Okay, today I'm putting on my tinfoil hat and making some wild connections. Want to come along for the ride?
In the early 1990s, Alan Moore had been doing personal and creative work far from the mainstream, including From Hell, Lost Girls, A Small Killing, his spoken word pieces, and Outbreaks of Violets.
Outbreaks of Violets was created for the 1995 MTv Europe Music Awards, which decided to theme
their awards around the concept of comics. They approached him about
doing something along the theme, "Random acts of kindness." He wrote a
storyline for 24 postcards and the producers found 24 renowned European
artists and cartoonists to bring each one to life.
The work plays off our cynical expectations about the world and shows us
how doing things a little different could have produced the best world.
It's funny and wonderful.
In 1995, Moore was doing work on Spawn to raise funds, since his personal and creative work didn't pay very well. Spawn led to WildCATS and in 1996 to Supreme. Sometime in late 1996 or, more likely 1997, Moore wrote the script for Supreme #56, which featured the Ivory Icon's roster of rogues escaping his Hell of Mirrors and messing about in our world. The Televillain invades the Friends TV show. Korgo knocks out Bill Clinton and takes over the presidency with Hillary Clinton, and Optilux goes to a Bon Jovi concert and turns a few hundred audience members into light beings.
"Optilux has transformed about 200 members of a Bon Jovi audience into coherent light," Moore said in an interview. "Then he's captured them in the prism-world of Amalynth, and nobody cares."
It always struck me as odd that Moore chose Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi wasn't very popular in America at the time and seemed an odd fit with the Friends show, which was one of the top rated shows on TV. Looking at the band's Wikipedia page, their 1995 album "These Days" is described as "
a bigger success in Europe than in the United States." It wouldn't be until 2000 when they released the single "It's My Life" that Bon Jovi would see an upswing in popularity.
Maybe that's the joke and why no one cared in Supreme. But here's my tinfoil hat connection.
At that 1995 MTv Europe awards, Bon Jovi won "best rock" band over much more popular (in the U.S.) bands, such as Green Day, Oasis and Offspring. You can see them winning in this Youtube clip:
If you look closely at about 1:10, you'll see several copies of Alan Moore's Outbreaks of Violets on the floor (Thanks Flavio for pointing out this video). So maybe Moore was influenced by the awards to think Bon Jovi were more popular than they were at the time and decided to include them in Supreme? Maybe this was his way of paying them back for leaving his comic on the floor in that video clip? Maybe I'm making something out of nothing? (Yes, most likely that last one.) But I thought it a fun connection.
As my opinion, or my insight went, bands had sort of a BON JOVI syndrome, that they are AOR album oriented rock bands.
ReplyDeletePopular to the point that an album (or two) is immensely popular and then ... it all stops; the massive popularity ends; the new album [or, face it, worse album and singles] is released and the popularity fades.
It certainly happened to Def Leppard - HIGH AND DRY and perhaps PYROMANIA are better than their new work. Motley Crue did really good material on TOO FAST FOR LOVE. And Bon Jovi hit it really big after 7800 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT and SLIPPERY releases, but lightning "never struck again".
It happened to Katy Perry/aka Katy Hudson and B. Spears but I could argue popular artists or pop music is trendy, so the trend or AOR singles were only luck or the old payola scheme.
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AjenoDel
Yeah, that seems to be the formula. Hit, bigger hit and then trail off. Though Bon Jovi had a bit of a revival with "It's my life" back in the 2000s.
DeleteI have worked on (since before 1998) a massive group of Moore works and his CDs, but for sanity not A. Moore ephemera or his projects and so many interviews and at times poetry or the old SOUNDS appearances.
ReplyDeleteBut colour me jealous that you have VIOLETS or the edition you also made to bind for your shelf.
*That is a scarce project.*
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I think there's more odd projects than there are mainstream projects at this point. It's impossible to keep up with all of them.
DeleteAround 2001 or earlier someone mentioned Americas Best Comics -- and what a find! I think the output then was about equal with Moore collected editions and the never-completed (or ephemera). Over 20 more years have gone by and you MAY BE RIGHT; his never-collected (or non-finished series) books and the ephemeral works may exceed the collected, paperback or common works.
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Bon Jovi was in a bad state in the late-'90s.
ReplyDelete"It's My Life," their comeback single was the first Bon Jovi song I ever heard and I went to a Bon Jovi concert eight years ago with my family. That was a night. Two years earlier came a U2 concert I went ALSO with my family. The place was the Meadowlands Stadium.
The message the Bon Jovi panel is sending is this: don't imitate the style you create, keep the style fresh no matter what, and find new ways.
Don't make it a template or a formula. Find a different style in any work one would create to bring to the world.