Alan Moore gets a lot of credit for changing the comic book industry, but in a new interview with Deadline, he expresses regret over not changing the industry how he hoped. In the interview, promoting his new film The Show, and covering a wide range of topics, from Moore’s take on the current political climate to his thoughts on superhero movies, Moore reveals he wanted to take comics in a more sophisticated direction, but that it ultimately failed, pointing to superhero movies as proof.
Moore roared onto the comics scene in the early 1980s. After years of working in the British comics industry, and creating seminal works such as V for Vendetta, he made his splash in America with a legendary run on Swamp Thing. This was followed by Watchmen, Batman: The Killing Joke and From Hell. In the 90s, Moore pivoted in a more mainstream, but still ground-breaking direction, creating characters such as Promethea and Tom Strong, as well as creating the popular League of Extraordinary Gentlemen franchise. His output has been sporadic in the 21st century, and now it looks as if he is switching gears to the film industry, and leaving comics behind for good.
When Deadline asked how he felt responsible for changing comics, Moore expressed regret that comics did not grow and mature as a genre since he came to the scene, stating that the parade of “endless superhero movies” is proof that comics failed to advance. Moore is critical of the superhero genre overall throughout the interview, but pays special attention to superhero movies, saying they have “blighted” culture.
He elaborates further, saying that while a few comics actually did “grow up,” the majority of the industry did not. Moore also blames the comics industry for commercializing this trend, but not actually delivering a worthy product. Finally, he also lays some of the blame on fans, saying fans just want to read comics “as they always had” but did not want to be viewed as childish, or “subnormal” for doing so.
"It was largely my work that attracted an adult audience, it was the way that was commercialized by the comics industry, there were tons of headlines saying that comics had ‘grown up’. But other than a couple of particular individual comics they really hadn’t."
In the parts of the interview concerning the comics industry, Moore reserves his ire for the superhero genre, referring to it as childish on several occasions. It feels like Moore wanted to move comics away from superheroes and into more diverse territory and genres. Moore has put his money where his mouth is in this regard, having written in the crime and horror genres as well as superheroes. And while non-superhero comics have made inroads over the last twenty years (probably in part thanks to people like Moore) the industry still leans heavily on superheroes, and this shows no sign of letting up.
Source: Deadline