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This Makes Sense

Alan Moore on Women and Comics

by Susana Polo | 1:59 pm, November 21st, 2011


The Independent published an interview with Alan Moore yesterday, and asked him about what everybody in the comics industry is getting asked these days: women. Specifically, about how to get more women to read comics. Moore could only speak from his twenty or thirty-odd years of experience:

I thought, well if you do more stories that are aimed at women, you’ll get more women reading the comics. It would seem fairly simple and straightforward, but there was a lot of resistance [to the idea].

Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, Moore is talking about the process behind getting The Ballad of Halo Jones made, a story that was published in 1984.

The article goes on to talk about Moore’s struggle to bring Lost Girls, his book of erotica from the perspectives of several female characters of 19th century children’s literature, to reality, because the last thing he wanted to do was write porn about women from a man’s perspective.

For a long while, my thinking on it completely hit a wall… so I was thinking of getting a man to draw this big, sexual book, and it just never felt right. It would have inevitably led to a locker-room atmosphere; it would have been men’s idea of women rather than women’s ideas of themselves. With the best will in the world.

His solution? Naturally, collaborate with artist Melinda Gebbie on getting Lost Girls to print. Want to make comics that appeal to women? Involve women in their creation. Like he says: “it would seem fairly simple and straightforward.”

(The Independent via The Beat.)

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  • https://twitter.com/#!/haversam [A]

    Lost Girls, good stuff.

  • http://twitter.com/acidragdoll Bel

    Oh Alan Moore.  Points for intention, shame about the execution.

  • Anonymous

    Whomever interviewed him to get these gems is a heckuva reporter.  This is more coherent than Moore has been in years.

  • http://profiles.google.com/mkjonese Emma Jones

    I like the idea of Lost Girls (always love erotica), but I’m not really a huge fan of the art. There’s something too… children’s cartoon-y. I’m not saying, make them all big-breasted and toned, but there’s just something off about how the line work mixes with the coloring that puts me off about it, as well as the way people’s bodies seem to work…

    I don’t know, maybe I’m just crazy. I do appreciate the effort put into it.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7G4SWUX2MCWWXLMYNN347JMIZY Frodo Baggins

    Really? I mean, it’s not my favorite art style, but I found it appropriate, in a way, to the subject matter. It’s evocative of the illustration style in vogue at the time when its source materials were written, at least.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7G4SWUX2MCWWXLMYNN347JMIZY Frodo Baggins

    I just have to say, the phrase “Alan Moore on Women” combined with that image made me crack up. HE’S SO GODDAMN CREEPY!

  • https://twitter.com/#!/haversam [A]

    After reading some of the comments….what’s with this very poorly thought-out trend against Moore? Nonsense.

  • http://profiles.google.com/noxturne Paul Was

    At least he’s made a couple of steps in the right direction.  Give the Ballad Of Halo Jones a try, great book. 

  • http://profiles.google.com/mkjonese Emma Jones

    I suppose it could be appropriate, but there still seems like something is off about it, even bearing that in mind. Not all of the images (I’m just going off what I can find on google) are so bad, but I think my main problem is that some of the pictures just look plain awkward. Like, the way the bodies are positioned, and how it doesn’t even seem like it fits together right. 

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