This might seem a confusing array of conceptual baggage

August 9, 2019 9:45 AM

“The dread this creates is the opposite of what a conspiratorial worldview supposes: it doesn’t postulate a cabal that orchestrates evil, but points to a series of essentially unrelated cultural circumstances that converge with one another to exponentially increase the damage done by their individual effects. If conspiracies are comforting because they’re a narrative where bad actors have agency, and can perhaps be overcome if they are exposed, now it feels more like people with good intentions are hopeless to change the effects already in motion. You might be familiar with this feeling from the cliffhanger at the end of issue 11 of Watchmen.” The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest On Alan Moore’s last comic book, the current state of things, the perils of imagination, conclusions, and the cosmic horror of Disney.
posted by The Whelk (2 comments total)

Regarding a point made towards the end of the article, it wasn't the treatment of Harry Potter in Century per se, it was that the way the characters from the Billy Bunter stories were treated in Black Dossier was waaay kinder (and more interesting) than the Harry Potter stuff in Century. That was just pointless and mean.
posted by sukeban at 11:18 AM on August 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I feel like we all have different checkout points for Alan Moore, and the League has always been a difficult read for me. I'm not terribly well-versed in his '90s Image-guy superhero stuff, but what I have read seemed phoned in; otherwise, for me, there is no better writer in this medium, but I understand why what I love most from his recent work (The Courtyard/Neonomicon/Providence) is not for everyone.

LoEG has mostly seemed like an off-putting literary experiment that presumed familiarity with work running the gamut from the obscure to the fucking obscure, and -- considering the audience for the average comic -- this is hard to interpret as something other than straight up trolling. I admire that a little, but the books tend to give me a headache. The ones I like best were Volume II and the Nemo standalones, all approachable as simple action stories. The art is quite good throughout.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:47 AM on August 11, 2019