Alan Moore's Forgotten Awesome: 09/20/17

I have a special treat for you today -- a handful of interviews with Alan Moore about Judgment Day and Supreme. Apparently Moore did quite a bit of press ahead of the release of Judgment Day!

The first appeared in Combo Magazine #29 in June 1997. In it, he talks about his work on Supreme and what he was attempting to accomplish with Judgment Day and his plans for the other series (I didn't know that he didn't plan to write all of the other series he had proposed).

It's one of the few interviews he gave about Awesome (well, at the time, they were still talking about it as Extreme) before the company went under and he would speak about Awesome in the past tense. In a lot of interviews he's given in the years since, Awesome always gets a slight nod between From Hell and the ABC books, if it gets mentioned at all.

I've spoken before about how Moore, during this period, seemed much more optimistic about superheroes and the comicbook industry in general, and I think this is a good source for that belief. Rather than just being critical of the loss of other genres and other styles of writing, he has decided to put his weight toward trying to dust them off and recreate them.

And I love the answer he gave to the sellout question.

Alan Moore: Ready to pass Extreme Judgment

One of comic's hottest writers prepares to jumpstart the Extreme Universe with Judgment Day

By Rob Samsel

Alan Moore has attained the status in America as one of the premiere writers in comics--not just one of the top British writers, but one of the best, period. These days Moore is the architect of a revisionist movement, one that is deeply rooted in the sensibilities of the Golden and Silver Age of comics, with his work on Extreme's Supreme title. On the heels of his acclaimed run on Supreme, Rob Liefeld has given Moore the reins of the entire Extreme stable, and this spring's Judgment Day crossover will see Moore revamp the Extreme Universe.

COMBO: You've brought back an older sensibility with your work on Supreme. What made you think the fans in the '90s would embrace the revamped Supreme?

ALAN MOORE: What I've tried to do with Supreme is to not recapitulate what was done in the '50s or '60s. What I've tried to do is make Supreme a character that works across the ages. Also, I'm trying to make Supreme a character that's very much for the '90s. I'm trying to include all of the previous moments of the history of comics within the character. By the time we get to the 12th issue of the run [Supreme #52], which will hopefully be an 80-page giant, you'll be able to see the groundwork I've done over the previous 11 issues in a much clearer perspective. It will set up this rich background that the character will be able to draw upon in the future.

I think the reason that the '90s would be crying out for this type of material has to do with imagination. To me, imagination is the most valuable currency in comics. Whenever comics start to get lazy, you can see it fall back upon the sort of traditional things to get the reader's attention. Either the violence level will go up, the size of the guns will go up, or maybe the size of the female characters’ breasts will go up. Nothing against these things in their own place and time, but if you want to see large breasts, there's much more interesting places to see them than in comics. I think the same goes for guns and violence as well. The thing that got me--as well as all of us, I'd imagine--interested in comics was the world of imagination that they opened. I think that that's probably the essence of comics for most of us. I wanted to re-inject that sense of imagination into comics, and make them fun at the same time.

COMBO: That said, you're not surprised the fans have warmed up to Supreme to the degree they have?

AM: I'm favorably surprised. I wasn't sure that the things that felt right for me for the character, being a 43-year-old man, would ring true with the other people reading the book. The response has been really favorable, especially issue #44, where we did a pastiche of the old EC Comics, and at the same time were pastiching the old superhero team books. I thought the EC stuff might be too esoteric for readers who were young, but from the letters we got, the audience has caught all the references, and they're more receptive to the material than we thought they originally would be.

COMBO: Do you think there's more room for this type of comic?

AM: I'm not slagging off the rest of the comics industry, but there are a lot of books around these days that seem to be mining the same tired vein of tough, gritty, dark, frightening comics. It seems as though that was the last thing people found interesting in comics, and no one's thought of anything new to do yet. I think there seems to be something in the mix we're putting together in Supreme that is catching on to a degree. Maybe it will only cater to a handful of fans, but the sales do appear to be going up. I'm hoping that if we can build upon it, it will give us a platform to exploit one of the main possibilities of comics right now, which I think is one of the main possibilities for culture right now.

