Alan Moore article/interview.
"The basic stance that we were taking in Lost Girls is that the sexual imagination cannot be policed, you cannot shut areas of it off and I think that if you do, it actually becomes dangerous."
"I did Voice of the Fire, which was set in the county of Northamptonshire. But with Jerusalem, I thought that that was probably far too cosmopolitan and far-reaching and that I ought to concentrate upon a couple of square blocks of Northampton, where I actually grew up. This is a half-million words, so the next book is obviously just going to be a couple of million words long; it's just all going to be about one end of my living-room. I suppose it's having started out with fantasies about the farthest reaches of space and time and the human world, I suppose it's a gradual realisation that the actual place where I'm sitting is about the most fantastic spot in my universe."
Voice of the Fire was unreadable. I don't think I'll even buy Jerusalem.
I wonder why so many good writers get into a state where their works get longer and longer and longer, and harder and harder and harder to read?
26 comments:
Fun chap. Sounds like he gets magick.
If anybody would, he would. If you read some of his structurally most complex stories, like Watchmen, it is clear he is uncannily intelligent.
"it is clear he is uncannily intelligent."
That might be going a bit far. The Watchmen characters are all based on established characters like Doc Savage, Superman, Batman, and others. The story is pretty standard too. It's still a lot of fun, but let's not make more of it than it is. The same goes for Moore's "Tom Strong," which borrows heavily from Doc Savage, Wylie's "The Savage Gentleman" (which inspired Savage), and other things.
By the way, if you haven't yet you might want to read Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes, which kind of puts things in perspective.
"I wonder why so many good writers get into a state where their works get longer and longer and longer, and harder and harder and harder to read?"
Maybe they start believing their own press, and figure whatever they put down is pure gold. Or they start trying to hard. Or they're tapped out. I think Isaac Asimov said that a science fiction writer had 10 years of good ideas. That's partly why he started writing non-fiction - although he didn't give up on fiction completely.
Any sufficiently coarse form of magic is indistinguishable from technology.
ROTFL.
Well done dude.
Well done dude.
Really, you think so? Well, to each his own I guess.
You have to know the Arthur C. Clarke quote he is referring to.
I know the quote, the gist of which is that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Maybe I should stop pouring beer on my cereal, but I can't make the connection as to why TTL's variation is supposed to be funny...
Oh well.
Maybe I need a nap.
I think it's funny because it's clever and unexpected. For example, Clarke, or at least most of his readers, presuppose that magic does not exist. And so they (we) would never come up with that corollary.
It is kind of obvious considering the quote it's based on. It's unrelated to anything said before it, and comes out of nowhere. Another gem by your blog's own Gump of Gumps, TTL.
Have you tried politeness? Who knows, it might work for you.
So, what are you saying? You didn't really like, and were just pretending to, in order to spare ttl's feelings? That doesn't seem very nice either, man.
Joe, different people resonate with different jokes. There's not much point in arguing about the merits of any particular joke. Rather, just post stuff you find funny to draw attention to that.
Eolake, I am not the inventor of the corollary. I don't know who the original author is. I agree that it didn't exactly follow the discussion above. But it is on topic, considering Alan Moore.
Kari Suomalainen once said:
"Ordinary talent grows from the ground reaching to the skies. Geniusness, on the other hand, lives in the skies and from there attempts to reach the ground."
It seems that with anything truly novel you have to take a mental leap and be willing to cling on an idea for which there is no support from the ground (=the known).
Depending on how well people can imagine something filling the gap between ground and where your idea is hovering, you are seen either as a crackpot, humorist or a genius.
I've commented earlier on what he said, this time I was commenting on the tone of your posts.
And I suspect you know that. You are not dumb, clearly, only bizarrely rude.
Eolake said: "You are not dumb, clearly, only bizarrely rude."
I know. I am trying hard to mend my ways. :-)
Seems the order of the posts were thrown out. Usually I make it before another posts in between.
Sweet Anonymous will probably become all acid about you again for using the word "geniusness". Well, heck, Shakespeare made up more words than anybody, that's the geniusness of him.
I know the word is not in any "official" vocabulary, but Google gives 14,500 hits for it so I figured it's well known enough.
I am flattered by all the attention from anonymous.
Any apt use of the word "please" is indistinguishable from using the Force on a simple mind. ;-)
As for genius:
"Leonardo leads
Donatello does machines
Rapha-TTL is cool, but crude
Michaelangelo is a party dude."
And Splinter is a rat in the sewers, but really a nice fella. :-)
I have a painting by Sal Splinter, estimated at half a million dollars. It's called "I ate Ratatouille yesterday". (:-O
And remember: flattery is the sincerest form of imitation. Or the politest form of hypocrisy. Whatever.
Wow, you're leaving us all behind here.
Funny coinkidink: seconds before reading your comments, I had just looked at the TMNT DVD.
I imagine you know that Splinter is a take-off on Stick, Daredevil's mentor, invented by Frank Miller.
ttl said:
"There's not much point in arguing about the merits of any particular joke. Rather, just post stuff you find funny to draw attention to that."
What is funny definitely is pretty subjective I guess.
eolake said:
"I imagine you know that Splinter is a take-off on Stick, Daredevil's mentor, invented by Frank Miller."
And of course The Foot after The Hand in Daredevil, which I think is pretty funny too. :)
The Turtles made a lot more sense once I was made aware that it was originally a spoof of Daredevil - or at least Miller's run. I didn't read Daredevil as a kid, for some reason.
Joe said: "What is funny definitely is pretty subjective I guess."
Exactly. Besides, the more humour we have in our societies the better. So, rather than analyse jokes to death I recommend we use that energy to invent new ones.
Humour may be the most difficult form of art there is. Therefore let's take it seriously!
"I imagine you know that Splinter is a take-off on Stick, Daredevil's mentor, invented by Frank Miller."
I didn't know specifically, but it makes perfect sense. The whole of TMNT is light parody and genre tributes. I mean the original cartoon. I haven't watched the "overboard badass cool" new series.
joe dick said...
"What is funny definitely is pretty subjective I guess."
Are you paraphrasing Mr Spock here? ;-)
"And of course The Foot after The Hand in Daredevil, which I think is pretty funny too. :)"
You don't say! :-)
(Well, actually, you just did.)
ttl said...
"the more humour we have in our societies the better."
Wise words, young grasshopper.
Interestingly, I just read recently that sense of humour and intelligence are closely linked.
Gee, I had no idea Bozo and I were such geniuses! :o)
"Humour may be the most difficult form of art there is. Therefore let's take it seriously!"
There is NOTHING in the Universe I take more seriously than humour. And its siblings: fun and joy.
The first chapter of Voice of the Fire was unreadable. I recommend checking out the rest of the book--by the end, it turned into one of my favorite books of his.
On the other hand, I'm incredibly excited about Jerusalem, knowing full well how complicated it's going to be. Moore's philosophy on art is that one should always do the thing one thinks he can't do--so he's been changing his writing style since he began doing comics. I'm really interested in what he'll do.
I did try to read past the first chapter, to no avail.
Moore said that when he was asked why the first chapter was so challenging, that it was to get rid of the riffraff, or words to that effect. I think it's an unhealthy attitude that many artists have, to deliberately put up barriers to understanding.
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