The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 2009
John_Steed
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Alan Moore conjures up extraordinary antichrist: Harry Potter
Has the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen enrolled at Hogwarts? The latest instalment in the series, Century 2009, sees Moore's medley of characters encountering a boy wizard-like antichristinteresting read: guardian.co.uk
Comments
:-?
But, for what it is worth, the difference, at least to me:
Is it called Before Harry Potter? Does it actually presume to act as a prequel and change the context of a character she created? Did Rowling's publishers hire others to publish the character she created under the shared title and logo? Has Moore claimed that he is doing things to fill in points of view that were was missing in Rowlings work? Is the character in League even called Harry Potter?
Or is it more like the literary tradition of using literary or historical figures, or analgoues of such figures, in a work to make a new, independent thing? A literary tradition that goes back centuries, and creates no confusion about the authorship over the original character, as clearly that character (or, in this case, an analogue) is appearing in a new work. And something akin to satire or commentary is going on.
I respect that you or others may see it differently. But personally I see no comparison. If this were called Before Harry Potter. Or if this was meant to someday to be sold in a slipcase alongside Rowlings' work, maybe I could understand the comparison. But given that League and the Potter Books will never be advertised together, racked together, or considered of a series with each other... then, nope. The very difference in ownership between the two creates a firewall between the works and avoids confusion in a way that is simply not the case in Before Watchmen and Watchmen.
I just don't see it as enough of a difference to make Moore into such a martyr for Creator's Rights.
Moore has made a career out of playing with other people's creations or (very) thinly-veiled versions of other people's creations.
A lot of the time, it's simply making said creations do naughty things. (Come to think of it, I find his interest in Tijuana Bibles pretty appropriate.)
With the exception of V, I can't think of a single original character he created.*
He didn't create the Watchmen, he took the Charlton characters, coated them with grime & grit and gave them new names.
And now he's using another set of (relatively) innocent characters, and showing their naughty bits.
How original.
And profound.
He can say he's commenting on modern culture by doing so, but I guaran-damn-tee, he's expecting the publicity of his Evil Harry Potter to increase sales.
I know I've gotten really knee-jerky when it comes to Moore, but so many people got screwed so much worse by the publishing industry than he has been, many of them people who actually created characters, as opposed to "parodying" or "re-imagining" them.**
And the contempt and scorn that Moore heaps upon the people still working in the mainstream is so vile that I have lost all sympathy and respect for him.
*OK, Mogo. But I could swear I remember and old science fiction story with a sentient planet.
**Hey, Alan, I bet The Hero Initiative would be thrilled to get those royalties you eschewed. Why not help out some of the people whose work you've been mining all your life?
(And whether or not any superhero characters can be seen as truly original, given the well-trod pulp and adventure novel routes the whole genre drew upon from the beginning is perhaps a discussion for another time.)
Have some creators created characters intended to be more original than Moore's analogues? Sure. But he has also co-created plenty of characters in his time, too. And, again, pastiche, reference, analogue and parody are not only well established literary tools (I don't fault Shakespeare for what he did, and it seems that all but one of his plays are based on prior material. Does that lessen what Shakespeare did? Should I think more of some of his perhaps more original but largely forgotten contemporaries? And... no, I am not actually comparing Moore to Shakespeare in terms of achievement. Just illustrating what I mean by the literary tradition of borrowing plots and characters. One could ding Dante for unoriginality, too, but that measure. Or Milton. Or Bram Stoker. Or Updike. Or Dave Sim. Or...
As for whether what he is doing with his version of Potter in League is profound, original, or even any good... well, I think we would have to read it to really judge. But, again, this is not about whether or not quality work is being created and more than whether or not a parody in Mad Magazine is funny or not. At the end of the day, it is about whether or not he has the right to do what he is doing in League. I think he does. And I do not at all see an equivalency with Before Watchmen.
And I understand where you are coming from, and while I get that you aren't impressed by his work, it is really not a matter of taste or what you do or don't personally enjoy. And if you don't like him, so be it. That is your right. But I don't think those personal feelings actually affect whether or not there is an equivalency here. Because, respectfully, if we put aside what and who we do or don't like, intellectually I don't think it actually changes the distinction we're talking about. And I also don't think Moore should be faulted for the amount of attention that has been paid to him on this issue.