In our culture, we can choose what era we want to focus upon. If we want, we can wear '70s clothes, listen to '70s music, and watch '70s TV shows all week long. The same goes for the '60s and the '50s. We've got a choice from the whole of the previous tapestry of history, and I think the same thing is true in comics. We don't have to be imprisoned in our particular moment anymore. We have this wonderful back-history of comics that covers such interesting and diverse ground, it's all there for us to reinvestigate. There's some gems from the past that I don't think we necessarily found the first time, and we might overturn them if we have another look. There’s all of these forgotten eras of comics that have their own charms, and I don’t see why they can't coexist. We've got a '70s cosmic approach coming up in one issue, and we may even do a grim '80s version too. I want Supreme to become a sort of small-scale model for the entire history of comics. With Supreme, I want to give a sense of how and why comics have changed over the years.

COMBO: How did the deal to revamp the whole Extreme Universe with Judgment Day come about?

AM: When Supreme started to look like it would be a success, I was talking to [Extreme editor] Eric Stephenson about the book. I told him that with Supreme I was sort of going to be telling the history of the entire Extreme Universe. I'd be filling in lots of details about Extreme that didn't exist, and that if Rob [Liefeld] wanted me to, I could give him an all-new bible of continuity for a universe that might have more possibilities. I wasn't going to ignore the previous continuity, just augment it. These days it seems that most comic book continuities are put together by committee, or just by accident. It struck me that it might be an advantage to have one person put together a continuity, much in the way that Stan Lee put together the Marvel continuity back then.

When Rob had the break from Image, it gave him the means, and almost the necessity to completely define Extreme's universe as an entity unto itself. He suggested I might want to come up with a series that would put the Extreme Universe into the kind of shape I thought would work best. I've been given quite a bit of leeway; there's not really many sacred cows I've been told I can't touch. While I'm writing the books, I'll also be writing the synopses for how each of the Extreme series might advantageously be handled. I might even write a few issues of the books myself; I haven't decided yet. I shall certainly be writing templates for the best way to take each individual series, in light of what I've written for the universe.

COMBO: Which characters are you looking most forward to playing "mad scientist" with, and which do you think have the most potential after the mini-series?

AM: I'm trying to make it so that they all do. I can see lots of possibilities for Youngblood and NewMen. I've got a way that they can work in the present day, with all the action that readers demand of these books, and still have all the imagination and story values that I think are important. By the time Judgment Day is finished, Youngblood’s going to be quite a different book. I can't say too much about it right now, but I should imagine it’ll be completely unrecognizable by the time I'm finished. The NewMen will have a different function. They will have a specific role in the universe. It won't be a case that the characters are changed drastically, that they become new characters; it will be more a case of what is learned about their backgrounds during Judgment Day that will suddenly give them new possibilities. They will be changes that make sense, and bring excitement to the titles.

The premise behind Judgment Day is a murder trial involving some of the major players of the Extreme Universe; and I wouldn't be giving too much away if I said they were members of Youngblood's end of the spectrum. In the course of the trial, there will be repercussions that stretch right back to the foundations of the Extreme Universe. We'll see pulp heroes, Wild West heroes, heroes from the first and second World Wars, Victorian heroes; there'll be barbaric heroes [Bram the Berserk and friends, as seen on the previous page--ed.] and chivalric knight-in-armor heroes. We'll be able to reintroduce a number of genres of comics that have since dried up and blown away. I want to make those genres work again within the confines of the Extreme Universe so that there could be a mini-series in the future for a western hero. That way, it won't be such a narrow, steroid, superhero kind of scenario.

COMBO: So the scope of the mini-series is more epic than apocalyptic?

AM: That's it exactly. The mini-series is not a huge ending, but instead a gigantic opening up. My goal is to reinstate some of the vanished forms from previous comics, and make them work for the '90s. I don't think these old forms of comics are necessarily extinct; I think that with a bit of voltage, they can rise and twitch from the slab and be as much fun as they were the first time around.

