Alan Moores Writing For Comics Volume 1
The master of comic book writing shares his thoughts on how to deliver a top-notch script! The main essay was originally written in 1985 and appeared in an obscure British fanzine, right as Moore was reshaping the landscape of modern comics, and has been tragically lost ever since. Now Avatar brings it back in print, collected for the first time as one graphic novel, and heavily illustrated by Jacen Burrows. Moore also provides a brand new essay on how his thoughts on writing have changed in the two decades since he first wrote it.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars A Life Lesson……….
There are plenty of reviews on this book and I won’t try to read them all. I found the manuscript to be quite an excellent guide in the manner that we writer’s might go about putting a story together. It focuses on thinking in writer’s terms and at the end you will have a basic idea of how to composite a written work together. Mind you that these ‘lessons’, if they could be called that, are based on basic story construction, not necessarily confined to the graphic novel. In the end, however, Alan contradicts his earlier words with what seemed to be a post-written apology, that reeked of ‘Lessons from the Frontlines’….At first, my impression was that if he was going to put this conclusion in, then why did I buy the book and what value did I glean from it? He answers that as well. In a nutshell…”Be original, be creative…keep your audience guessing…”
5 Stars Understanding What A Plot Is and What It’s Not
I’ve always known about PLOT for stories but never understood how to develop an effective one myself. Alan Moore uncovers what a plot is and isn’t. Go to pages 28-33 of this book to understand for yourself how to structure your plot for any “central idea” you have.
4 Stars Slim but Strong
“Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics” is a very slim book, no larger than one and half regular comic books, but it is very powerful. Rather than pump out formulas or marketing advice, Moore reveals his own processes on writing and his thoughts on what good writers need to do to create solid comics. However, this is advice useful to any writer of fiction, especially if you want to write any sort of speculative fiction. Moore holds no punches as he shows his disdain for the usual mainstream hero comics but he doesn’t let that overtake or sour his message for writers to think more broadly and deeply about the stories they create and the characters and worlds those stories are composed of. In reading “Writing for Comics” I was reminded of another skinny book on writing, Strunk and Whites “Elements of Style.” That book is an absolutely vital reference on the art of good writing in general. “Writing for Comics” may be the “Elements of Style” for the comics industry, small but indispensable. In any case, it is a welcome window into the mind of comics’ favorite mad genius.
3 Stars Reads like a webcomic blog
A brief pamphlet (hilariously described as a “graphic novel” on the back cover — I think they meant to call it a “trade paperback”) reprinting a 1985 essay, followed by an afterword from 2003 in which the author says that everything he wrote earlier was rubbish.
Moore was young when he wrote the original essay, and he has the young creator’s fascination with his own processes and successes, as well as the timidity of someone who’s not entirely sure whether he’s getting by on talent or luck, and whether it will all be swept away soon enough. He also demonstrates the cynicism of someone who knows he’s cobbled together some hackwork on occasion to meet a deadline or collect a paycheck: “Cor, I have to write a Superman story right away, and I’d like it to be vaguely interesting, but mainly it’s got to fill 40 pages, a third of which must be fight scenes.” Moore takes us through this exact task of his, one step at a time, from the first germ of a workable Superman idea through the plotting of each chunk of the final story, and how he solved certain problems of pacing and plotting along the way.
Parts of this book almost read like a blog, specifically the blog of someone making a webcomic and dashing off some paragraphs about how they wrote this week’s strip. So in that way, it’s no more or less fascinating, and no more or less artful, than listening to this week’s Penny Arcade podcast detailing how Jerry and Mike put together today’s strip from scratch — something I also enjoy on occasion. It turns out Alan Moore is just another writer, just another guy — and maybe that’s the most useful thing that can be gleaned from Writing for Comics.
5 Stars Worth It: Half Way Done.
Worth it. I am a striving comic creator who works and won’t have time to read as much as I did this last summer. If you’re a striving comic creator this is great book about the medium not because it teaches you how to write, but because it invokes you to create. The things I already knew that Moore talks about helps reinforce good points of story telling while interjecting Moore’s insights to writing.
Warning: You might have to look up some Moore References. As usual, Moore’s has a few obscure references you might not have heard or read about. I know who “Eddie Campbell” is to comics but since the essay is older “Campbell” is treated as an unknown source in Moore’s Essay. Still I feel since I’m rereading the “Watchmen” this is a “must have” because it gives a behind the scenes look to Alan Moore’s thinking process as he wrote the “Watchmen”. A pleasant fear I have is that if the movie is a success this book will be sold out. I’ve order another copy of this book because I’m destroying mine between the mass transit to my work and home.
Key Words: Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell Comics, Watch Men, Watchmen
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