I smell expensive perfume... I'm standing on some sort of fur rug. There's music... I must be in the Playboy Mansion!

September 21, 2010 1:10 PM

Stan Lee has not yet been told about ... GRIT! FEATURING -- Dourdevil, the man without a sense of humor (different presentations of the same comic). The year was 1983, and Alan Moore was spoofing the style of Frank Miller (bibliography), towards the end of Frank Miller's run with Daredevil. Moore thought highly of Miller, if one believes what Moore wrote in "The Importance of Being Frank" (linked therein as a .cbz file), which was published in the same comics magazine run as Grit!

Here's more of the art of Frank Miller, covering a lot of his cover artwork, including a focus on the violence in 1980s Daredevil by Miller.

And for the sake of randomness, Spanish TV parodies of Alan Moore, scripter, writers, shaman (both of those videos are a bit NSFW, due to scantily clad bits and such). Source: Muchachada Nui (IMDB).

posted by filthy light thief (53 comments total)

Paging ArtW to thread 95929
posted by The Whelk at 1:13 PM on September 21, 2010 [4 favorites]

Moore's introduction to Miller's The Dark Knight Returns
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:21 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

.cbz files can be read using CDisplay or Comical, or you can simply rename the file to .zip and unpack the image files within if you don't feel like installing software.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:24 PM on September 21, 2010

Paging ArtW to thread 95929

Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.

Meanwhile Grant Morrison is updating Watchmen (sort of) and being a bad guy in music videos.

Oh, and Wildstorm is dead.
posted by Artw at 1:31 PM on September 21, 2010

Everything about this is awesome, thanks for posting. As someone that recently got back into comics after a long hiatus, this is going to give me days worth of reading.
posted by Lorin at 1:34 PM on September 21, 2010

More on Wildstorm from the ever muck raking and not necessarily entirely reliable Rich Johnston : In 1999 DC Comics bought Wildstorm. It was generally agreed they wanted it for three things. The colourists. Jim Lee. And Alan Moore.
posted by Artw at 1:52 PM on September 21, 2010

I smell expensive perfume...

Frank Miller's own take on that: his just-released Gucci Guilty perfume commercial (also available in in 3-D).
posted by progosk at 1:59 PM on September 21, 2010

Heh. People have a go at Alan moore for being a grumpy old bugger but at least he's not embarassing himself pretending to be a Hollywood bigshot.
posted by Artw at 2:31 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Not terribly surprised to see WildStorm die. It would have long since faded away (along with Jim Lee's interest in churning out comic art on anything resembling a regular schedule) except for the shot in the arm that it got from hiring Warren Ellis and Alan Moore, then giving Moore his own imprint-within-an-imprint, America's Best Comics, where he ended up doing some of his best genre work. But, of course, once Lee sold out to DC Comics, they ended up royally screwing the pooch, not having learned anything from Moore's leaving them over fifteen years earlier.

Since then, the line has limped along, trying one gimmick after another to try to resurrect interest in the "WildStorm Universe". Now that Ex Machina is over, and despite occasional things like Gail Simone's Welcome to Tranquility, there's virtually nothing left to mourn.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:33 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wildstorm has been dead for years. Heh.

Looks like they can now blend the Wildstorm characters into the Dc Universe...
posted by Ron Thanagar at 2:33 PM on September 21, 2010

Ed Brubaker did some damn fine stuff for them as well, but yeah, that's all in the past as well.
posted by Artw at 2:35 PM on September 21, 2010

So, does anybody else think Frank Miller is trying for Dave Sim levels of batshitinsanity nowadays?
posted by kmz at 2:36 PM on September 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

Looks like they can now blend the Wildstorm characters into the Dc Universe...