COMBO: With the groove that you're on these days with Supreme, how long do you think you'll stay with the book?

AM: Don't know yet. I said I'd definitely do 12, but I haven't made any future decisions yet. I've got a lot of future ideas for Supreme. After I've done all this work setting him up over these 12 issues, it would be pretty stupid to leave all these good stories I've got lined up for someone else. [laughs] After [my] 12th issue of Supreme, we'll drop all the back story, because we'll have established the past. From there, I'll be doing stories that draw upon that history; and I'd maybe like to have a go of that for another year. It depends. I'll see how many other books I do a couple issues of as a result of Judgment Day.

COMBO: There's a contingent of critics here in the States that accuses you of being a sellout as a result of your work with Extreme and Image, with one yutz going so far as to call you Alan "will work for food" Moore. What do you have to say to those people who accuse you of falling off the pedestal that they in fact placed you upon?

AM: It's their pedestal, so I can't say that I really think about it at all. It's something that's going on in their heads and not mine. I said that I would not work for DC Comics, and I said that I would never work for Marvel Comics; and I have never worked for either of those comic companies since. I don't know anyone who has barred themselves from working for the two biggest comic companies and has actually stuck to it. Image Comics has never screwed me, and I have nothing against working for popular comics. Otherwise I'd have never worked in American comics at all, would I? I just have moral qualms about working with DC or Marvel, so I just don’t do it. If others have problems working with Image, then I suggest not doing it.

If people out there wish that I would do nothing but wholly serious work, then I suggest they don't have much imagination as to what it is to be a writer; and they don't know what goes into doing relentlessly serious work day after day. If I was to just do From Hell, I should probably be mad after a couple of years! [laughs] From Hell is my favorite work, but it's very demanding, and it's nice to get out from time to time and play. There's an incredible exhilaration with these superhero comics, and I can experiment more than I do with From Hell. I think that play is very undervalued, because play is some of the more productive, creatively speaking, activities that's done in the comics industry.

Overstreet's Fan magazine

The second interview appeared in Overstreet's Fan magazine #23 in May 1997. In it, he talks a little more about the genesis for Judgment Day and how he hoped to pull all the threads of the Maximum/Extreme Universe together into a cohesive universe. (And I think that's a sketch for Jaguar Jack that we've never seen before by Rick Veitch up in the top left.)

Facts up front

Judgment is at hand!

Is your Universe broken and lifeless? Titles wandering aimlessly around? Characters stale? Just give Alan Moore a call and--wait, that's what Maximum Press did ... again. Judgment Day is planned to be a three issue series with a rotating art team that includes some of the finest in the biz. People like Adam Pollina, Dave Gibbons, and Liefeld himself have stepped up to help Alan hit one out of the
park ... again.

"While doing Supreme, it occurred to me that what I've been doing was to go through the history, or pseudo-history, of a Superman-type character, from his origin in the '20s or '30s through to the present day. In the course of these stories, I was also showing some background that had previously never been seen of the Extreme Universe as it was during those decades. I had flushed out the group the Allies into a sort of '40s version called the Allied Supermen of America, which is a kind of All
Winners Squad/ JSA group of heroes. I mentioned to Eric Stephenson [Editor at Maximum] that if Rob wanted, in the course of Supreme, I could remodel the Extreme Universe and make it a much more coherent and dynamic kind of place." A ready-made Universe from the ground up? We' ll take it.

According to Alan, the whole deal went down something like this: "The title was Rob's idea, that was something that he liked. When Eric put it to me I said, 'Well yeah, it's a good enough title,' but it made me think immediately of some big, apocalyptic, end of the world-thing. As soon as I mentioned the words big apocalyptic end of the world-thing, I said, 'I'm already starting to yawn.' It made me feel weary, just the thought of another Big Apocalypse. Eric understood, but maybe it could be taken in a different direction so that it wasn't related to that. I thought about it awhile; it's ended up as the entire three issues, the centerpiece, will be a murder trial."

