Table Of ContentALAN MOORE
\
GREAt COMiCs ARtists sERiEs
M. Thomas Inge, General Editor
ALAN MOORE
COMICS AS PERFORMANCE,
FICTION AS SCALPEL
Annalisa Di Liddo
University Press of MississiPPi
Jackson
www.upress.state.ms.us
Designed by Peter Halverson
The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the
Association of American University Presses.
Copyright © 2009 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Detail from “The Reward of Cruelty.” From Hell,
chapter 9, page 16 (excerpt). © Alan Moore and Eddie
Campbell. All Rights Reserved. Image reprinted here
with permission.
First printing 2009
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Di Liddo, Annalisa, 1977–
Alan Moore : comics as performance, fiction as scalpel
/ Annalisa Di Liddo.
p. cm. — (Great comics artists series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60473-212-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN
978-1-60473-213-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Moore, Alan,
1953–—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
PN6737.M66D5 2009
741.5’973—dc22 2008038646
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
CONtENts
Preface and Acknowledgments 7
Introduction 13
ChAptER 1.
Formal Considerations on
Alan Moore’s Writing 27
ChAptER 2.
Chronotopes: Outer Space, the Cityscape,
and the Space of Comics 63
ChAptER 3.
Moore and the Crisis of English Identity 102
ChAptER 4.
Finding a Way into Lost Girls 134
Conclusion 162
Notes 176
Bibliography 182
Index 203
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pREfACE ANd ACkNOwLEdGMENts
Why a book about Alan Moore?
When we talk about comics, it is practically impossible not to recall our
childhood and adolescence, for it is there that most of us first came into contact
with them. I am no exception to this rule, but I was born and bred in a small
Italian town, so the story of my approach to the medium is certainly different
from the experience of the average English-speaking comics reader. Nevertheless,
Alan Moore played an important role in this story.
As a child I read avidly. Anything would do: fairy tales, adventure books,
edifying young adults’ novels. I read a lot of comics, too, especially Mickey
Mouse and many Italian kids’ comics. The ones I loved most were the tales of
the good-natured devil Geppo by Pier Luigi Sangalli, and Pinky the Rabbit, a
surreal, cynical strip (oddly, published in the Catholic children’s magazine Il
Giornalino) by Massimo Mattioli, who I later came to know as a key figure in
the Italian underground movement. As an adolescent I turned to reading clas-
sics, then fantasy and gothic novels; I came across science fiction, and veered
toward horror through the popular Italian comic book character Dylan Dog. I
continued liking comics but gave my reading preferences to prose. I was not
that interested in getting to know more about the strange world of sequential
art. In my hometown a few miles from Milan there were no specialty stores, so
the only comics I got to see were the ones I could find at newsstands—where
the international selection was rather poor—or the secondhand Disney comics
I occasionally bought at bookstalls when I was on holiday at the seaside with
my family. My schoolmates did not seem peculiarly keen on the medium; my
feeling toward comics remained one of mild curiosity, and my relationship with
them a solitary one, albeit sometimes shared with Valentina, one of my older sis-
ters. Then, one day, Valentina found that there was a comics section at our small
public library and came home with two books: Frank Miller’s Ronin and a dog-
eared, battered copy of the collected edition of Moore and Gibbons’s Watchmen.
7
8 Preface and acknowledgments
Two very different books, but both extremely challenging reads. In particular,
I remember lying on my stomach on the floor of my parents’ living room, my
back slightly aching because I had been there for hours, unable to stop read-
ing Watchmen, carefully trying not to tear its creased pages. I felt intoxicated;
I had never seen anything like that before. Curiosity changed into irrepressible
enthusiasm with every turn of the page. That was the beginning of a very long
journey: I started reading any comic book I could find, from Tezuka Osamu’s
mangas to American superheroes. I discovered Art Spiegelman, Winsor McCay,
Andrea Pazienza, and much else. But thoughts of Watchmen never left me, and
together with searching for whatever comics I could find, I began a systematic
quest for Alan Moore’s books. When I grew older and went to university, I
chose contemporary English literature as my major. I took advantage of my first
scholarship to spend some time in the U.K. and research material for my M.A.
thesis about Angela Carter; I also seized the occasion to ransack London’s com-
ics shops and take the English-language versions of Moore’s works home with
me. It was 2000, and From Hell had just been published as a collected edition. I
went back to Italy and brought the book to my would-be Ph.D. tutor, Professor
Carlo Pagetti at the University of Milan, telling him that something really big
was going on in there, and that I wanted to know more about it. Two years later,
I started my Ph.D. in English literary studies with Moore’s work as the main
topic of my dissertation. My Ph.D. is now over, but it gave me the opportunity
to make reading and teaching comics my regular job for a while.
Many people deserve my heartfelt thanks for accompanying me along the
way, even up to the writing on this page.
For mentorship at the University of Milan, my tutors Mario Maffi and Carlo
Pagetti. For guidance and patience as I was preparing this manuscript, Walter
Biggins and Seetha Srinivasan.
For challenging conversations and advice about writing, Nicoletta Vallorani
and Simona Bertacco at the University of Milan, Shelley Hornstein at the
University of York (Toronto, Canada), and Oriana Palusci at the University of
Trento. I owe special thanks to Jeet Heer for his precious suggestions about the
title of this book, and for asking me thought-provoking questions. For counsel-
ing about research and for welcoming me at the Cartoon Research Library in
Columbus, Ohio, Lucy Shelton Caswell; for publishing my first article in the
United States, International Journal of Comic Art editor John Lent.
Last but not least, I should thank Maria Carla, Enrico, and Giuseppina
Rusconi for assiduous moral support, and Martina Treu and Giovanni Nahmias
Preface and acknowledgments 9
for friendship and inspiring exchange. A special appreciation goes to my family,
in particular to my sister Valentina—my all-time favorite fellow comics read-
er—for going to the public library that day a few years ago. For encouragement,
help of all sorts, and boundless trust, Carlo Cardelli is unrivalled. And of course
I thank my parents, who gave me the chance to pursue my studies in the first
place, and who this book is dedicated to:
Sergio ed Enrica, questo libro è dedicato a voi.
