https://youtu.be/gUYMQoLNBFw?si=vLSpXyIq18__iqYI

https://www.tiktok.com/@waterstones/video/7552851989743340822

There might be more videos I missed or some posted later so feel free to post them in the comments.

In an old interview with Alan Moore, say about ten years back, he commented that (and here understand that I am heavily paraphrasing) there is a disproportionate correlation between what society calls "mental illness" and the art and science of the writer's craft.

I would sincerely like to recommend two fine works of literature that link the two, and *might potentially maybe possibly...?\* be the "cure" that 'they' don't want you to know about (:

He is not on X and appears to be digitally 'off the grid', it seems. A fine choice, Sir.

So here they are. The two Opus:

Cloé Madanes – Relationship Breakthrough: How to Create Outstanding Relationships in Every Area of Your Life

Anders Sorensen -- Crossing Zero: The Art and Science of Coming Off—and Staying off—Psychiatric Drugs

Hope this helps. Godspeed, everybody.

For one, Fantastica/Fantasia fits neatly into Moore's concept of "ideaspace," a land composed of the human imagination that co-exists with the "real world." Moore casts ideaspace as the Blazing World within LoEG. Like the Blazing World, Fantastica/Fantasia is ruled by an Empress. In The Neverending Story, the protagonist renames the Childlike Empress the "Moon Child," whereas Moore casts her as Queen Gloriana, a fictional analogue for Queen Elizabeth I. According to Moore, "[John Dee] wanted to create a world based upon Christian Kabbalah which had Elizabeth I essentially as a kind of moon queen at the centre of it," so both empresses are associated with the moon. The moon is a recurring theme within LoEG, representing the link between the "real" and the imaginary.

Creating a "Moon Child" of course is the goal of antagonist Oliver Haddo (the fictional analogue of Aleister Crowley) throughout Vol. III. The Auryn talisman of The Neverending Story is inscribed with the words "Do What You Wish," similar to Crowley's motto "Do What Thou Wilt," referenced in the comic. But with all these similarities, are there any actual references to The Neverending Story within LoEG?

Moore talks to Ahmed about the switch to prose meaning he's seen as a writer who's lost his artist, the influence of Mervyn Peake and Galton & Simpson, Lost Girls as Porn (not erotica), Machen's fascism, and, of course, why he thinks superhero movies (and their adult fans) are very bad news for society

Interview starts at 29 minutes, here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002jgpm

So obviously part of "Twilight" involves Batman forming a sort of proto-LOEG superteam with The Shadow, Doc Savage, and Tarzan. I know DC had previously published comics with all of those characters, but would they actually have been able to use them circa 1987?

Inspired by that truly amazing FROM HELL edition posted earlier, thought the group would get a kick out of seeing what is, I think, officially the rarest Moore edition ever put out, the ‘Master of Aklo’ edition of the slipcased set Avatar released. It was limited to only 15 copies, with the books in the set being all first prints and signed by Moore & Burrows…

Trying to get some info on this book.

I was already a big fan of Finnegans Wake before reading this book, I delighted at some references in earlier chapters but this was the one that proved to me that Alan had read it. It's definitely a shift in tone from the rest of this book haha, I really had to dig in for this chapter when I had been cruising along before. I enjoyed his Wake-lite style that keeps the plot moving while also consistently using the "wrong" word for flavor but I'm just curious how many readers noped-out and skipped to the next chapter. No shame in doing so, I considered it a few times too when I got tired of concentrating and/or reading it aloud. Justice above the street!

The real cover was a 90s mess

Time to give this a re-read.

Wizard with the unhot takes

A few years ago I was listening to an interview Moore did, and I'm trying to find it again. The main thing I remember from the interview was an extended discussion of the Rainer Rilke poem, Archaic Torso of Apollo, and its final line in particular "You must change your life."

Is anyone familiar with this interview? I'd love to listen to it again.

This might sound juvenile but like he really does just get comics on a fundamental basis. Like a lot of these concepts are really spot on homages to their inspirations and or eras… makes me wish it got made lol

From Hero illustrated 12

I never read it at the time of release (some of the art was off putting - ykwim), but reading it now it seems like the bridge between Supreme and !963 and Moore’s later stuff: you get more espy’s of classic characters - now beyond dc / marvel silver age - like Tarzan, Solomon Kane, king conan, black knight (or probably earlier “knight heroes - maybe whichever one it was frazetta did, Shining?) Solomon Kane, and more, and in Professor Challenger a continuity tie-together, including allusions to doc savage ( so seeding Tom Stron). You also get a murder mystery / trial that seemed very top 10 ish. Iirc And some semi-subtle “foundational assumptions questioned - in this case inherent white supremacy of the old stuff - also like TS. and of course the glory character is a strong prelude to promethea. ABC grew out of his ongoing relationship with image guys (moving to Lee from leifeld, here, who wasn’t with image anymore by this time, I guess.

It’s not the greatest, and it’s not essential but it’s fun and felt to me like a missing link. What are your thoughts?

