An interesting Alan Moore interview, relevant to the Classic theme

[Simon Garth]

There's a two-part Alan Moore interview, part 1 and part 2, that I thought might strike a chord with many of the residents hereabouts, mainly because of this bit:

"... KA: And, it’s left a legacy where it seems like almost all heroes follow the model you created with Marvelman and Watchmen. Instead of a “straight ahead” approach to heroism like you’d find in the Silver Age, all the heroes are psychologically damaged. They all have drinking problems and sexual dysfunctions and broken marriages. And, it’s almost become a new status quo in and of itself.

AM: Yes, it has. And, can I just say I’m sorry? That was never my intention for every book to be like that. The reason I wanted to do them like that was because nothing else was like that. I wanted to do something that was different. If I were, god forbid, still doing superhero comics today, just like my ABC work from a couple of years ago, they’d be very very different from the Watchmen or Marvelman template. They’d be much more about having fun—whether that be intellectual fun or just plain fun—much more about that than doing any revisions. I think, ultimately, that approach that I brought in—taking previously existing characters and reinterpreting them—has probably led to very grim and very un-enjoyable comic books..."

I can see where he's coming from, and god knows there have been enough bad writers (and bad artists who thought they could write) that have taken "grim & gritty" and really run with it (mainly into a ditch), but I feel totally the opposite: if comics were all "70s DC" in tone, I would never have left well before '85, and would never have come back.

OTOH, I do really agree with this bit:

" .... Yeah, Marvelman and Watchmen—those are pretty good books. On the other hand, where I was doing the same things in The Killing Joke, it was entirely inappropriate.

KA: You think so?

AM: I think so. ... I’ve never really liked my story in The Killing Joke. I think it put far too much melodramatic weight upon a character that was never designed to carry it. It was too nasty, it was too physically violent. There were some good things about it, but in terms of my writing, it’s not one of me favorite pieces. If, as I said, god forbid, I was ever writing a character like Batman again, I’d probably be setting it squarely in the kind of “smiley uncle” period where Dick Sprang was drawing it, and where you had Ace the Bat-Hound and Bat-Mite, and the zebra Batman—when it was sillier...."

Well, not all of that, actually - the bit before "smiley uncle"! I've never liked Killing Joke, and always considered it hugely overrated, partly for the reasons that Moore indicates, and partly for the ludicrous ending.

[theflyingfrogunderdog]

I applaud Alan Moore for his sensible views. I don't think it's really his fault. I think the fault really lies with how DC has been run in such an amoral and reckless way, simply to create short term profits at the expense of their characters. Once the trend became the norm, there was apparently no one who could see what was happening who could stop it. Certainly, Dan Didio has not seen the harm that the dark direction has been having on the DC universe and the overall entertainment value of DC comics in general. The readers initially accepted the growing trend in the '90s and everyone called it "coming of age", when nothing could be farther from the truth. Just because a comic has blood and boobs doesn't make it mature. Just look at Infinite Crisis...what a "Beavis and Butt-Head" sensationalistic piece of garbage! Instead of becoming mature, DC comics have become a joke. DC comics have become so dark and so full of tragedy, that the tragedy loses it's impact and the darkness becomes depressing. More and more readers want fun in comics again, but is DC listening? Can DC go back after the horses have left the barn?