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Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V For Vendetta #1 CGC 9.8 At Auction

Published Sat, 25 Sep 2021 12:57:11 -0500

Last updated Sun, 26 Sep 2021 04:17:28 -0500

V for Vendetta was a comic book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, which began serialisation in 1982, in the UK anthology Warrior, alongside Moore's Marvelman and The BoJeffries Saga. It was later republished and concluded from DC Comics in 1988 to follow Watchmen. The story depicts a dystopian and post-apocalyptic near-future history version of the United Kingdom in the 1990s, preceded by a nuclear war in the 1980s that devastated most of the rest of the world. The white supremacist fascist political party Norsefire exterminated opponents in concentration camps and rules the country as a police state. V is an unidentified anarchist revolutionary dressed in a Guy Fawkes mask, who begins an elaborate and theatrical revolutionist campaign to kill his former captors, bring down the fascist state, and convince the people to abandon fascism in favour of anarchy, while inspiring a young woman, Evey Hammond, to be his successor. It has remained a perennial top seller for DC Comics and was turned into a movie in 2005 by the Wachowskis. It is seen as predicting much, from the increase in CCTV surveillance, to the populist appeal of a right-wing party, but Moore also stated that "naïveté can also be detected in my supposition that it would take something as melodramatic as a near-miss nuclear conflict to nudge Britain towards fascism… The simple fact that much of the historical background of the story proceeds from a predicted Conservative defeat in the 1983 General Election should tell you how reliable we were in our roles as Cassandras." The success of the film, however, transformed David Lloyd's version of Guy Fawkes for the mask as a universal symbol of anonymous resistance to oppression or oppressive forces, from anti-Scientologist Anonymous to anti-capitalist marches, from Occupy to Extinction Rebellion. Alan Moore, while appreciating the inspiration those have found from that image, decried the movie from its announcement, to date, for betraying much of the intent of the comic, making little sense, and for misrepresenting his involvement in the project. Indeed, it was that project that Moore first chose to take his name off the credits, leaving David Lloyd as the only comic book credit on the movie. Alan used me to announce that, back in 2005, and it is something he has stuck with since, for other projects he did not choose to be made into films or TV shows, including Watchmen, Constantine and Swamp Thing. Oh yes, and the first DC Comics colour issue is up for auction at Heritage Auctions today, currently at $126 with two days to go.

V For Vendetta #1 (DC, 1988) CGC NM/MT 9.8 White pages. David Lloyd wraparound cover and art. Alan Moore story. Overstreet 2021 NM- 9.2 value = $55. CGC census 9/21: 383 in 9.8, none higher.