Watchmen was arguably Alan Moore’s greatest achievement, a piece of work which pushed the boundaries of the art form and propelled him to heights rarely experienced by a comic book writer.  As we touched on in the last article, the fame which this success brought Moore was not particularly welcome.  His willingness to attend public events waned but his enthusiasm in his work did not.

The work for DC Comics continued and Moore’s story lines tended to concentrate on the frailties of the superheros.  Twilight of the Superheroes (1987) focused on a future in which the earth is dominated by superhero family dynasties (Captain Marvel’s family on one side and Superman/Wonderwoman on the other).

Twilight of the Superheroes (1987)

By the late 1980′s Moore relationship with DC Comics had begun to break down – partly over a financial dispute over royalties but also a comic book age-rating system which DC was promoting.  Howard Chaykin, Marv Wolfman and Frank Miller were other notable employees equally unhappy.  Moore finally left DC in 1989.

The next few years saw a return to writing on British subjects and Moore set up his own publishing company called Mad Love with his wife Phyllis and their shared lover Deborah Delano (the arrangement underlining Moore’s unconventional attitudes).  Gone were the superhero stories to be replaced by social commentary and political comment.  Among his targets were the Conservative governments ‘homophobic’ Clause 28, the CIA and big business.  He also dipped a toe into comic pornography with Lost Girls, an imaginative look at the sex lives of fictional female characters such as Alice (from Wonderland), Dorothy (from Oz) and Wendy (from Peter Pan), although by this time Phyllis and Deborah had absconded with much of the profits from Mad Love and that company had been shut down.

Lost Girls (1991)

Following the Mad Love and the prosaic, everyday political stuff, Alan Moore returned to the superhero genre with Image Comics in 1993 (Image had only been in existence since 1992).  Spawn is probably the best known work from this period and it also marked a return to writing for a younger teenage audience.  It didn’t always go well; WildC.A.T.S. is a prime example of Moore trying to interpret what his audience wanted rather than concentrating on his own narrative.  His biographer, Lance Parkin, said that “you feel Moore should be better than this.  It’s not special.” and Moore was forced to agree.

Image offered Moore the opportunity to essentially produce his own comics under Image’s Wildstorm offshoot but there was disappointment when Image subsequently sold Wildstorm to DC Comics.  Moore had called his new venture America’s Best Comics (ABC) and it took the persuasion of two Image executives to reassure Moore that his work for ABC (under DC) would be unimpeded.  Moore stuck with the venture and subsequently produced The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a fan favourite from this period and Tom Strong, a slightly more adult-oriented superhero strip.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999)

Although the enterprise almost inevitably ended in arguments, Moore did stick with ABC for almost ten years until he returned to independence in 2009.  In 2005 he had warned that “I love the comics medium.  I pretty much detest the comics industry.  Give it another 15 months, I’ll probably be pulling out of mainstream commercial comics.“  Moore or causer lasted a few years longer than that but ultimately he is an independent voice with the talent and resources to write whatever he wants and he’s still at it now.