Alan Moore

Doomsday Clock: The Final Evisceration

January 1, 2020 // 6 Comments

So I really didn’t want to do this. But somebody told me what happens in Doomsday Clock #12, and it pissed me off so much that I had to go back and finish reading the damn thing. Just so I could hate it intelligently. And, holy crap. HOLY CRAP. It’s even worse than I expected. But before the knives come back out, let’s make this all official and such… Doomsday Clock 9-12 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank I covered the first eight issues of this travesty in earlier columns, [...]

Funnybook Things to be Thankful For

November 26, 2019 // 2 Comments

So it’s Thanksgiving time here on the nerd farm. A time to relax with our dork family, and reflect on the geeky things we have to be thankful for this year. That gets harder for funnybook fans as we get older, I think. Not the act of being thankful, per se, but being mindful that everything doesn’t suck just because it’s different than it used to be. But it’s important to stay flexible, I think, and to appreciate the good stuff happening in the now. It might be different [...]

Goodnight, Sweet Wizard: Alan Moore’s Final Funnybook

July 23, 2019 // 3 Comments

So last week saw a genuine milestone in funnybook history: Alan Moore’s last comic. Last for now, anyway. He long ago announced this as his retirement from the medium, but he IS still alive, and it’s the prerogative of every mad genius sorcerer to change his mind. Not that I think he will. Moore’s become largely disgusted with the larger funnybook industry, and is famously stubborn once he gets his dander up. So I don’t expect to ever see another Alan Moore comic again. [...]

Beauty and Doom

April 9, 2019 // 0 Comments

So here we are again, reviewin’ us some funnybooks. This week, we’ve got deep fun in Grant Morrison’s Green Lantern, sheer insanity courtesy of David Lapham’s Lodger, pretty pictures from Heroes in Crisis, and weird mystery in the form of Fletcher and Kerschl’s Isola. But first, here’s some good old-fashioned doom from our ol’ pal Affable Al… League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest 5 by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill It’s taken [...]

THE LIST, Part Two

February 26, 2019 // 3 Comments

So last week, we looked at the first half of The List. All the comics I’m currently reading on the regular, alphabetical by title, with a discussion of why I’m reading it, and whether it’s a “keeper,” a book that goes into the permanent Nerd Farm collection, or whether it’s something that I’ll read once and then put aside to sell at some future date. Which brings up an interesting thing that happened after last week’s column: I got feelers from people [...]

Moore vs Morrison: The Battle Continues

January 15, 2019 // 4 Comments

So this week, we’ve got an increasingly rare occurrence: competing comics from Britain’s premiere funnybook-writing sorcerers! Alan Moore and Grant Morrison have been at odds for years, on pretty much every level. It’s a very personal feud that’s extended into their approaches to magic, writing, and life in general. And like most bitter enemies, they have more in common than either of them likes to admit. But enough prelims! Let’s get on with the latest round in [...]

More Heroes, More Crisis: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

January 8, 2019 // 2 Comments

So after a few weeks of holidays and Doomsday Clock dissection, the review stack’s gotten pretty tall. But the amount of time I have to deal with it is still pretty short. So let’s see how much we can get done before deadline, shall we…? Heroes in Crisis 4 by Tom King and Clay Mann After last issue’s really quite affecting flashback to Sanctuary before the bloodshed, this issue returns to the aftermath, and to the frustrations I had with the series’ first two [...]

And Out Come the Knives: Doomsday Clock, Part Two

January 1, 2019 // 4 Comments

So a couple of weeks ago, we took a look at Geoff Johns’ Doomsday Clock, his Doctor-Manhattan-Meets-Superman comic, and talked about how it’s a pretty good example of the Big Corporate Spandex Crossover™. As a sequel to Alan Moore’s Watchmen, however, it’s god-awful. And that’s what we’re (finally) here to discuss today. Granted, in the time since I read the damn thing, my ire toward it has cooled from white-hot intensity to a sort of inarticulate disgust. [...]

Beauty, Myth, Nostalgia… and Batman

September 18, 2018 // 5 Comments

So I think maybe it’s time to dig into this giant stack of funnybooks on my desk… League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest 2 by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill I forget sometimes how… exhausting this book can be. You’ve got Alan Moore doing his thing, writing straightforward adventure stories with more going on than is obvious at first glance. Then he and O’Neill set in with the cameos and tributes and easter eggs. Things that seem familiar, but [...]

The Comics That Made Me, Part Two

August 28, 2018 // 2 Comments

So this week we’re right in the middle of doing the dorkiest thing possible: making a list of funnybooks we like! The idea (taken from a social media challenge thing) is to make a list of ten comics that had an influence on me, and that I still enjoy reading today. I covered the first half of that last week, with comics from my childhood and adolescence. And we’re wrapping it up this week with stuff from high school and beyond… BOOK SIX: SWAMP THING Alan Moore took over Swamp [...]