Alan Moore: subversive?

[C.F. Kane]

I'll also post this in the community forum


I'm doing a paper on Alan Moore for a class about subversive behavior and I could use a lot of help on it. I already have plenty of stuff on Moore and his works but not a lot on how he might be considered a subversive artist. Could anyone point me in the direction of something written against Moore's influence? Either against his comics or the idea of comics as literature that he promotes?

 

[Blader5489]

I'm confused, is the paper about how Moore was a subversive artist or how others acted subversive towards his work? Because if it's the former, you could treat really of all Moore's work as being subversive.

 

[C.F. Kane]

The paper's about Moore as a subversive artist. My problem is that I don't know the specifics: what he's fighting for, and who is pushing back.

 

[Blader5489]

It's kind of half-and-half. I think books like Watchmen, Miracleman, and Swamp Thing kind of speak for themselves in how they were really "swimming against the current" of comics.

But during the 90s and 00s, you could say that Moore was really fighting against himself. The themes of superhero deconstruction introduced his earlier work had become commonplace in comic books, and Moore--who is a big fan of Golden/Silver age comics and thinks that comic books should be silly and cheesy--started to write comics like Supreme and Tom Strong to bring that kind of fun and lightheartedness back to the industry.