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The Bumper Book Of Alan Moore

Published Fri, 20 May 2011 11:30:48 -0500

Last updated Sun, 22 May 2011 08:41:53 -0500

Today my postman had a hernia. Why? Because he was delivering me this thing.

Alan Moore: Storyteller is by Gary Spencer Millidge, long time friend of Alan Moore, creator of Strangehaven and author of Portrait Of An Extraordinary Gentleman, a Moore anthology I contributed towards around the time of his fiftieth birthday.

But this is a very different kind of volume. Full of extensive discussion with Moore, it sets out his life and history, and his approach to his work, along with insightful commentary for specific projects. Every major (and a bunch of minor) comics and non-comics project by Moore get their own chapter, from AARGH to Captain Britain to BoJeffries Saga. And there are plenty of never-before seen treats from Alan Moore's birth certificate (so make sure he was born in Northmapton, so one day he could be President) to the fold out script of the first fifth chapter of V For Vendetta that David Lloyd said just wasn't good enough to the thumbnails that Moore creates every time he write a new comic script, that he then turns into script, and that the artists never get to see.

The book is full of glossy photos illustrating Alan Moore's life and work, and how they interconnect. It also doesn't gloss over issues that Moore has had with other people – or those they have had with him. And it does a fantastic job of putting a life inbetween to fairly far apart thick covers.

Oh and look, the famous Big Numbers wall chart, noting every character in Big Numbers and what they are doing in each issue. This is the top half.

There's a reason this is such a big book. I've spent three hours with it and I've scratched the surface, let alone listened to the CD slotted into the back of the tome. Alan Moore Storyteller is published from Ilex Press on the 18th of July in the UK and from Universe on July 5th in the USA.

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