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We just can't stop talking about Alan
Moore, can we?
Never mind that its been
years since he's produced any truly significant work. The output of
his 1980's heyday remains worthy of reading, discussion and in-depth
study. To say that he almost single-handedly changed the comics art
form, as well as the public perception of that art and comic
industry's image of itself is only a small exaggeration.
Increasingly, however,
when Moore is discussed these days, it is not his work that sparks
the debate, but rather his progressively problematic persona and
especially his prickly public pronouncements. The latest dust up is
actually a couple of months old. However, I only really delved into
it recently when I spent, or perhaps you could say wasted, as there
was a whole list of other things I really should have been attending
to, almost an entire Saturday afternoon on the Internet losing myself
further and further down the rabbit hole of responses, replies and
rebuttals to Moore's so-called
“last interview,” which appeared
on-line in early January.
Its not so much an
interview, really, as a rambling, epic length screed ostensibly in
response to a handful of e-mailed questions from blogger, and noted
Moore friend and apologist, Pádraig
Ó Méalóid. Prior to embarking upon the writing of this
piece, I looked up the word “jeremiad” in order to assure that I
would be using it correctly should I chose to do so. Sure enough, my
dictionary defines the word as “a tale of sorrow, disappointment,
or complaint.” If you actually invest the time to read the whole
thing, I believe you'll agree that that definition comprises a fairly
accurate assessment of Moore's tirade.
I don't want to accuse
Moore of lying, however he inarguably does exaggerate and distort
certain facts. Its entirely possible that this is due more to faulty
memories or skewed perceptions rather than any intentional effort to
cloud the issue and make himself out to appear even more the wounded
party. Still, its difficult to reconcile journalist, and target of Moore's wrath, Laura Sneddon's
account of
her brief interaction with Moore and his wife with Moore's more
Machievellian and conspiratorial version of events.
To be fair to Moore, his
critics have engaged in a certain amount of hyperbole of their own.
The blanket statement that Moore has included a rape scene in every
single thing he's ever written is patently ridiculous on its face. I
seem to have missed the rape scene in “Mogo Doesn't Socialize”
and glossed over it in “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”
(Although,
Julian Darius at Sequart points out the irony that
Moore's chosen example of a work of his that is free of sexual
violence actually does contain a rape scene in an early issue, thus
further undercutting the credibility of Moore's arguments)
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On the other hand, the
argument that white males should not attempt to write minority or
female characters is one that I seen refuted by any number of white
male writers over the years. However, I cannot recall reading any
instance of anyone actually seriously arguing this position. It is a
text book example of a classic “straw man” argument. It
certainly appears, from the reactions to Moore's accusations that
I've read, that no one was saying that in this case. Rather, Moore's
critics are doing exactly what he implores them to, taking him to
task for a specific portrayal in a specific work.
Honestly, I, being a
middle aged white guy who grew up in a nearly all white small town
and never really interacted with people of color until I went away to
college and have never really experienced any serious racism, I feel
spectacularly under qualified to discuss matters of race. There's
also the fact that I've not read the work in question. However, for
an in-depth examination of the issue, you can read Pam Noles (who, by the way, is the unnamed African-American woman whom Moore claims confronted Kevin O'Neil at a book signing) detailed
deconstruction of the history of the character of the Golliwog and
its use in
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen here.
I cannot say that Moore's
depiction of sexual violence has never bothered me. I do remember
have some difficulty in my early readings of
Watchmen with
Sally Jupiter's forgiveness of Eddie Blake. Still, I find Brad
Meltzer's trivialization of the rape of Sue Dibny into a retconned
plot device in
Identity Crisis to be far more
“problematic” (by which I mean “reprehensible”) than anything
I've encountered in Moore's work. For an examination of the most
commonly stated problems with Moore's depiction of sexual violence, I
recommend
this piece.
