more to this story that I didnāt know until after I wrote that. When two very kind friends sent me that reproduction of The Swamp Thing cover, I tried to explain the significance to my daughter. She stopped me, āDad, mom told me that story.ā I would find that she had told others about me reading Swamp Thing to her. Alan Mooreās work contributed to our love. You cannot have a better impact than that.
Thatās really cool.
I donāt have nearly the experience or reflection to share about Alan Moore. I āreadā WATCHMEN some years ago when a friend handed it off to me in college around the time the movie came out. I wasnāt into comics then, and I didnāt take the time and energy to appreciate it all. It was just a quick peruse and off to see the movie; a fine adaptation, but I never got into it as much as some.
However, I used COMIXOLOGY UNLIMITED to read the first 2 volumes of THE SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING back in December of 2020 and fell in love with the character. The thing I loved most about it was the rambling internal dialogue, always exploring and analyzing. I get Swamp Thing. He makes sense to me. And a lot of that has to do with Mooreās writing and delivery.
I have yet to expand out, but Iām sure Iāll read some more of his works in the future. Canāt speak for his full body of work but I guess Iām a fan. Enjoying reading through these posts and seeing the impact he has had on comics.
As a comment on Alan Mooreās work, V for Vendetta and Watchman were the first comic series that I read where I actually considered the politics behind the story as an important part of the story. Of course, I realize that Dark Knight Returns also shared some of the political overtones, but I felt it was more background to the Batman Story.
@NUEXGUY welcome to the Roundtable. āHe makes sense to me.ā Is a heck of an endorsement.
