"There's sex and death and human grime, in monochrome for one thin dime..."

...so sayeth a wild beared wise man by the name of Alan Moore.

Who is Alan Moore you ask? Alan Moore is a famed (and my personal favorite of all time) comic book writer. He is this man:

Aside from having an epic beard, he is also an epic writer. As I said: one of the greatest, and my personal favorites.

In the 1980s, this man was responsible for really changing how the world viewed comic books when DC comics released "Watchmen". He single-handedly proved that comic books, superheroes in particular, were more than just cheesy kid stuff. He introduced a complexity and a realism to them. And it wasn't just due to introducing all that into comics, but it was HOW he managed to execute it. His writing is deep and very penetrating. There's a poetry to his words and how they resonate. Cliche, I know, but his books are mind blowing.

Here's a page from WATCHMEN, at the end:

Not the best example, but it gets my point across, I think. Next time you find yourself in Borders or Barnes & Noble, check out the Graphic Novel(meh)/Comic section and pick the book off the shelf, sit down and read it. There's a reason WATCHMEN is considered one of the best, if not the best, comic book ever written.

Other works by Alan Moore include his notorious MIRACLEMAN series from the 80's. It's famous for issue 15 in which the villian, Kid Miracleman goes on a massive bloody rampage in England, killing thousands of people. It rains body parts. People are mutilated and deformed. Buildings are in ruin. It's ghastly and incredibly disturbing to look at. But you know what? It's so BEAUTIFULLY written. This is also another reason why I like Moore's writing. The guy can write violence like no other.

Then of course, there's his great FROM HELL, which, like WATCHMEN, was turned into a movie, albeit a shitty one. The comic is close to 600 pages, and while about Jack The Ripper, it goes into a plethora of other things, like mysticism, the entire Victorian period, and other sorts of metaphysical craziness. Check out the wikipedia page here. Good stuff.

In the Superhero comics world, Moore is famous for his deconstruction of the Superhero archetype. He breaks down characters and examines what makes them tick and flips them upside down, revealing, in a way, how silly they are, but more importantly, how great they truly are and why we love these kinds of characters.

The downside is, once WATCHMEN came out, the effect it had on the comics world itself, in terms of creativity, was kinda negative. Deep and Complex was interpreted as "gritty, bleak, and pissed off". This is something Moore has stated several times as regretting. The current state of Superhero comics revels in this line of thinking and Moore, perhaps since the 90's, has been downplaying his role as the shepherd of gritty crap. Several superhero creations of his, before he gave up on superheroes forever, include Tom Strong, an homage to pulp heroes of old, mainly Doc Savage: The series is light-hearted and fun, but still contains that wonderful prose that really makes the story better than it is. Moore also tackled several stories featuring the legendary Will Eisner's character, The Spirit, writing two of the best post-Eisner Spirit stories I've ever read.

Now a-days, he's given up on superheroes, really. He doesn't like the state of them. He once said Superheroes should never be akin to Hamlet. They were never supposed to be that serious.  Moore has recently been hard at work on the second part of the 4th installment of his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series. That should be cool.