ALAN MOORE KNOWS THE SCORE, BUT STAN LEE SET ME FREE
One is an eighty year-old millionaire, who rubs shoulders with Presidents, makes movie stars go weak at the knees, and who has corrupted three generations of children with notions of Truth, Justice and Responsibility.
The other is a modern magus, galloping towards his fiftieth birthday with a lifetime of grand work behind him, and so much more still to do. His work has inspired a generation of artists, in all walks of life, through its sophistication, humour, and honesty.
Stan Lee created the first bin man superhero. Alan Moore made gods out of turnip. Do you need to read any further?
Of course you do.
Recently, the lives and works of both men have been celebrated in the form of two excellent books. Although the books differ in their proximity to the subject, and their approach to the narrative, each is a fascinating insight into the minds of two of Comics' greatest treasures.
EXCELSIOR!
By Stan Lee and George Mair
FACT! Stan Lee's wife is a Geordie!
Given his predilection for bombast and hucksterism, you might think that Stan Lee's co-written "bioautography" would be, at the very least, written in capital letters and stuffed full of hyperbolic superlatives. After all, if the creator of The World's Greatest Comic Magazine! can't make his life story sound exciting, then who can?
The truth, however, is very different. Lee's book is half interview, half essay, and while it exudes the joie de vivre that is Lee's stock in trade, it's also, in parts, a desperately sad story.
Of course, nobody lives to eighty without suffering a few heartaches…
FACT! Stan Lee published his own humour magazine, using his own money - and took home 100% profit!
Excelsior! follows Lee from his days as a child of the Depression to where he is today (rich, tanned, and a cultural treasure). Along the way, we get to see the birth and evolution of modern comics (American comics, to be precise) from the perspective of one of the medium's longest-serving writers. The book is crammed full of Stan's comics memories. Although the stories of witch hunts in the 1950's, when comics were being blamed for everything from juvenile delinquency to (ha ha) illiteracy, will be familiar to anyone with a sense of comics (and wider social) history, Lee's personal account makes for fascinating, if painful reading.
Fortunately, good times are never too far around the corner. Lee moves on to talk about the creation of the Marvel Universe, a line of comics that is still popular today, in all its myriad forms.
Again, the stories of how the Marvel Universe came to be will be familiar to many readers - especially the controversy over just who created what. Lee takes the opportunity to, as far as his own contributions are concerned, set the record straight. He does this in the most self-effacing, humble manner possible, and it's clear that, in some small way, Lee is desperate to be as good to as many people as possible. He rarely, if ever, has a bad word to say about anybody. People who come to Excelsior! looking for juicy comics gossip are going to be disappointed.
FACT! Stan Lee once appeared on the BBC's Pebble Mill At One, playing J. Jonah Jameson in a sketch about Spider-Man.
As someone with an abiding love of comics in general, and Marvel Comics in particular, you might think that I would be most interested in the sections of the book that deal directly with the comics. You'd be wrong, of course, but there you go.
The real meat of this book - for a lot of it is fluff that I, at least, am well familiar with - is in the chapters where Lee (I keep typing "Stan:" such is the overwhelmingly
avuncular nature of the man) opens up to the reader about his life, his motivations, and the moments where things affect him personally. I'm nowhere near as interested in how he created Spider-Man as I am in how a forty year-old comics burnout case could suddenly find himself the toast of schools and colleges across the globe. I'm less interested in the Mighty Thor than I am in the Magnificent Joanie, Stan's wife and muse. And not even Doctor Doom could hurt Lee as badly as he appears near the end of the book.
Excelsior! reveals a side of Stan Lee that belies the smiles, the movie appearances, the Presidential gladhands and the pop cultural namedropping that peppers the book. A true child of the Depression, Stan Lee considers himself lucky to have been able to work steadily for so long, making his fortune in the business of telling stories. And if he fears anything, it's that someday, he might be left behind. Forgotten. Irrelevant.
In a world where jangly Essex girls in sweaty laundromats that have never even seen a comic book, can pick Stan Lee out of a police line up, I can safely say that it's never going to happen.
ALAN MOORE: PORTRAIT OF AN EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN
Edited by smoky man and Gary Spencer Millidge
By the age of thirty-nine, Alan Moore had been responsible for contributing to a paradigm shift in the perception of comics by the general public. With strong, mature works such as Watchmen, Swamp Thing and From Hell under his belt, Moore had helped reinforce the notion that comics were more than just childish pabulum.
Then he turned forty. And became a practising magician. And neither he, nor comics, has been the same since.
Portrait is, in a nutshell, The World's Best Birthday Card. Published in anticipation of Alan Moore's fiftieth birthday - which Moore intends to mark by declaring Apocalypse on the ABC line, and retiring from mainstream comics altogether - Portrait is a 350-page anthology of essays, interviews, letters and comics, paying tribute to Moore's superb career.
There's a little bit of everything in Portrait: it's a sort of omni-directional biography, examining Moore as a person and as an artist from a number of angles.
Contributors to Portrait include academics, Famous Novelists, a Python, and innumerable luminaries from European and American comics. Some, I was very familiar with; some I had, sadly, never heard of. The list includes collaborators, fans, fans who have since become collaborators, and people who know what Alan Moore looks like, mumping his toast of a morning.