Which hero gave into the Dark Side true believers? Moore won't say and the Chinese water-torture didn't work on him, but he did let the following slip: ''There'll be a superhero in the dock, it'll be a superhero who is the victim of the murder, the witnesses and the court will be superheroes, and in the course of the investigation of the case, it will have ramifications that will run all the way back to the pre-historic origins of the Extreme Universe."

Moore, of course, is no stranger to revision take a look at what he's done to Supreme yet his work on Judgment Day will, literally, affect all of the Maximum Press titles. "Not only will I be writing Judgment Day itself, but I'm also working upon synopsis notes for how the various series that come out of Judgment Day should be treated. Long-standing books like Newmen and Youngblood won't be coming out of the same way they go in; they' ll be changed, revised, and brought into line with the
vision that I'm developing. The comic universe that I'd like to create." A Universe that, according to Moore, has been lost in the continuity-less world of the '90s. "It struck me that I could come up with something that was interesting and dynamic and also allowed for a greater range of possibilities to grow out of it. Something that opened up a Comic Book Universe the way that used to be more open back in the '40s, '50s, and '60s. Back then superheroes were part of the market, but there were also
Western books, Humor books, Romance books, Supernatural books, War books, things like that. Any conceivable genre have got its place somewhere. I think that that was better, so I'd like to create a fully three-dimensional Comic Book Universe that allowed for some of those possibilities."

Create he will! Look for the world to begin anew with Judgment Day #1 in stores in May!

Comics Buyer's Guide

Another interview appeared in Comic Buyer's Guide #1229 on June 6, 1997. It's followed by an interview with Rob Liefeld about how he had just finished his Marvel Heroes Reborn run and was jumping back in to do Judgment Day.

From ‘Supreme’ to Extreme: Alan Moore constructs an Awesome universe

Alan Moore has been delighting comics readers for a decade and a half, notably with his run on DC’s Swamp Thing and The Watchmen. Swamp Thing led to a more intellectual approach to American comics and paved the way for DC’s Vertigo imprint. On the other hand, The Watchmen gave fans a revisionist look as characters, its impact is being felt in the comics business on a daily basis.

These days, Moore’s sensibilities are on display monthly in Supreme, where he has been developing the character for nearly a year. His exploration of Supreme’s past has prompted a look into the past of the entire history of that universe. This exploration will take place in the pages of Judgment Day, the upcoming mini-series of which Moore is the chief architect.

CBG: Judgment Day is a turning point for the Extreme universe. Explain a bit behind the thrust of it.

Alan Moore: I was talking, while doing Supreme, to Extreme Editor Eric Stephenson about how, as it turned out, while telling the back history of Supreme, I was also filling in a lot of back areas of Extreme continuity. I was making them up as I was going along but filling them in, nonetheless. I suggested to Eric that, if Rob Liefeld wanted, I could pretty well overhaul the entire Extreme universe as I was going along.

Rob thought I should condense my ideas into a three-issue mini-series. The mini-series would help create a new Extreme universe by filling in previously unmentioned bits of its history. Rob was stuck on the title Judgment Day, but I wasn’t so sure, because it sounded like another apocalyptic story—and, in comic books these days, the apocalypse has become a trifle dull. The end of the world happens every couple of issues in one comic book or another. We decided to see if there were any other connotations we could investigate in terms of a Judgment Day story.

I thought that maybe a court trial might work, as it’s a tried and tested vehicle for a story. I thought I could use that device as a framework and that I could come up with a murder case that allowed for evidence to be called for which would fill in, in flashbacks, this panoramic story of the Extreme universe stretching back to the formation of the Earth. And that is basically what we’ve done. I’ve finished the story, and we’ve got it to all fit into the three issues, and we managed to compress this staggering sweep of history into about 96 pages.

CBG: What was your biggest challenge?