Yeah, they've been really keen on that idea of late. Much like bringing the Watchmen characters in-universe I can't see anything more than pointless fan servicey garbage coming out of it.
posted by Artw at 2:37 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Your headline sounded at first like an alternative version of the original text-based Adventure. "To the East is an open door. To the North is a naked playmate." Hmmm, actually, that'd be fun to write...
posted by twsf at 2:44 PM on September 21, 2010

What's funny to me about that parody was that was back when Alan Moore actually respected Frank Miller. After all, Moore a few years after this strip he cited Miller's Dark Knight Returns as changing the face of comics and felt that it meant he and everyone else needed to up their game. Saying:

I suppose a shining example of this would be Frank's Dark Knight, which, while it doesn't seem bothered about fitting into any graven-in-stone continuity, does service to the legend of Batman and brilliantly redefines the character for an eighties audience, and nobody really seems to care much how this all fits into the continuity because it's such a bloody good story

Cut to a couple years later and Moore says:

Frank Miller, I haven't been able to read him for some time. Have you seen his latest idea? It is - and I can hardly believe this - Batman vs Al Qaeda. What can you say to an idea as absurd as that? This is our response to the Iraq war? Miller's trapped in a teenage world of macho violence. Look at Sin City. Every woman is a bloodthirsty, semi-naked whore; every man is a indestructible killing machine. It's nasty, misogynist, Neanderthal Teenage, but it sells.

I am curious now as when I originally read that strip what Moore, if he knew how he'd feel about Miller later, would have done instead of good natured ribbing.
posted by jaybeans at 2:57 PM on September 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

I still have a stack of Miller's first run of DD's and the last time I thumbed through them I was happy to be reminded that a) there were actually moments of humour (eg. the Stilt Man issue), b) not all of the women were Sexy Killing Machines and c) Frank Miller used to be capable of writing stuff like this.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:09 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

PLANETARY and AUTHORITY were high points of Wildstorm, plagued by the usual schedule "mishaps" that haunt Image-founder companies. They always did take great pride in the fact that no one was cracking the whip on them, which they sure could have used.

(From a complete fanboy stance: I'd like to see MIDNIGHTER go toe to to with BATMAN!)
posted by Ron Thanagar at 3:11 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Miller's trapped in a teenage world of macho violence. Look at Sin City. Every woman is a bloodthirsty, semi-naked whore; every man is a indestructible killing machine. It's nasty, misogynist, Neanderthal Teenage, but it sells.

Yeah, I kind of have trouble judging Sin City. Because really ity's that it's misogynistic and violent and over the top and pretty much ridiculous in every way is what makes it good, but as you go on you start getting the feeling that maybe Miller beleives this shit and it starts getting a bit icky. And of course with Miller it's been more that sort of thing than anything else for a long time.

For a counter example of Millar producing something that isn't dumb and offensive The Life and Times of Martha Washington.

(Of course, Moore did a similar thing better first with The Ballad of Halo Jones)
posted by Artw at 3:13 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think the internet as a whole decided that Frank Miller wasn't worth taking seriously as an artist the moment he wrote the line "I'm the Goddamn Batman."
posted by jaybeans at 3:39 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

That would seem like a good cut-off point, yes. Though you'd still end up with the terrible The Dark Knight Strikes Again and other assorted badness.

Interestingly both Miller and Moore were big fans of and influenced by Howard Chaykin's American Flagg... IIRC Chaykin is actually even more nuts than Miller.
posted by Artw at 3:47 PM on September 21, 2010

IIRC Chaykin is actually even more nuts than Miller.

I read an interview with Chaykin forever ago that made it seem like he is both more nuts than Miller but at least able to pull himself together for several minutes at a time.

That would seem like a good cut-off point, yes. Though you'd still end up with the terrible The Dark Knight Strikes Again and other assorted badness.

I think my personal cut off happened after finishing Sin City: That Yellow Bastard. I think I put it down, smiled, and said, "Yes. Let's end there." Or at least, that's how I've chosen to remember it.
posted by jaybeans at 3:55 PM on September 21, 2010

Weirdly I did enjoy the Sin City movie immensely, though to me the main point of it seemed to be "Frank Miller is fucking nuts".
posted by Artw at 3:57 PM on September 21, 2010

Pat Mills has another very fun piss take of Dare Devil in Marhsall Law Takes Manhattan, which shares a joke with "What if... Daredevil had a dishonest tailor?"
posted by Artw at 4:03 PM on September 21, 2010

I lived right across the street from Frank, the windows of my old loft looked right into his windows. I used to do his computer stuff back in the 80s. I always regretted not having Frank sign a bunch of comics for me. He kind of owes me, since he used my life story as the jumping off point for Robocop 3. I was kind of irritated when he killed me off early in Act 1, though.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:06 PM on September 21, 2010 [5 favorites]