Moore can have gotten screwed, and attention can be paid to it, but that doesn't invalidate that others have been screwed. And I don't recall him ever claiming that he was screwed the most. It really doesn't have to be an either/or.
And here's the thing: if Moore is seen as a martyr for creator rights, or if more attention has been paid to his screwing than to the screwing of others, then I think the blame for that falls more on the people paying attention to him than to the man himself.
Everything we hear from Moore is an answer to an interview question. I could be wrong, but I can't recall a single time he paid for an ad in Variety, wrote a letter to the Comics Journal about his struggles (maybe he did way back when, not sure), produced a YouTube manifesto, or attended a panel at a convention to be hailed as the Creator Rights Martyr.
If more attention or status is given to his case, maybe it is because that attention is being paid. I don't fault him for answering the questions he is asked. He has as much right to give comment on something that involved him directly as anyone else directly involved does. If he decided to never comment on it again, then he lets the other people involved control the narrative from now on. And why should that be expected of him?
If you wish other creators were getting asked those questions more often, too, then that is on the media, not on him. (Though, given the fact that the Moore's creator rights story involves probably the best-selling English language comics work of all time, I also can't fault the media for seeking him out on this issue. Does that excuse the lack of attention paid to others? No. But I think it does explain part of why so many of these stories and interviews have been done with Moore.
Here's the thing: I am impressed with a lot of Moore's work.
Watchmen is a masterpiece.
Miracleman changed my whole perception of superheroes and how their existence would effect the world.
But I'm sick of his "I'm the only creative person in the comics industry" song and dance. I used to think he had a lot of class, yet nearly every time someone sticks a microphone in his face he demonstrates his lack thereof.
Sure, people may ask the questions, but he never seems to defer. No "I think everybody knows how I feel about that by now, let's talk about my new project." Instead it's another round of "Everybody's milking my ideas and they're all rubbish anyway."
When Sean Connery walked away from the Bond franchise, I don't recall him ever trash-talking Roger Moore.
And, as I said, his reprehensible comments have made me knee-jerky** about him in general.
And no, I haven't read the as-yet-unreleased LOEG2009, but I have read LOEG1969, in which he first started playing with the Potterverse, and I felt like he was phoning it in.
It really seemed as if he'd read a Wikipedia synopsis of the Tom Riddle character, rather than actually bothered to waste his time on kiddie fiction that was beneath him.
And his use of the Rolling Stones felt similarly obvious and uninspired.
Compared to the insane, wildly-diverse, chock-ful-o-ideas brilliance of The Black Dossier, I found it limp, stale and empty.
Regarding the equivalency thing:
Granted, you're not gonna find League of Extraordinary Gentlemen sitting on the classics shelf next to H.G. Wells in identical trade dress, but can you read The Invisible Man today without picturing Hawley Griffin being buggered to death by Mister Hyde?
When Moore is doing his best work, he indelibly alters the reader's perception of the characters he's playing with.
Probably more so than any of the Before Watchmen stories will alter our perceptions of those characters.
Regarding the long tradition of pastiche, reference, analogue and parody, I grew up reading Philip Jose Farmer books. I'd seen most of Moore's tricks before. Even with some of the same characters.
*I love you, man!
**Nowhere near as tasty as beef jerky, even if it's teriayaki-flavored knee-jerky.
If you mean characters that are not derivative of other characters already in existence, then most of that list still stands, which is a lot more than most writers of his generation can say.
I was a little disappointed in 1969 as well. I think the reason it didn’t work as well for me was that he started pulling from more esoteric sources, rather than sticking mainly with iconic characters. The Black Dossier and 1910 got a little esoteric as well, but not to the degree of 1969, where I spent as much time—if not more—playing “name the source” than reading the actual story. The problem was that I had to play that game too often in order to feel like I really understood what was going on. It made for disjointed reading.
With the early LoEG stories, I could read and enjoy the story, then go back and re-read to pick out the Easter eggs, and in doing so expand the story, which I found enjoyable. I couldn’t really do that with 1969—the meta overwhelmed the fiction.
But, I’ll be getting 2009 on the hopes that Century ends on a high note.
Kev oneil is excellent as always but Moore is just phoning this in.
