Solving mysteries and killing hookers

In the last week, following my highly successful Birthday celebrations, I have finished the graphic novel From Hell, and read both Batman: The Killing Joke and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1. All of these titles are by the master comic book author Alan Moore (I should branch out more, but as they say, once you go black...).

From Hell and The League have both been adapted into piss poor movies, and I'm glad I'd only seen a bit of one of them (From Hell), therefor not ruining the original material. The Killing was one of Tim Burton's inspirations for the first Batman movie, though there are no obvious parallels. I have to admit that I didn't find The Killing that amazing, often billed as the ultimate Batman/Joker story, which if true doesn't leave me wanting to read any of the others. I have in fact read that Moore himself finds his Batman story somewhat wanting, and who am I to argue with the master. In short, its not bad by any means, but its cliched, and lacks the depth of character that is so brilliant in much of Moore's other writings.

From Hell is epic. Literally, the book is fucking huge, and it's all in black and white. And it absolutely rocks. I'll admit it took me a while to get into, I was reading to sporadically, and not in big enough chunks, and because of the very realistic art style, I often had trouble differentiating between the numerous characters. This problem more or less disappeared for the second half of the book, which I read within a week. This is not a superhero comic, indeed it's not really a comic - except it is. It's a murder mystery without the mystery, its a study of both Victorian and present day western society, and its a study of humanity, with some Mason conspiracy thrown in for good measure. As good as Watchmen? Perhaps. So different its hard to compare.

And so lastly to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Pretty much every character in this piece is drawn from fiction that has entered the public domain, thus freeing them from the shackles of their expired copyright. (note: I am not necessarily against copyright laws, this was just a cool sentence.) Much more handleable that From Hell, and with a lot less (though still some) sex and swearing, written as if it were written at the turn of the century, the book is full of tongue in cheek sexism and racism, which in a wrong sort of a way adds to the books charm. The League is a rip-roaring adventure set in the olden days, kind of like Indiana Jones, except written by a genius instead of George Lucas. And its got Captain Nemo and the invisible man in it, so what more could you want? I have just ordered the second volume.

On another note, I was in Flares in Guildford the other day, and my God that place sucks. It is exactly the same as it was six or so years ago - the last time I was there, except it has lost all its kitche (sp?) value, and is now just pure lame. Almost empty by 11:30, and the staff do little dances every now and again. Really fucking dire. Having said that, I did have a great time!