Sunday 23 February 2014

Alan Moore: A Biographic

Extract From The Revised & Update 16-Page Biographic
"Alan Moore: An Extraordinary Gentleman"
(Free download, only from the Sequential iPad/iPhone App

GARY SPENCER MILLIDGE:
(from the introduction to the Alan Moore Biographic, revised 2013 Sequential Edition)
Alan Moore: An Extraordinary Gentleman was originally created in 2003 for a tribute book compiled to celebrate Alan Moore's first fifty years on the planet, which I published and edited in conjunction with the Italian publisher Black Velvet... I thought that the book needed an overarching introductory sequence of some kind. And rather than just a mere text biography that would provide some context for the rest of the book, I decided to map out the essential events in the life of Alan Moore in a comic format, using images from his own comics to illustrate his journey, literally and metaphorically. Like the book itself, the 'biographic' grew from four pages to eight, and finally to twelve. Alan Moore: Portrait Of An Extraordinary Gentleman was a great success, selling out of two substantial printings in super-quick time and raising over $36,000 for its chosen causes.

Skip forward to 2010 when I was invited by Tim Pilcher, a commissioning editor at Sussex-based publisher Ilex Press, to write a lavish 'visual biography about Alan Moore. Believing  that I had already done much of the groundwork necessary some years earlier, I foolishly agreed. That book became the Harvey Award-nominated Alan Moore: Storyteller. Upon completion of the new book, it was suggested that perhaps my original strip Alan Moore: An Extraordinary Gentleman could be included, reproduced in colour for the first time in English, as a bonus supplement to the UK edition.

However, after a short review of the material and armed with a vast quantity of new and accurate knowledge culled from nine months of intense research, study and investigation, I realised the full extent of the errors, falsehoods and unsubstantiated information that it contained. So the decision was made not to proceed with the idea, and the strip has continued to remain in limbo until now...

Gary Spencer Millidge is a graphic designer, illustrator and writer. He is best known for his self-published Strangehaven comic book series, and his books Alan Moore: Storyteller and Comic Book Design.

2 comments:

Sandeep Atwal said...

I can't imagine Dave Sim telling anyone that self-publishing is "easy."

Travis Pelkie said...

Well, those kooky eyes there and that sinister grin indicate that it's not the real Dave. In fact, if you look at it the right way (ok, the wrong way), the shading under Dave's lip and chin form a goatee, indicating that this is in fact Mirror Dave Sim, who tells everyone that self-publishing is easy and fun and there couldn't possibly be ANY downsides.

That's the second Star Trek reference I've made here this week. I'm a bigger nerd than I realized.