Interview with Alan Moore

This is an interview I made with author Alan Moore on the 28th, February 2007. It was published in Portuguese at the website Omelete, but most of Moore's readers, who speak English, couldn't read it. So, finally, here it is. It goes deeply into Lost Girls, his most recent major work, and I hope you will enjoy it. So much has been written about Moore's work that I doubt it is needed to introduce him much. Therefore I will attempt to put on a personal view as well as particular comments on how I see his work and persona.

To normal people, or non-comic book readers, Alan Moore must seem strange.

Well, even to comic book readers he seems strange. Alan Moore has got long hair, strange mystical rings, practices "magic" and says he worships a snake. Far from being stupid, he knows that this all creates a facade that impresses and also, to an extent, disappoints people. Some critics and readers won't take him seriously because of this, I suppose. The "official art world" (whatever that may be), for whom there are very limited ways to see, feel and behave about life.

It's brave, in a sense, of Moore to do that. Comic books and fantasy writing in general are victims of prejudice, and the fact he portraits himself, at least physically, pretty much as a weirdo is a bold statement that he does not care at all about these prejudiced views, and will go further into creating an unorthodox image, not minding if that displeases people who would otherwise take his work seriously and see how much he has to offer, how complex, sophisticated and rewarding his work is.

Alan obviously knows he has created a very curious image. And he likes it that people see him as a strange sort of crazy, weird genius.

It is a great image to create, a great image to live by, and a great image to be thought about, isn't it? Should be very fun, I think.

I mean, how many writers put on suits and glasses and pose looking to the horizon in photos made for the back cover of their books? Usually these are really "deep" books, written by an author said to have created a narrative that "untangles the intangible mysteries of the human soul"... or something like that.