Reading some early Alan Moore, part 1: V for Vendetta

Recently I have been reading a lot of comics, including a lot of Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, Miracleman, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Watchmen, From Hell). A mixed bag, but he constantly opens up interesting topics. In this series of posts I'm going to go through each of his writings that I have read, in publication order.

I'm particularly interested in Moore's treatment of race, sex, gender, and authority.

I'll try to talk about art as I go, but I'm not well-educated on the topic. Consequently I'll be giving the artist short shrift, and probably assigning Moore too much responsibility in plotting and conceptualizing the comic. 

V for Vendetta

I first read this as a child, without any strong preconceptions for what comics "are like" or "should be". Therefore its innovative formal qualities were totally lost on me. I had no idea that comics didn't usually feature changed page orientations or musical interludes, and I didn't notice that this comic had no thought bubbles or sound effects.

I did notice the art.

Most of an early page from V for Vendetta

Great composition, distinctive, plausible models. And the colors! If I recall correctly, the first few issues were black and white. Later issues were colored, and the collected sets added color to the early issues as well. Consequently most or all the art works just fine without color.

What color is there is muted, soft, maybe watercolor? (I don't know much about art.) Like painting with light, or stained glass. Gorgeous.

I checked out the Deluxe Edition from the library. It's worth reading, even if you've got the trade paperback, because it has these gorgeous full page pictures, often individual panels blown up, between each chapter.

A brief summary

A near-future Britain is, as in reality,  an authoritarian nightmare. A brave but insane freedom fighter/terrorist wages a one-man war against the government, eventually toppling it. Along the way he grooms a successor by training her in science, gymnastics, and banned media, and by torturing her. By the story's end, Britain is in bloody chaos, but one hopes something better will emerge from its ashes. This is by no means certain.

Sexual dysfunction and the police state

All the high party members are fucked up, with a very few exceptions.

• Leader, Adam Susan, literally a virgin, in love with a computer, masturbates to quick-flashing news and tv programs.
• The Nose, Finch. On the frigid side, because of grief. (His wife and son died in the war.) His great love affair totals 3 dalliances with Dr Delia. 
• The Mouth, Roger Dascombe. Nothing perverse but he's slimy, a creep, preying on a grieving widow. Still, a paragon of sexual normality given the circumstances.
• The Voice, Lewis Prothero. Apparently sexually normal except for his extreme attachment to his doll collection. V drives him insane by burning the dolls while reminding Prothero of his misdeeds at concentration camps. That's an unhealthy attachment, says I. (Unrelated: I would cast Matt Berry in this role.)
• The Finger, Roger Almond. Sexually frigid, probably because of the stress of his job. Also physically abusive to his wife.
• The second Finger, Creedy. No details on his sex life. Apart from his lower-class background and his ambition, he is not characterized. A shame.
• Bishop Whatever, the priest. Pedophile, apparently very prolific.
• The Eye, Conrad Heyer. A 24/7 submissive in his relationship to his wife, Helen, involving a lot of chastity. Unclear how consensual this is; the writing and art are ambiguous. For instance, after he towels his wife off, and she tells him she won't have sex with him, he buries his face in her towel. Is he crying? Smelling her?

An ambiguous couple panels showing the relationship between Conrad and Helen Heyer

Conrad believes their relationship is monogamous, and when he sees that Helen has cheated on him, he murders the affair partner. Meanwhile she talks about Conrad with contempt while she has the affair, miming taunting him, unaware that she really is taunting him, as he'll see a video tape of the mime.

I do not think the work gives us the grounds to make normal 21st century internet distinctions between "abusive relationship" and "consensual 24/7 kink lifestyle". It simply wants to show off, and revel in, this relationship's oddity.

Here's what we don't see: a Hitler figure, sexually ecstatic, addressing a crowd, turning them on, too. Leader, Susan, is a charismatic void. He could never address a crowd. (Maybe we are only seeing him in his waning latter years, but the text never gives us evidence that he used to be more charismatic, only more sane.)

This is odd, especially because Moore pays attention to (what I think of as) the normal sexual appeal of fascism: it's manly, it's cool, you're big and tough and the ladies love you.

A page from V for Vendetta. Truly sexual politics. The lyrics get even more explicit on the next few pages; she mentions "heil" approvingly

In this book, we only see the cold police state aspect of authoritarianism. In fact the high party consists only of police and propaganda functionaries. The people who run the economy, farming, industry, travel, infrastructure, civil law, the military, etc, are not important. Maybe Moore omits these things intentionally?