Gary Spencer Millidge (author of the Lynchian comic series Strangehaven) both edits the book, and contributes a comics-format biography. It's a fascinating potted history, following Moore's life and career from Northampton slum to Northampton scribe.
Pieces on the experience of working with Alan Moore paint the man as a master craftsman and exhaustive perfectionist. Steve Bissette, who worked with Moore on both Swamp Thing and the Marvel Comics pastiche 1963, describes Moore's famously wordy and detailed scripts as more akin to love letters than screenplays.
Oscar Zarate, artist on Moore's underrated (and soon to be reprinted) drama of conscience, A Small Killing, describes how Moore's characters, with a little help from the artists (!) sometimes take on a life of their own.
And emergent comics writer Antony Johnston describes the trepidation felt at having to cross the line from unabashed fan to respected colleague. Someone once said, "you should never meet your heroes:" Johnston modifies this by saying, "ah, but ringing them up for a chat is another matter entirely…"
On the "frank admiration" side of things - or perhaps that should be "Alan admiration" - the essays on Moore worship are touching and hilarious. Mark Millar describes not knowing who the hell Moore was, the first time they met (Millar was only very young), and later confesses to forging Moore's signature for a starstruck pal. Carla Speed McNeill puts into pictures what her love for Moore's work chokes out of her words. And Lew Stringer (one of my own favourite comics artists, growing up) turns Moore into a Beanoesque chuckler, kickstarting people's imaginations (and careers) one minute, wiping his arse with mainstream comics the next.
A great deal of space is devoted to discussing Moore's work in academic detail. From Hell, the Jack the Ripper novel Moore created with Eddie Campbell, is the most exhaustively researched and truly literary comic in Moore's library. It is examined in great detail by a number of contributors, not least of which is Dave Sim, author of the Cerebus comics series, who donates an extensive series of Mooreish correspondence to the book. The discussions range from the genesis of From Hell to the mind-altering experiences that characterised Moore's initiation into magic. As Dave Sim himself has been accused of a little bit of altered state thought in recent times, it's refreshing to find that he's able to approach the subject with some good humour.
Moore's superhero work, which has taken all forms over the years, except the conventional, is also discussed. Croatian comico Darko Macan looks at Moore's superheroes as extensions of the man himself.
Some of Moore's unpublished (or unfinished) works are examined. Lost Girls, the sexual adventure series starring Alice, Dorothy and Wendy (yes, that Alice, Dorothy and Wendy) is discussed through the eyes of an academic, revealing Moore's attempt to elevate even the least-respected of modern "arts," pornography, above the trouser line.
The picture painted by all these academics and artists (who are frequently academics too, but I digress) is one of a genuinely innovative and technically excellent writer.
Even if you've read everything that Moore has ever written, and know this already, it bears repeating.
As with Excelsior!, I found that the stories that humanise Moore, as oppose to supporting the notion of him being a hirsute comics Buddha, to be of greater interest than some of the dry technical analysis. John Higgins' tale of Moore's unconventional convention antics raised a smile. And John Coulthart's short comic defines Moore's place both within the culture, and within the realm of drunkard-stumping.
Moore himself contributes very little to Portrait - to be fair, who exactly would sign their own birthday card ("To Matt, from Matt, with no self-respect")? However, aside from the aforementioned Dave Sim letters, Moore is interviewed by Omar Martini, outlining his plans, or lack of them, for his forthcoming change of lifestyle. The book also contains a hilarious stream-of-consciousness comic strip, illustrated with unrefined elegance by Dame Darcy. The rest of Portrait is filled with sumptuous artwork, featuring both Moore himself (Mark Buckingham's phenomenal portrait is a highlight for me), and also many of the characters with whom Moore has made his name, as well as a number of short comics by fans and collaborators alike.
In short, Portrait, like Excelsior!, is the story of a man for whom The Work is not done yet. Whether Alan Moore and Stan Lee work in comics, performance art, animation or prose, it is clear that, based on their past great works, they will always have something…interesting to say.
POSTSCRIPT: Rather than just listing a couple of essential reads from each man's bibliography, I feel that I should add something a bit more personal to this book review. So here goes.
Stan Lee: I once wrote Stan Lee a birthday card. It was his 75th birthday, and (as I recall) the nascent Marvel.com website had posted an email address for people to send all their greetings and salutations to. So, one evening, I sat down and wrote a long, rambling essay about how, growing up a rather lonely little boy, I had been inspired by characters like Spider-Man. Not only had they taught me to be as good a person as I could be, and to treat everyone with respect, but they had also directly inspired me to become a scientist. I told Stan that, above all else, his characters and stories had convinced me to try to make the world a better place. I thanked him, I wished him a happy birthday, and I hit "Send."
And my computer blew up.
The moral of the story? Sentimentality and technology don't mix. But the thought still counts.
Alan Moore: The first time I read an Alan Moore story, he was performing magic. Literally. In this particular story, the Great Magus Merlin was bringing back moody old Captain Britain from the Very Dead. The story was called - and I remember this distinctly - "A Rag, a Bone, and a Hank of Hair," and starting with these relics, Merlin (and Moore) rebuild the hero from the soul up. In the space of a few pages, Moore (and Merlin) showed me (and anyone else reading) just what it meant to Create. When people call him the best writer comics has ever had, they're not exaggerating.
Alan Moore knows the score, indeed.
Review text (C) Matthew Craig
Originally published in the pop culture magazine Robot Fist