THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN and ALAN MOORE

[RonPrice]

My wife often goes out for the day and I am pleased to have her enjoy the day with one or more of her friends. We are both retired now with an empty-nest and are on old-age pensions. When she gets home in the late afternoon or early evening I aim to have a meal ready so she can veg-out, as we say, in front of the TV for the evening. Her energy-levels are low by 7 p.m. and with about three hours to bed-time it’s all down-hill for her to the land of sleep. At 8:30 a movie came on the title of which is the name of this prose-poem. I watched ten minutes of it before returning to my study where I usually spend the evening until after midnight. The same movie was repeated after midnight on another station and I watched another ten minutes of it.

What follows below is a prose-poetic commentary on this movie and my reaction to it. This short piece of writing illustrates how an interest in one thing, in this case a movie, often leads to an interest in another, in this case the former artist Alan Moore. Moore is now, arguably, the world's most famous comic-strip-book writer. His life became the focus of my interest as I wrote this little prose-poem.-Ron Price with thanks to: 7Mate TV and 7Two TV, 10 and 11 April 2011 respectively.

In the past 100 years, 1900 to 2000,
our world underwent changes more
profound than any in its preceding
history, changes that are mostly little
understood by our present generation,(1)
and this movie explored this complex
issue in a way which you could say was
metaphorical: physical reality being thus.(2)

The movie, based on a comic book series
which began publishing the year I retired
from full-time teaching in 1999, came out
eight years ago, but I have been busy with
new life, recreating myself as writer-editor,
publisher-poet, journalist perhaps scholar;
so this-the movie and comics-was all news
to me until last night before-after midnight.

I did read about Alan Moore who created the
comic book series & his story was much more
interesting to me than the movie-thanks Alan.(3)

1 Century of Light, Foreword, The Universal House of Justice, Baha’i World Centre, 2001.
2 John Hatcher, “The Metaphorical Nature of Physical Reality,” Nov. 1977, Baha’i Studies, No.3.
3 For a detailed account of the comic book series and Alan Moore’s life go to Wikipedia.

Ron Price
12 April 2011

[Psychotime]

Alan Moore's a weird guy. He takes his writing seriously, though. No doubt about that.

[QueenGwenevere]

Holy cow, that's more capitals than I can take in one sitting... o_O

His writing is excellent, but I think he needs to fix his caps-lock. Or learn how to use the return key. Or both. EEEK!

[M_Oreilly]

His drawings are amazingly hideous- but in that good way. Each one seems to peer out from the page and say, "Yeah, I meant to do that..."

The movie was truly awful, there's so much wrong with that movie, but the worst is the dry reaming Mina Harker's character received, just unacceptable!

[TinyBird]

His drawings are amazingly hideous- but in that good way.

You mean Alan Moore's drawings? Or Kevin O'Neill's?

[M_Oreilly]

I had to look this up, I was under the impression that Alan wrote and illustrated League. But yes, I guess i'm referring to Kevin O'Neill.

[Dpendleton]

You know Alan Moore can draw to a certain extent.

[Aly Fell]

If you've never seen Moore's Maxwell the Magic Cat which he drew under the pseudonym Jill de Ray (ho ho), seek it out. Very funny. Used to be in our local paper in Northamptonshire...

[Psychotime]

Looks like I've learned something new today.

[RonPrice]

Thanks for your responses in the last several days, folks, to my initial post. This has to be one of the most creative threads I've yet seen in the 1000s of threads I've been part of in cyberspace in the last decade: 2001 to 2011. ConceptArt.org Forums has proved an interesting site since I joined several years ago. Thanks again you chaps.-Ron Price, George Town, Tasmania