Moore: I suppose it was the sheer complexity of trying to imagine a coherent comic-book universe from its place in the present day—and also its history, which can stretch back to the caveman and beyond. I tried to come up with a completely rounded history of the Extreme universe, stretching into all these previously unexplored places, and at the same time creating a universe that had elements of it that are regarded as necessary, things that should be in there in comics: the kinds of characters, the range of characters, the range of stories that I think comics ought to be able to represent.

I was trying to design, to some degree, my dream mainstream comics universe, something that was able to contain stories over an incredible range of different genres or situations.

For me the biggest challenge was trying to keep all that straight in my head and to tell Judgment Day as a three-issue mini-series that had a beginning, middle, and end. Also, I had to keep in mind the big picture of this universe and how it would operate, once it was up and running.

CBG: How has it felt having basically carte blanche to create your own comic-book universe?

Moore: It’s been a lot of fun! It’s always something that I used to fancy doing back in my mainstream days at DC, but back then I never got the opportunity, because there was a universe in place already.

This is the first chance I’ve had to do it, and it’s been great to see these characters realized. First, the initial sketches by Rick Veitch, because he designed a lot of them, were all wonderful little character designs. They look totally archetypal yet are completely new. They’re sort of recognizable, but you’ve never seen them, which is a great quality.

Also seeing some of the artwork come in, which are some wonderful treats. For example, we’ve created a slew of Western characters as part of Judgment Day. The section in the first issue pertaining to those characters—Kid Thunder, The Brimstone Kid, and an Indian sorcerer called Night Eagle—were drawn by Gil Kane. I didn’t realize until I got the artwork back that he’d be doing it, and I have to say after seeing it that it’s the best artwork I’ve seen Gil Kane do in years—and that’s coming from a big Gil Kane fan. It’s perfect! It looks like he had a ball doing it, and it’s just brilliant stuff.

These two or three pages of Gil Kane are going to be worth the price of admission alone, as far as I’m concerned. It’s been fun watching these characters materialize. There’s been a great deal of pleasure being able to repopulate a comic landscape that for the past 15 years or so has been stripped down to nothing but super-heroes. What will come of it, I don’t know, but the early response has been warm, and I’ve had a lot of fun doing it.

CBG: The mini-series itself has a variety of top-flight talent working on it. Would you rather have had one artist in order to maintain a consistent style of storytelling?

Moore: No, I don’t think so. I think it was me who suggested getting different artists in to handle these different flashbacks and inset periods. The thing is: If we’ve got one artist doing the whole of Judgment Day, he either has to be a very, very versatile artist or you wouldn’t be able to get the kind of difference in styles that evokes these different types of comics.

For example, in the first issue, there’s a Western sequence drawn by Gil Kane, there’s an excellent looking barbarian sequence drawn by Chris Sprouse, and Adam Pollina’s done this wonderful little jungle man two-page sequence. All of these artists bring a certain style to the genre, and they’ve been chosen because they can do it very well. It will make these flashback characters seem more real—giving them a sort of history and a visual identity, as if they were characters that had a long published history.

We’ve gotten Todd Klein to do a lot of really neat logos for the characters.

It’s just all part of creating the illusion of this sprawling back history of characters. I think the result will be better than it would have been if it had been done by just one artist, because it has been planned to be worked on by a number of hands. Rob Liefeld will provide the frame and the background for the story by handling all the courtroom and present-day sequences.

Rob Liefeld passes ‘Judgment’ on his own universe

CBG: What’s it like having Alan Moore revamp your entire universe?

Rob Liefeld: It’s going great, actually. He’s full of such cool ideas and he’s always sending us great stuff. Everyone’s having a good time, seeing what he comes up with next. Some of the revamps he’s done are really great—so great, in fact, that we’ve got to get together really super teams to be able to pull off his vision. I’ve never seen him this enthusiastic, he’s just burning up the fax machine with new ideas.

CBG: After more than a year of dealing with another company’s characters, is it nice to be back working on your own again?

