The piece was originally called In Fictopia, but Simpson changed it to the more appropriate In Pictopia. In it, Moore tells the story of an older cartoon magician, Nocturno the Necromancer, who lives in a city of cartoon and comic characters. The older ones like him have fallen on hard times, living in the black and white slums. A new breed of superhero characters are moving in, taking over the city, leaving no room for the older-style characters.
It was an angry cry about what was happening in the comics industry, forgetting its past. Its message is not that dissimilar to the outcome of the Judgment Day trial, but in Judgment Day, there's a positivity that things can change. Perhaps Moore realized that to bring back stories of knights and cowboys and cartoon-like characters, it would take someone of immense stature in the industry to do it. Someone like Alan Moore.
Anyway, here is In Pictopia. It's been in and out of print a number of times, but is definitely worth owning. Check it out:
In Pictopia should be at the top of the list of less-easy-to-find Moore works for any interested reader. It's really a great piece of work.
ReplyDeleteThis was re-colored (by Jose Villarubia who worked with Moore on some of the ABC books) and re-printed in the original version of The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore. If I remember correctly, Simpson didn't like the recoloring. The revised version of the Moore bio had something else. I like both versions, personally.
It was included in the mostly excellent Brighter Than You Think collection of Moore short stories, though some of the scans aren't the best. Unfortunately, some of Moore's best shorter works have gone almost completely unread because they were printed in such small publications. If you ever get a chance, I love his story from The Puma Blues. (I haven't found a reason to work it into ForgottenAwesome yet.)
DeleteYeah, In Pictopia is a wonderful little piece. I've always enjoyed it as a comics-version, more serious Who Framed Roger Rabbit? But it definitely feels like Moore in his angry old man mode (though he wasn't old then). That's why I like comparing it to Judgment Day because the stories have the same basic idea and message but Judgment Day offers an optimistic message that things can get better if creators try to make comics that are better.
It looks *terrible* in "Brighter Than You Think". The story "Tapestries" looks slightly worse than the original, but "In Pictopia" just looks awful. It would look better if they had just used a scanner on an old comic book than whatever they did.
DeleteHa, I just assumed they had scanned it out of the comic.
DeleteCorrect, when Khoury made EXTRAORDINARY WORKS it had IN PICTOPIA [new coloring]; perhaps 2008.
DeleteThe Indispensable EXTRAORDINARY WORKS was expanded and PICTOPIA dropped and had: MR MONSTER Riddle of the recalcitrant refuse...
To be fair, that Mr. Monster story is amazing, too, but in a much sillier way.
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