Graphic Novel related – 50 pages – my copy (paperback) bought from Dave’s Comics in Brighton during June 2012
#53 of 2011-12 / #174 of All Time
- 3 nods out of 5 -
Through decades of interesting and innovative work in the comic book field, Alan Moore has risen to deity-like status. Earlier this year the Worm reviewed Moore’s Watchmen and came to the sound conclusion that it was a 5 nodder read, and worthy of everyone’s time, attention and eyes. It is fitting, then, that Moore should give advice to other comic book writer wannabes.
Originally written in 1985, and later updated with an afterword in 2003, this brief book covers the basic ground for giving birth to a tangible and worthwhile idea. The central chapters include ‘The Basic Idea: Thinking About Comics’, ‘Reaching the Reader: Structure, Pacing, Story Telling’, and ‘The Details: Plot and Script’. But Moore is keen to stress that he is not supplying a painting-by-numbers guide to writing comic books, but rather tackling ‘the broader issue of how we might actually think about the craft of comic writing’.
This broader issue is debated throughout each chapter, with Moore highlighting the need for a writer to explore deeper issues, their own humanity and the world around them to create something worthy of a reader’s time, rather than ‘tepid, barely readable shit’ printed on ‘the most sophisticated laser scan techniques available’. Moore argues for the need for the writer and artist to maintain their freedom and integrity: ‘Take risks. Fear nothing, especially failure…As for posterity, don’t drive yourself mad worrying about that shit. It isn’t up to you. And anyway, when the Universe ends in ten billion years time it really isn’t going to be that important who was famous for how long’.
Such is the quirky, humorous and thought-provoking style of Moore’s pen, the book is a pleasure to read. More importantly, it is writing that is honest at its attempt to get to the heart of the matter:
‘Analyse your own fears thoroughly enough and you might be able to reach some conclusions about the broad mass of human fear and anxiety. Be ruthless about this, and submit yourself to as much emotional pain as is necessary to get the question answered: What horrifies me? Pictures of little kids starving Africa horrifies me. Why does it horrify me? It horrifies me because I can’t stand the thought of tiny children being born into a world of starvation and misery and horror and never knowing anything but hunger and pain and fear, never knowing that there could possibly be anything other than needing food as desperately as a suffocating man needs air, and never hearing anything but weeping and moaning and despair. Yeah, well, okay, but why can’t I stand that? I can’t stand that because I like to perceive the world as having some form of just and fair order, without which much of existence would seem meaningless, and I know that for those children there is no possibility of them perceiving the world in those terms. I also know that were I to be in their situation I wouldn’t be able to see any unifying design above the hunger and misery, either. So does that mean that there is no order, no point to existence, above all no point to my existence? Is that what scares the shit out of me every time I see all those fly-specced bellies on the six o’clock news? Yeah. Yeah, probably it is. What scares me is probably not what’s happening to them but what it implies concerning me. That isn’t a terribly easy noble thing to have to face up to, but it’s the sort of wringer that you have to put yourself through in order to have any valuable understanding of the material that you are working with.’
In the brief space of these fifty pages, Moore’s dialogue comprises a history of comic books, of references to film, to the theatre, and other art work; whilst providing examples from his own work, including Swamp Thing and Superman. By doing this he constantly dispels myths of the trade, including the whole “sum up a character in 15 words”: ‘While it’s certainly possible to sum up the character of Captain Ahab in a well turned phrase like “This insane amputee with a grudge against a whale,” Herman Melville obviously thought it appropriate to take slightly longer over the job’.
Undoubtedly the industry has moved on and progressed since the mid-1980s; however, Moore’s book is a great read on how a writer – be it comic book, novelist, or screenwriter – constructs a story. Moore’s own judgement on reading his advice years later was a modest ‘not that bad’. The Worm is more ready to heap on praise. But, of course, in Moore’s long career, praise is the one thing not in short supply.
Buy it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Moores-Writing-Comics-Volume/dp/1592910122
