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An Interview With Alan Moore Over Decades Is One Of Surprising Revelations

Dominic Wells, ex-editor of Time Out magazine and long-standing British cultural journalist has been interviewing Alan Moore for decades. He took the walking tour of Northampton with Alan Moore recently, before the release of Moore's new novel Jerusalem and, in a fashion cribbed from Dr Manhattan, brought in various scenes between the two of them over the decades.

It's a long interview and well worth a read. But Dominic approached me, wondering if I might see a news story in there and, well, there were a couple.

Firstly, an encounter on their journey with a homeless man and Alan Moore exchanging ghost stories revealed the fellow was a fan of Alan's older comics work. It was an amusing moment that dragged Alan from his present work to a past that he has tried to disassociate himself with, and also clarified the way Alan Moore feels about Dave Gibbons, his collaborator on Watchmen, with whom he fell out badly over the Watchmen movie and subsequent exploitation of Watchmen by DC Comics.

Homeless man [suddenly blurts out]: "I enjoyed Watchmen."

Moore: "Did you?"

Homeless man: "I loved it."

Moore: "Oh, that's nice."

Homeless man: "You and… Gibbon?"

Moore [Northampton accent suddenly stronger in anger]: "Dave Gibbons. Oi hope Oi never see that f-cker for as long as Oi live. Oi don't have a copy of the book in me 'ouse, but Oi'm glad you got some pleasure out of it, mate."

Homeless man: "And The Killing Joke Batman, that is a belter."

Moore: "Well, I threw it out. But glad you liked it, man. Have a good day, won't you."

But Moore's observed decision to give the guy a twenty pound note echoed an aspect of a character in the novel for Wells, which drove him to ask how much the character of Alma Warren was based on Alan – or more specifically who were Alan's family and friends in the novel – and more specifically than that who the involved in incestuous rape and more were based on.

The couple's argument is over their daughter, who has been acting up. It emerges that the father has been creeping into her room at night; and the mother, for all her furious protestation, finally admits she tacitly condoned it. Eventually, both agree to hush up the incestuous affair – by shipping the child off to the mental hospital.

It seems, when you read it, a bizarre and twisted leap of imagination – except that Moore reveals, in the back of the cab, that he didn't make it up.

So let's be clear, I ask Moore: this story of incest, leading to their own daughter's enforced institutionalisation to silence her, is based on his own relatives?

"That is true. Yeah."

Is this known and acknowledged in the family?

"No."

Won't this put the cat among the pigeons?

"Most of the people are dead. Uh, and they knew anyway."

I've started reading the book. Finishing it will be a long way in by future, understanding and cogitating it satisfactorily will be further still. But this interview, this series of disjointed interviews, if nothing else, will give me a few handholds.

Thank you, Dominic.

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