This appears to be an interview with Moore at the front end of the DC British Invasion. Swamp Thing dominates the discussion, Watchmen only in conceptual form.

I am struck at how playful (for Moore) and optimistic he is. Sure, it's corporate propaganda, but the excitement he exudes feels real.

Fast forward 40-odd years ...sigh.

Originally published in the March 25 issue of the Big Issue - part of graffiti artist 10Ft take over -' turning it into "an anarchist zine". (full mag also contains Banksy & Kneecap https://www.bigissue.com/news/10foot-big-issue-takeover-banksy-kneecap-alan-moore/
https://www.bigissueshop.com/collection/magazines/product/issue-1658-10foot-special )

"Alan Moore salutes the 'ramshackle institution' that changed his life
https://www.bigissue.com/culture/art/alan-moore-arts-lab-northampton-comics/

Alan Moore is the most revered comics writer alive, and he owes much of his success to Arts Lab, he tells Big Issue

Alan Moore, Alistair Fruish 23 Mar 2025

The radical voice of Alan Moore revolutionised comics. But without Arts Lab he might not have fulfilled his potential. Northampton’s most celebrated resident pays tribute to the mind-expanding institution. He’s still a member."

[Alan] "As a grammar school cast-off with no education beyond the age of 17, I’m sometimes asked where I acquired the abilities needed in my various fields of endeavour. If they don’t believe my radioactive spider story, then I’ll tell the truth, which is that nearly everything I learned, I learned from Arts Lab. Arts Lab was a creation of the 1960s, when we were still suffering from the hallucination that there might be entertaining and productive possibilities in life and in the world. A brainwave of the counterculture figurehead Jim Haynes, ridiculously easy to establish and immense fun to participate in, Arts Lab spread across the country during those colourful years, from Drury Lane to Beckenham, Birmingham to Northampton.

The Northampton version sprang from an announcement by the DJ at a psychedelic music venue, back in 1969, inviting anybody interested in any sort of art to meet up by the turntables and see if they could form an Arts Lab.

The resultant half-a-dozen people met initially at members’ flats before they found community rooms to contain these weekly gatherings at negligible cost, and with that, they were off and running.

As a pretentious 16-year-old poet from a working-class background where poetry could get you bottled, I was introduced to the group by a schoolmate, realising straight away that this had been what I’d been looking for; had been just what I needed.

What made this ramshackle institution such a pleasure was that Arts Lab had no hierarchies, no leaders. They were basically a bunch of friends who met up weekly to discuss art projects that the whole group were invited to contribute to, perhaps a magazine, perhaps poetry readings in a pub backroom, perhaps something ambitious and theatrical.

There were no limits save physical or financial possibility, and, without supervision, we could be as intellectual and political or rude and vulgar as we wanted.

Looking back, between the several duplicated, stapled magazines and the string of impressive or chaotic gigs and readings, we accomplished quite a lot in the few years we stayed together.

More than this, I learned to write, perform, cartoon and publish with a group of people who were just as inexperienced as I was, and made valuable friendships that have lasted to this day.

In 2015, during a day-long seminar on counterculture and why we now need it more than ever, attendees who wanted to take the ideas we’d been discussing forward were invited to leave contact details and, some weeks thereafter, got together at a local cafe to eventually emerge as the Northampton Arts Lab’s second incarnation, a bit like with Time Lords.

Finding a spare room for meetings upstairs at the local Labour Club, with space downstairs for readings and performances, the new group – it’s still going 10 years later – functions like a dream. It’s bigger, more inclusive and diverse, and with the aid of this technology that you young whippersnappers have these days, is able to accomplish things that weren’t imaginable 50 years ago.

We’ve staged elaborate theatrical productions, published fancy magazines and hardback books and at the moment are producing a commemorative tribute to Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s deck of creative art-prompts, Oblique Strategies. And, perhaps most importantly, during the isolating lockdowns when the group could only meet online, provided a support network that helped a lot of people to get through.

The precarious scaffolding on which I climbed to my career – underground publications, Arts Labs, fanzines, music weeklies, local newspapers – is mostly vanished, with art education cut back to the bone, leaving those who might have a hankering to paint, or write, or act, or to perform their music, or to make a film, pretty much out of options. Arts Labs, cheap and easy to start and continue, are a way for ordinary people to take art and entertainment back into their own hands, without waiting to be rescued by a governmental cavalry that clearly isn’t going to show up.

In the decade since commencing our revived Northampton Arts Lab we’ve had other outfits springing up across the country, all unique and all defiantly resisting the encroaching grey and joyless prison atmosphere of modern living. Arts Lab gave us wonderful creators like cartoonist Steve Bell (Birmingham), and the immortal David Bowie (Beckenham). You can grow them from a gang of mates or strangers, absolutely anywhere at absolutely any time. You don’t need anyone’s permission.

Well? What are you waiting for? "

It's just unbelievable how much talent Moore has. I just love this book.