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Alan Moore Only Has 250 Pages Of Comics Left To Write Before He's Done

51D51RLV44LIn the promotional launch for his new novel Jerusalem, published this week, Alan Moore stated that has "about 250 pages of comics left in me".

Although those 250 pages "will probably be very enjoyable. There are a couple of issues of an Avatar  book that I am doing at the moment, part of the HP Lovecraft work I've been working on recently. Me and Kevin will be finishing Cinema Purgatorio and we've got about one more book, a final book of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to complete. After that, although I may do the odd little comics piece at some point in the future, I am pretty much done with comics."

He told the room that he felt too comfortable in comics, similar to the reasons Joe Michael Straczynski recently gave for leaving the medium.

"I think I have done enough for comics. I've done all that I can. I think if I were to continue to work in comics, inevitably the ideas would suffer, inevitably you'd start to see me retread old ground and I think both you and I probably deserve something better than that".

Which leaves him novels and movies to write.

"So, the things that interest me at the moment are the things I don't know if I can do, like films, where I haven't got a clue what I am doing, or giant literary novels. Things I wasn't sure I'd even have the stamina to finish … I know I am able to do anything anyone is capable of doing in the comic book medium. I don't need to prove anything to myself or anyone else. Whereas these other fields are much more exciting to me. I will always revere comics as a medium. It is a wonderful medium."

One passage of Jerusalem, that has been picked up sees the character of David  described as one who "never looks at comics these days, even though they've become fashionable to the point where adults are allowed to read them without fear of ridicule. Ironically, in David's view, this makes them a lot more ridiculous than when they were intended as a perfectly legitimate and often beautifully crafted means of entertaining kids."

Moore told the room that this was "probably an author's message" and that "I am sure there is probably a very good reason for the hundreds of thousands of adults who are flocking to see the latest adventures of Batman, but I for one am a little in the dark for what that reason is… The superhero movies – characters that were invented by Jack Kirby in the 1960s or earlier – I have great love for those characters as they were to me when I was a 13-year-old boy. They were brilliantly designed and created characters. But they were for 50 years ago. I think this century needs, deserves, its own culture. It deserves artists that are actually going to attempt to say things that are relevant to the times we are actually living in. That's a longwinded way of me saying I am really, really sick of Batman."

I've always seen Alan Moore as one of the few geniuses who have worked in the comics medium, and have seen quite remarkable things achieved just as recently as new issues of Providence and Cinema Purgatorio – the Mighty Joe Young monologue was something truly spectacular. But his recent film work has been most entertaining and I am very much looking forward to picking up Jerusalem (with both hands).

And while it is sad to think we'll only have 250 pages of his comics left – the good news is that we have 250 pages left to read!


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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