Being regarded as the best graphic novel writer in history isn’t something which comes easily to one. One needs to earn that title and Alan Moore’s exemplary work defines why he’s regarded as one. The 62 year old comic book writing legend (as he prefers the term comic over graphic novel) has co-created influential titles like V For Vendetta and Watchmen. And now, he has announced that he’s planning to retire from the comic book-penning world.
Moore confirmed to Guardian that he’s retiring from the medium. During a press conference in London for his new prose novel Jerusalem this week, he mentioned that he’s got “about 250 pages” of comics writing left in him. “I think I have done enough for comics,” Moore told reporters. “I’ve done all that I can. I think if I were to continue to work in comics, inevitably the ideas would suffer, inevitably you’d start to see me retread old ground and I think both you and I probably deserve something better than that.”
With DC Comics, he became “the first comics writer living in Britain to do prominent work in America” as he worked on major characters such as Batman (Batman: The Killing Joke) and Superman (Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?), substantially developing the character Swamp Thing, and penned original titles such as Watchmen.
He had sour relationship with DC Comics in 1980s over the creator’s rights and merchandising. Since then, he has said he wishes his name to be removed from all comic work that he does not own, including Watchmen and V for Vendetta, which both remain properties of DC Comics.
Moore also reiterated his distaste for the superhero-dominated mainstream comic industry, saying “The superhero movies – characters that were invented by Jack Kirby in the 1960s or earlier – I have great love for those characters as they were to me when I was a 13-year-old boy. They were brilliantly designed and created characters. But they were for 50 years ago. I think this century needs, deserves, its own culture. It deserves artists that are actually going to attempt to say things that are relevant to the times we are actually living in. That’s a long-winded way of me saying I am really, really sick of Batman.”
Even though he’s sick of Batman, Moore said, “I will always revere comics as a medium,” mentioning that he plans to move on to something new.
His final projects include H.P. Lovecraft – influenced series Providence, the movie-themed anthology series Cinema Purgatorio, and a final volume of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
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