I'm a fan of the series, but the first two volumes are not examples of Alan Moore's best work. They're riddled with obscure references that a lot of trainspotters (like Jess Nevins) have made a game of figuring out. Personally, I only recongnize one in ten references, so I just read it for the stories, the dialogue and the fairly unique artwork. He's just playing with ideas there.
His best works in comic form are still Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell, Lost Girls, Promethea, and Top Ten. Miracle Man is an interesting if weird read, his take on Swamp Thing was seminal (but I don't own any), and his Captain Britain set the tone for most of what Chris Claremont and Alan Davis did with him later. I think my favourite of these is Promethea, but that's a very strange piece, too.
You might also like pulp action hero Tom Strong, which I enjoyed, but found a little light and sparse on ideas at times. The first few issues were brilliant. Some of the guest artist spots were also very cool. I think my favourite was issue three with the techno-Aztecs. that was the issue that got me collecting the series, but I was rarely as blown away. Chris Sprouse did his best work there.
But yeah, LoEG is an odd read, and I suppose if you can't get behind Alan Moore's Grand Unified Field Theory of Fiction, the point is entirely moot. I'm sad that it doesn't work for you, because that's probably the most obvious of his works for you to read, given your penchant for Victorian tropes. I rather like it, but it's kind of a light read, if you don't get all the sub-references.
And the movie is a total travesty, which Sean Connery couldn't even save. No excuse at all. Any and all of the other movie adaptations of his work stand miles above it.
Ahh, the Harry Turtledove effect? Yeah, not fond of it myself. League seemed to be a hold-over of Moore's '90s work... perverting things and turning them upside down and making them _dark_. Which was cool and all, but it had already become rather tired by then.
Then again, League does have its moments. The whole Mina/Quartermain thing was rather well done throughout the first book, and Hyde's uncharacteristic chivalry was a high point.
But the whole series was gratuitous fan-service "oooh, let's make the story DARK by making him a rapist!" "ooh, let's have Moriarty's army fight Fu Manchu's army! Oooh, moar sex scene!"
Still, the first volume at least has a coherent story-arc. The second volume was something of a let-down, and I've heard that the 3rd volume is really just a vessel for Moore to experiment with historic meta-fiction.
Basically, Moore once said that works like "The Killing Joke" really ended up just giving cartoon characters chainsaws. Adding brutality to boyish subjects where it never should exist... which is why League is so confusing. While he spent half his career complaining about this effect, League seems to be about embracing it to a degree that very few others ever did.
Yes, but the important thing is, what did you think of the League of Ordinary Gentlemen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_League_of_Gentlemen_(comedy))?
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His best works in comic form are still Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell, Lost Girls, Promethea, and Top Ten. Miracle Man is an interesting if weird read, his take on Swamp Thing was seminal (but I don't own any), and his Captain Britain set the tone for most of what Chris Claremont and Alan Davis did with him later. I think my favourite of these is Promethea, but that's a very strange piece, too.
You might also like pulp action hero Tom Strong, which I enjoyed, but found a little light and sparse on ideas at times. The first few issues were brilliant. Some of the guest artist spots were also very cool. I think my favourite was issue three with the techno-Aztecs. that was the issue that got me collecting the series, but I was rarely as blown away. Chris Sprouse did his best work there.
But yeah, LoEG is an odd read, and I suppose if you can't get behind Alan Moore's Grand Unified Field Theory of Fiction, the point is entirely moot. I'm sad that it doesn't work for you, because that's probably the most obvious of his works for you to read, given your penchant for Victorian tropes. I rather like it, but it's kind of a light read, if you don't get all the sub-references.
And the movie is a total travesty, which Sean Connery couldn't even save. No excuse at all. Any and all of the other movie adaptations of his work stand miles above it.
Lee.
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Then again, League does have its moments. The whole Mina/Quartermain thing was rather well done throughout the first book, and Hyde's uncharacteristic chivalry was a high point.
But the whole series was gratuitous fan-service "oooh, let's make the story DARK by making him a rapist!" "ooh, let's have Moriarty's army fight Fu Manchu's army! Oooh, moar sex scene!"
Still, the first volume at least has a coherent story-arc. The second volume was something of a let-down, and I've heard that the 3rd volume is really just a vessel for Moore to experiment with historic meta-fiction.
Basically, Moore once said that works like "The Killing Joke" really ended up just giving cartoon characters chainsaws. Adding brutality to boyish subjects where it never should exist... which is why League is so confusing. While he spent half his career complaining about this effect, League seems to be about embracing it to a degree that very few others ever did.
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