Robocop 3, the one with the jetpack and the ninja?
posted by Artw at 4:09 PM on September 21, 2010

Yeah, that's the one, Artw.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:10 PM on September 21, 2010

These are neat. But even Moore's biggest fans have to give me this:

I thought for sure when I read "Dourdevil, the man without a sense of humor" and saw Alan Moore's name in the line underneath that he was writing autobiographically and showing an uncommon (public) self-awareness.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:15 PM on September 21, 2010

Man, not even I've watched that one.
posted by Artw at 4:21 PM on September 21, 2010

I thought for sure when I read "Dourdevil, the man without a sense of humor" and saw Alan Moore's name in the line underneath that he was writing autobiographically and showing an uncommon (public) self-awareness.

I'm actually surprised that Moore gets the reputation for being this uber-serious guy when his books are really funny. Although admittedly, his is a very dry and sometimes dark sense of humor.
posted by jaybeans at 4:29 PM on September 21, 2010

I'm actually surprised that Moore gets the reputation for being this uber-serious guy when his books are really funny. Although admittedly, his is a very dry and sometimes dark sense of humor.

His interviews are all really rather jocular and full of long meandering digressions, subtle humour and obscure references, so of course they end up edited and selectively quoted down to the most sensational bits on various websites, and then angry fanboy idiots take that and play chinese whispers with it.
posted by Artw at 4:38 PM on September 21, 2010

Also, spoilers on any Alan Moore interview ever here, if anyone asks him about the DC Comics company, or about any movies made from his work, he will most likely not say any good things about them. This has been the case for many many years now, and should not be as surprising to anybody as it apparently is.
posted by Artw at 4:55 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Another spoiler for Alan Moore interviews, he doesn't like superhero comics. Ask him about the current state of superheroes and he'll make a comment along the lines of them recycling old ideas for commercial gain.

The headline will then read "Furious Moore Upset Comics Now Suck."
posted by jaybeans at 5:00 PM on September 21, 2010

I was going to put a disclaimer that most of my feelings about Moore are are based on what I first learned about him (and the author's note to the collected edition of V for Vendetta, which admittedly isn't the time or place for lightheartedness) and not bits and pieces of what I have actually seen in action.

But that seemed to ruin the flow of the post.

So now everybody got to tell me how wrong I am without me feeling bad and I get to agree with you.

Win-win!
posted by MCMikeNamara at 5:21 PM on September 21, 2010

Oh, if I sounded annoyed there at all it's purely at lazy interweb journos.
posted by Artw at 5:24 PM on September 21, 2010

Aw crap, I forgot Astro City is a Wildstorm title.
posted by Artw at 5:26 PM on September 21, 2010

Huh. Whereas my annoyance was at interweb journos who value traffic over quality of content. But definitely wasn't meant for anyone else. Well except for the lazy journos, I guess.
posted by jaybeans at 5:27 PM on September 21, 2010

I can forgive late career Frank Miller a lot of things. I'll forgive him that Sin City turned into a train wreck as he tried to suck what diminishing returns he could from the stories. I'll forgive him The Dark Knight Strikes Back. I'll even forgive him Robocop 3. But I will never, ever forgive Frank Miller for The Spirit movie.
posted by KingEdRa at 5:30 PM on September 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

I think Wildstorm died the moment DC stole Grant Morrison away from relaunching the line through the Worldstorm event so that he could do Batman. Although, truthfully, I had stopped caring long before that.
posted by jaybeans at 5:30 PM on September 21, 2010

I'll even forgive him Robocop 3.

Those are fighting words. That film is vastly underappreciated. I don't think there is any other film where Japan nukes an American city and then surrenders.

Its problems are just the usual Hollywood production gone out of control, which are minor compared to Robocop 2, which he took his name off. I have a first draft of the R3 script which is much better than what ended up on the screen.
posted by charlie don't surf at 6:27 PM on September 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

Weirdly I did enjoy the Sin City movie immensely, though to me the main point of it seemed to be "Frank Miller is fucking nuts."

Same here. The thing I liked about the movie is that it understood that Miller, at best, was Mickey Spillane, even when he thought he was Raymond Chandler.
posted by Amanojaku at 6:40 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't think there is any other film where Japan nukes an American city and then surrenders.