Unlike in totalitarian Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, we don't see propaganda exhorting us to be productive, have children, take pride in our labors. Again, Moore omits every aspect of authoritarian rule that makes people complacent, happy, productive, whatever. (We might think of these things as the gilt on an iron cage. He leave us with bare iron.) 

Sanity, cages, drugs

V is insane. This is reliably reported throughout the book. Everybody calls him insane, and many of the things he does -- talking to a statue of lady justice, setting up a massive but artless chain of dominoes, manipulating and torturing his protege, refusing to answer a straight question -- are likewise insane.

A series of panels shows V setting up dominoes throughout the whole issue

Which dominoes are eventually revealed to be in baby's first dominoes pattern, something totally basic, not an inscrutable "grand master plan". Moreover it's V's own symbol, displayed to no one. This is plainly masturbatory.

(Note that terrorism and the vendetta are not, prima facie, insane. -- Though if someone's morality is alien enough, if someone is willing to kill enough people for any cause, I will call them insane too.)

V shows Evey and Finch that if you go crazy you will break out of the prison that holds you. We are our own jailer. Once you've broken free, you can see the world aright (understand a terrorist's thinking, realize you are responsible for your life) and take decisive action (kill a terrorist, blow up Westminister).

I'm not a big fan of either of these plotlines.

I don't think drugs bring enlightenment, ever. I've done an awful lot of them, too, so I'm not saying that because I'm anti-drug. I think that nothing brought about by a temporary "altered state of mind" has any special epistemic status. If you take a bunch of LSD and see the beautiful unity of mankind, fine, but your revelation is no more valid than someone who took a bunch of LSD and saw everyone standing tragically alone, forever. Neither count for very much.

Torture doesn't bring strength or enlightenment either, as a general rule. Could some one rare individual come out of a traumatic experience with a renewed zest for life, strength, and determination? It's not literally impossible. But is it going to happen, is torture a transformative, radicalizing experience? No, certainly not.

Maus is a good counterpoint here. Evey's torture, including her starvation and shaved head, recall the Holocaust. (V based her torture on his own treatment in English concentration camps.) V and Evey come out from their torture, and here's what it looks like:

Evey after torture; V equates his reaction to hers

Now let's look at Maus, in which Vladek is a prisoner in a concentration camp and similarly tortured. (I can't remember if he's drowned and mock-executed, but it doesn't really matter.) There's no equivalent page, where he realizes, "I escaped!", because he escapes, and gets caught, many times, by degrees. Here's the moment the reader relaxes, because he's in the hands of American soldiers:

Page from Maus; Americans take Vladek into custody

He doesn't have time or energy for transformative reflection. It would be strange if he did! Life goes on, in the same drab, unsentimental tone as before. And here's Vladek's son, the author of the comic, Art, reflecting on his father with his step-mother, Vladek's wife, Mala:

Detail from Maus; Art and Mala discuss Vladek's personality quirks

Vladek's torture never makes him a happier, more authentic person. Before the camps, he was an odd guy. After the camps, he was an odd guy. He's still miserly. He's still racist.

Meanwhile others came through the camps and had different experiences. Some of them made art about it. Vladek made an unhealthy, unhappy family.

This is an unromantic view of torture. It's not fun, and it doesn't lend itself to clean plotlines and character development. When V uses torture to improve Evey's character, the book descends into romantic nonsense, nothing to do with the human condition as such, only its fantasies.

Here's a caveat. Finch's enlightenment doesn't end with triumph. He kills V, and then wanders around, and wanders away. 

Race

Since Britain has systematically exterminated all people of color, there are none in the book. We get Finch's nostalgic, drug-addled look at black people. That's it.

Finch happily remembers black, gay, and lesbian people

This is a comic about white people and what they do to black people and each other, not at all about black people. That's fine. It's ok to have limited goals.

We see some attention paid to ethnicity beyond black/white. For instance, a villain in the second half of the book is a Scottish gangster. Maybe there are more divisions, but if so, I don't recognize them, they're too Britain-specific.

Summary

Interesting ideas and characterization, gripping, page-turning story, and fantastic art. Shame it pulls its punches making V too romantic and effective.