The ABC stuff always struck me as variations on "What if Doc Savage were created by Alan Moore, Genius?" or "What is Wonder Woman were created by Alan Moore, Genius?"
But as I've tried to express in the previous posts, for me, the Alan Moore persona has overgrown his work, and all I tend to see is Alan Moore being Alan Moore again.
Moore is certainly not the only writer whose act I've grown tired of, he's just the loudest and the most offensive.
Annnnnnyway.
I'm sorry I started this.
I just wanted to make a funny.
Guess I'll go back to pointing at Superman's codpiece now.
You are an LOL addict.
THERE, I've said it! Admit that and you've taken the first step.
251!
:-bd
Go for 252.
I started thinking about this when the ABC books started coming out. Some of the characters stayed fairly close to their root sources (Greyshirt, Tom Strong), but some went in wildly different directions (Promethea, Jack B. Quick) to the point where the root source material no longer really informed the characters. So, are these characters original or not?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, with the novel I’m writing in fits and starts, so, again, pardon me for turning your funny into a philosophical. I just couldn’t help myself. :)
I'd happily talk about it in the abstract, it's just with Mr. Moore I get... a bit het up.
'Journal of Luke Kirby
The Journal of Luke Kirby[26] was a long-running series, first appearing 1988[27] and running through to a last appearance in 1995. It was written by Alan McKenzie and had art by John Ridgway, Steve Parkhouse and Graham Higgins. Luke Kirby predates other boy wizards, such as Harry Potter and the Vertigo character Timothy Hunter.[28]'
DC owns Watchmen, contractually, and really has to ask no one either permission or forgiveness in using the characters for whatever purpose they wish.
The character in League, by all accounts, is clearly a parody. Or at least is distinct enough from the real Potter that the use is fair use. (Otherwise I would bet that Rowling and her people would have taken action against Top Shelf, as she is well known to protect her IP, as well she should).
The very fact that there seems to be no possible legal argument that the character in League could harm Rowlings protected IP is proof that Moore and Nowlan are not doing anything different than what, say, Mad Magazine does. Or an SNL sketch might do.
The difference is- if Moore and O'Neal used the same title, character names, and trademarks of Harry Potter, they would have been sued immediately, I'm sure.
Now, legally, DC can do that with Watchmen because they own it. But, intellectually, would anyone argue that Before Watchmen is a parody of those characters? Or would Before Watchmen be enough of a stand alone work that, if DC didn't own it, it would be protected under Fair Use? Of course not.
That is the difference. That is why Rowlings consent is not required. Because no case could be made that Moore and his co-author (I am now wondering if I have his name right) are writing the actual Harry Potter into their story. It will not harm or confuse that IP. Whether you want to think of it as the literary tradition of parody, or of using analogues to suggest something you don't own, it is a familiar thing to audiences. And it is clearly a separate thing and new context. The same cannot be said when you can publish prequels using the same names, logos, and trade dress.
This is not to say that the original League books weren't dense with reference, they were, but they felt like there were less, and much of what the authors were drawing on came from iconic sources. The sorts of things that have endured as literature to become classics, so not only are they more familiar to us, but there has also been more time for those literary figures to become a part of culture, and be referenced and adapted by many others.
That has been less the case in the Century books, especially 1969.
Although, that said, not getting many (perhaps most?) of the references in 1969 didn't bother me When I read it, I decided to not bother trying to place everything. Some references I got. many I missed, and I didn't look up anything. I just decided to roll with the whole thing as if all of it had been invented for the story, and that was actually a pretty enjoyable way to do it. While even approached that way I don't think 1969 was as enjoyable as the earlier Leagues, it was still a totally immersive and fun read. It felt like there was a complete aesthetic to it, and that the authors had built a world for the story that worked, and had a consistent tone. Much or all of it could be references or ties to this or that, but that didn't bother me. It all felt like it came together in a world of the story that worked.
I should probably disclaim, for the record, that I read the last two Centurys on a trip to a vacation house with my family. My parents were watching the baby. I had this quiet porch with a view of a lake. Some wine. It felt like one of the first times I had got to sit and read something from start to finish in months. So that might have also been part of why I was in the mood to dive into a story rather than analyze it.
I may save 2009 for a vacation read, too.