Der PigDog's PigBlog

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, a...

This post is for me more than you. I'm using it to track my reading history and to read list. You might get some recommendations out of it. You might give me some recommendations, too. If I write about any of these comics, I'll link them here. I might otherwise put in a little blurb, quick thoughts. I didn't think I was a big comic reader but I guess I am.  Comics I have read, in roughly autobiographical order Archie Comics. Used to buy them in the checkout line at the grocery store.  Bionicle. Can't be any good but at least it's an impressively fantastic world. Tintin. Haven't reread it but I bet it holds up. Mad Magazine, most issues from the mid 60s to the mid 70s. My father had a stack of these a foot high that he gave to me. Fuckin fantastic back in the day, nowadays probably too goofy. Ultimate Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men.  The  superhero comics of my childhood. I sprinkled in some other stuff when it was available at the library -- selected Marvel Z...

 I don't really read comic books. I read a good chunk of ultimate marvel as a child, and then V for Vendetta and Watchmen in middle school. None of it was super fascinating. The dialogue was stilted. The movies were more exciting. The Question is good.  There's a particular kind of grandstanding you see in superhero comics, and sometimes in action movies, a kind of moral self-indulgence. Usually you see it when the hero says "I DO NOT KILL... EVER!". I think it's a pretty good idea to avoid killing people. But the debate can't be about "can we sometimes kill" versus "can we ever kill", because that's pretty silly: yeah, we can sometimes kill. If you've come this far, if you've killed this many people, it's just not psychologically plausible for you to stop here. And it doesn't give you the moral high ground. I like the movie Road House for an example here. Peak nonsense. Bodhi from Point Break has killed his way through ...