Sold.
posted by cortex at 10:17 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Somewhere in Northampton a voice whispers..."Yes Socko! Our curse has worked! Now Wildstorm is not more... and soon DC will be Dead Comics! Heh heh heh."
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:14 AM on September 22, 2010

Aw crap, I forgot Astro City is a Wildstorm title.

Oh, yeah. But that's like Ex Machina; in addition to his own stuff, Jim Lee published these other books that have nothing to do with WildC.A.T.S. or the Authority or whatever, apparently because their creators thought that Jim Lee was a great guy or they got a nice deal. Assuming that they're creator-owned, they probably wouldn't have any problem finding a new publisher.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:17 AM on September 22, 2010

Ask him about the current state of superheroes and he'll make a comment along the lines of them recycling old ideas for commercial gain.

The headline will then read "Furious Moore Upset Comics Now Suck."

I wonder if we're thinking of the same interview, from back when Blackest Night (for those of you unfamiliar with DC comics, a big crossover event centered around Green Lantern that involved a number of deceased characters coming back to life as zombies) was starting, where Moore made the sort of generic statement you're talking about and the interviewer inserted [Blackest Night] into the text to make it seem like Moore was talking about the current event. A lot of people in the scans_daily community took umbrage at that, going on about how Moore seemed to think that now that he was over superheroes everybody else should be too and GRAR GRAR. (Myself, I happen to think that Moore was right even if he was talking about Blackest Night, which not only depended on an obscure, minor villain for its main plot thread, but had the net effect of bringing back a number of characters that DC had previously killed off.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:32 AM on September 22, 2010

I have a first draft of the R3 script which is much better than what ended up on the screen.

I smell a meet-up! "Dramantic re-enactment of the better R3, with charlie don't surf"

In my search for new Astro City material, I found that WildStorm will be issuing the character focused one (or two)-offs in a TPB in April 2011, which are stories I've never heard of. Seems I stopped hoping for new Astro City releases sometime around 2003.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:18 PM on September 22, 2010

charlie don't surf: I don't think there is any other film where Japan nukes an American city and then surrenders.

While some people would see that as solely a selling point to the movie, I see it as an artistic challenge. In my fantasy world, that's the type of thing people could cause confusion. "No, I meant the other movie where Japan nukes an American city and then surrenders."

Imagining that shouldn't make me so happy. But it does.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:09 PM on September 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ooh, looks like there's a nice new edition US edition of Halo Jones available at comic stores today.
posted by Artw at 2:28 PM on September 22, 2010

The latest DC Entertainment shakeups: What we know
posted by Artw at 3:34 PM on September 22, 2010

I think it's Alan Moore's doom to become a fourth GhouLunatic. We should call him "The Magician" or something. He'll introduce a story about how a pioneering comic publisher relentlessly sucks the life and talent out of all their products and the people who make them. They remain successful and even respected, but they coast along on inertia and luck. They don't have new ideas, they don't want new ideas. There's no ironic climax to this story. In the conclusion, the magician doesn't chortle with morbid glee, he just looks inscrutable, and perhaps a little sad.
posted by wobh at 7:12 PM on September 22, 2010

Heh. I like this bit from Ellis: So, what’s the status of Vertigo? “Six months ago, I was more worried about Vertigo than WildStorm,” Warren Ellis wrote. “Shows what I know.” (Ellis' post here.) Also glad to hear Kurt Busiek and others talk about Astro City, even if to say that it's up in the air still.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:35 PM on September 22, 2010

While some people would see that as solely a selling point to the movie, I see it as an artistic challenge. In my fantasy world, that's the type of thing people could cause confusion. "No, I meant the other movie where Japan nukes an American city and then surrenders."

You see, this is why you and me aren't Frank Miller. One day he thought to himself, "wow, there isn't *any* movie where Japan nukes an American city and then surrenders." So he made one.

BTW, I don't know if I made it clear, Japan surrenders, not America.
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:37 PM on September 22, 2010

Six awesome Wildstorm titles
posted by Artw at 7:46 AM on September 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

Three Vertigo editors laid off amid DC Entertainment restructuring
posted by Artw at 11:08 AM on September 29, 2010