Alan Moore in Tripwire, a Magazine I Had Not Previously Heard Of

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Something is wrong with the permissions on my hard drive, such that Word is no longer allowed to save files to it. In spite of this I am keeping an unsaved Word document open, with my to do list in it, because that is who I am and how I live, every day. Word then tries to autosave this file every 10 minutes and squawks when it can’t. Ever. 10. Minutes. You’d think I’d close the file, or call tech support, or change Word’s autosave preferences, or use a non-screwed-up text editing program (like TextEdit). You’d be wrong.

I recently got sent an issue of the magazine Tripwire, a British comics magazine I had not actually ever heard of. It’s deeply nerdy. Above every article the byline reads “words:” and then the author’s name, as if it were a comic and there were things other than words in the actual article. That’s quality nerdiness.

There are great pieces in it about Constantine and Judge Dredd, but the one I particularly relished was a long interview with Alan Moore, who you always think is going to turn out to be some crazy crank, but then you read an interview with him and you realize that he’s both a genius and really funny, and that you’re the crazy crank, not him, and you should stop posting comments on YouTube and feed your 30 cats.

Some samples:

Moore on the future of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: “The next book will be called Tales of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and will have three separate stories in it.

“The first two stories will focus on one single character from the League’s mythology, including ones that, if you haven’t seen the Dossier, you won’t have seen yet. And then a third will perhaps be detailing something Mina did in the sixties. We’ve got room after that to maybe do a series that would focus on one of the early manifestations of the League…

“We could do one that is set in the 30th century because we’ve got quite a few immortal characters amongst the main cast. As long as me and Kevin still feel we’re doing something new with it, I can’t think of any reasons why it should ever come to a halt.” [This is a huge relief to me, because I figured after Black Dossier they were going to hang out in the Blazing World for all time, whatever time means in the Blazing World.]

On having done The Simpsons: “Apparently, at some point, I’m also going to get a personalized Simpsons jacket which you couldn’t possibly wear outdoors without looking a complete c___ but, on the other hand, I can probably pose with it on in a mirror in a locked bedroom and feel kind of good about myself.” [Yo Matt what about it the man needs a garment.]

On the upcoming Watchmen movie, directed by 300’s Zack Snyder:

Tripwire: I saw [Snyder] interviewed recently and he was quoted, “Worst case scenario—Alan puts the movie on his DVD player on a cold Sunday in London and watches and says, ‘Yeah, that doesn’t suck too bad.'”

Alan Moore: That’s the worst case scenario? I think he’s underestimated what the worst case scenario would be…that’s never going to happen in my DVD player in ‘London.’ [Moore lives in Northampton.] I’m never going to watch this f___ing thing.”

To be fair, that’s not exactly what Zack Snyder said (he didn’t say “worst case scenario,” or “London”) but still: zing.