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Not content with
re-imagining the past in order to bolster his sense of outrage, Moore
resorts to belittling and denigrating his critics. This is
especially true in the case of the un-named by Moore “Batman
scholar” whose tweets in reaction to a public appearance by the
writer apparently kicked off this current controversy. Moore
characterizes the man as a disgruntled middle-aged fanboy upset not
over issues of sexual violence and race in Moore's work, but rather
using these as a smoke screen to cover his outrage over Moore's
cavalier dismissal of the fan's beloved super-heroes in a
newspaper interview. It appears that Moore's cynical assessment of his nemesis
could not be farther from the truth.
Other sources on-line have
revealed the so-called “Batman scholar” to be Dr. Will Booker,
who is, in fact, a bona-fide scholar who has written an intelligent
and insightful book entitled
Batman Unmasked, that
examines the Dark Knight's place in popular culture. As an aside, I
just want to say that I have read and enjoyed this book and highly
recommend it.
Booker himself has written a long account of his part
in this controversy that expands on his issues with Moore and his
work and what inspired his Moore-offending tweets.
Moore's worst outpourings
of venom, and most of his most outrageous distortions of reality, are
reserved for Grant Morrison. He has inflated a handful of
semi-serious comments by the Scottish writer into a three decade long
sustained campaign of stalking and harassment. Moore's most serious
accusation against Morrison contends that Morrison has never had an
original idea in his life and has stolen everything he's ever written
directly from Moore's work. It is true, and Morrison himself has
admitted this in numerous places, that the first four issues of
Animal Man represent a conscious effort on Morrison's
part to write like Moore, since this was, as he has explained, what
he believed his American editors at DC Comics wanted. With that
exception, it might be more accurately contended that Morrison's
career output, particularly his work in the super-hero genre, has
been a reaction against Moore's work and his perhaps disproportionate
influence on the way super-hero comics have been written ever since
Moore's early 80's rise to prominence in the field.
I wouldn't go so far as
to suggest, as one on-line pundit does with the
eye catching headline
that initially drew my attention to this whole mess, that Moore has
gone insane. There's nothing in this rant that even remotely
approaches Dave Sim's level of crazy as exhibited in the latter years
of his
Cerebus run. However, while he starts off
seeming perfectly reasonable and level headed in refutation of his
straw man critics, his rant becomes increasingly vitriolic as it
progresses. Still, its only right at the end that Moore turns into
an out of touch, totally unreasonable asshole. Moore actually has
the nerve to demand that anyone who enjoys Grant Morrison's work
should never again read any of his comics. It is undoubtedly the
very height of unmitigated arrogance for Moore to believe even for a
second that he actually has the right to make such a demand. In the
very same sentence he claims “respect and affection” for his
readers, yet it is abundantly and painfully obvious that he does not
respect us enough to allow us to make our own choices concerning what
else, other than his supposedly sacred texts, that we wish to read.
I'm somewhat torn. I
don't know whether I should gather up all my Moore written comics and
sell them to Half-Price Books, or pick up my copy of Watchmen
and read it from cover to cover, followed by a re-reading of
Morrison's Flex Mentallo as a symbolic “Fuck
You” to Moore.
At one point relatively
early in his jeremiad, Moore states that “...while everyone is
entitled to their informed opinion, this is actually the full extent
of their entitlement.” Besides being true, this is the most
reasonable and rational statement Moore makes in the entire screed.
However, it would seem from his subsequent mad demand that his
readers forsake all other comics writers, or at least those who have
done him some perceived injustice, that Moore does not believe that
sentiment actually applies to himself.
If this is truly Moore's
last interview, and if it truly represents what Moore has become,
then its just as well that we, to paraphrase Richard Nixon, won't
have Alan Moore to kick around any more. (Perhaps its worth pointing
out that Nixon made that statement in 1962, well before he was
elected President in 1968.) It might perhaps, as Moore suggests,
“...be better for everyone concerned, not least myself,” if we
let him continue the process of disappearing further and further up
his own ass and leave the world with his body of work to speak for
itself, which, he claims, is all he's ever wanted anyway.