Liefeld: Going to work on the “Heroes Reborn” stuff was a kick, but you don’t know how much you’re going to miss your own stuff until you go back to doing it. It made me say, “Wow, I’ve been neglecting my kids and I’ve been a bad parent.” [Laughter]

I’ve said it before: Going back to Marvel was boot camp. When we went back to Marvel, I heard it was for all kinds of reasons, from money to whatever. For me, though, I was lost and hadn’t made a deadline in a long time, and I knew that this project would make me challenge myself and that I would have to get my act together again.

A lot of people told me when the deal with Marvel was going south that I’d had my time with these characters—and to just let it go and get back to my own characters. Judgment Day was coming up, and people suggested I throw myself into that project full steam. So far, it’s been a really great experience. The other day, I was dropping off pages to my inker Jon Sibal and said, “Isn’t it cool working on Shaft, Die-Hard, and all these other characters we haven’t visited in a long time?”

It was a matter of going back to the characters after six months instead of after 12. It’s just business. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to do my own six-issue arc, ending with the Cable appearance. Once I did those, I felt my original commitment as laid out to the fans—that I would do six issues—was adhered to.

I feel sorry for the guys who had to work on those other issues who won’t have their stuff published now. The Stephen Platt stuff on Cap was the most gorgeous he’s ever done, and I’m sorry for him that the fans won’t get to see it. We offered the story to Marvel and were told, “No, thanks.” Marvel just felt some absurd need to turn its back on the most successful thing it had in years.

CBG: Will the advent of Awesome Entertainment have any bearing on the post-Judgment Day Extreme universe?

Liefeld: Every year we do a crossover at Extreme, and this year (given our separation from Image Comics), I didn’t want to do another crossover.

We approached Alan, and the result was Judgment Day. The thought was that Judgment Day was going to be the door that leads the fans into the new company. When judgment Day is done, Alan will have built a new foundation that will serve as the platform for everything we’ll be doing at Awesome.

CBG: What comics do you think will come out of the aftermath of Judgment Day?

Liefeld: Right now, Alan has written the first 24-issue outline of a new Youngblood series that will probably not be called Youngblood.

Then, he’s done the same the same thing for Glory, The New Men, and a series called The Allies. These treatments he’s written are just the coolest things to read; his Youngblood, for example, is just Awesome! All of the things that he’s done are terrific, and we’re putting together the teams we feel will work best on each of these series.

We certainly don’t want to rush these things out. We want to do a small line of comics with Awesome, whereas at Extreme we were doing 25 titles at one point. I want to get established names working on these comics—with very high production values—and just do a little line of really good comic books.

The marketplace doesn’t want a big line of comics and it will reject them.

CBG: Where does this leave you personally, now that you’ve been able to stay of your post-“Heroes Reborn” roll?

Liefeld: Right now I’m considering one of the Alan Moore project, because it really gets my creative juices going, but I’m not going to say which one right now.

I keep telling myself that I’m going to do something new, but I really want to do my own characters again. Creatively, it will be a gas, and it’s got lots of fun and great ideas behind it. I read the concepts and the breakdowns by Alan and say to myself, “These are the kid of comics I liked as a kid; I think I should give one a shot.”

What “Heroes Reborn” taught me was that, if you’re not going to be monthly, don’t expect to get any results. The kids want you monthly and on a regular basis. I think it was something I definitely got away from while I was at Image. I feel as though I’d be a fool if I didn’t jump right back in there. There’s a lot of guys in this business who want to use comics as a stepping stone to do movies and cartoons, and, oddly enough, I’ve been accused of that.

I continue to draw comics because I love comics. I love the medium and I love drawing pictures, and I think I’m supposed to do that, not make movies or cartoons. I look at Judgment Day, and it’s gorgeous! The Adam Pollina pages, the Ian Churchill pages, the Dan Jurgens pages, these awesome Gil Kane pages, the Steve Skroce stuff, the Chris Sprouse pages: It’s all just fantastic!

It’s Awesome’s initial launch title, and I think it will really set a tone for the company. It’s the greatest writer in comics’ history put together with the best team of artists available. It means a lot for the company and a lot for the characters, as well. I’m just really excited about Judgment Day and what it means for the company throughout the summer.