For brevity's sake, I decided to break things up a bit.
The second thing I thought about writing about was Alan Moore. Right now I'm trying to burn through as many of his books as I can. For the uninitiated (which since this blog is me and Dane right now, I doubt there are any), Alan Moore is the writer of Watchmen and V for Vendetta most famously, though there are so many more. He also did League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Swamp Thing, which also have substantial acclaim behind them - they both got made into crappy movies.
Anyways, I'm trying to burn through his stuff because I love comics so much. So so much. I love comics more than almost any book, movie, CD, play, TV show, or novel I've ever consumed. The only thing I like as much or more is cartoons. I want to write a comic. But I've never done it. I'm reading Moore's stuff because he is perhaps my favorite comic writer, and I'm trying to absorb as many of his nuances as I can. He follows in the footsteps of William Blake, and I love William Blake. Someday I will be posting my paper I wrote on his book Marriage of Heaven and Hell. I figure if I want to model myself after someone, the company can't get much better than Blake and Moore.
Moore is fascinating. He views himself as a real life magician, though for him magic isn't wands and fruity dresses like in Harry Potter. In an interview I watched with Moore, he stated that he views art as magic because it brings about a felt change in consciousness through the use of words and symbols. God how amazing. I want to be a magician too. He is equal parts swords, sorcery, druidism, teutonic gods, and science. One book of his that I just finished reading, Top 10, is the story of a city populated by nothing but super powered individuals and that city's police force. Some of his hero's have totally technologically explainable abilities – like the woman who dwells in mechanical armor – and they are set in stark contrast against those like Odin who are simply gods, and there's nothing more to say about it. Gods and technology side by side. I'm particularly excited to read Swamp Thing because the book started out as a science-gone-wrong tale wherein the protagonist gets turned into a human vegetable by some science mishap. Moore retooled the character (without rewriting the origin) to be the incarnation of a forest deity. So excite.
I also just picked up a book more wrote on his process of writing comics, which I'm very excited about. Alan Moore said he doesn't try to just write a story, but puts in any information he feels is important to conveying the mood of the piece, his mood, the mood he might have been in when he conceived of a particular idea. I read, though I can't find it now, a snippet of Moore's script for Watchmen, and the first two pages is him simply describing his room, surroundings, cigarette, drink, before he finally says something like, “Let's get to it, and maybe through the process of writing which will inevitably change both of us we can arrive at something edifying.” Something like that. In my life I can't believe I never really thought of writing a comic before, considering that it's been a part of my life almost as long as cartoons have. In fact, yesterday (being Saturday 14), I went down town to a local comic fest, and it really cemented my desire to do it.
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