STAFF PICKS :: NEMO: HEART OF ICE :: FEBRUARY 27, 2013
CRAIG’S PICK :: NEMO: HEART OF ICE: When the final volume of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s most recent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen story–Century: 2009–arrived in comic shops last June, it generated some heat. Sean Collins hand-wrung his way through a review on the Comics Journal website, arguing that the exhausted, dispirited tone of Moore and O’Neill’s story (which, incidentally, posits Harry Potter as the Antichrist and Mary Poppins as Yahweh) was a perfect expression of the Bearded Mage’s personal distaste for contemporary popular culture. Meanwhile, the critics at the Comic Books Are Burning in Hell podcast devoted an entire episode to Century: 2009; Matt Seneca claimed that the most significant British authors of our generation are Moore and J.K. Rowling (suck it, Martin Amis!), while Joe McCullough wondered aloud if Moore’s takedown of Rowling has less to do with jockeying for canonical position, and more to do with a persistent strain of sexism in Moore’s work.
Me? I liked Century: 2009 fine, though none of the Extraordinary Gentlemen tales has ever reached the lucid artistry of my favorite Moore pieces, such as “The Anatomy Lesson” (Steve Bissette and John Totleben!), “The Bowing Machine” (Mark Beyer!) and every single solitary panel of From Hell (Eddie Campbell!). Century: 2009 seemed to me a fine second-tier Moore comic, revved up by the taboo-busting that’s always been a hallmark of Gentlemen. After the way the Invisible Man is murdered at the end of LOEG volume 2, and after the irreverence with which James Bond is treated in LOEG: Black Dossier (not to mention Moore’s dredging-up of “The Galley-Wag” from the Empire’s racist Imaginary), did we really expect Moore and O’Neill to treat the Hogwarts-verse with respect? Why would we want them to?
The next LOEG book, a single 56-page comic titled Nemo: Heart of Ice, drops this week. The central character is Janni Dakkar, the daughter of Captain Nemo, who has inherited the super-submarine Nautilus and decides to explore the Antarctic in her vessel. The description of the book on the Top Shelf Comix website blatantly reveals Moore’s inspirations this go-round–we’ll be plunging into the frozen hell of Charles Dexter Ward/Mountains of Madness territory–though I hope Janni will also sing some Brecht/Weill show tunes like she did in the first volume of Century. (It might be tough to smuggle “Alabama Song” into a story that takes place at the South Pole.) And I bet Kevin O’Neill’s draws some mucousy, multi-orificed, calamari/Caligari Lovecraft creatures..!
You know…I think people take Alan Moore a little too seriously. They get too caught up in trying to ferret out subtext and intention and take for granted that….THE GUY IS TRYING TO ENTERTAIN THEM. When you read his interviews, sure, he comes off as super serious, but hear him speak: he’s deadpan, but c’mon…dude’s British. They’re renowned for dry senses of humor. It’s like Morrissey, to the casual observer (or misguided fanatic) it seems to be something dire, when really it’s quite funny. That’s what I took from 2009. Moore’s taking the piss, sure, but he’s leaving out the vinegar. It’s just a good ribbing. People need to calm down.
Ditto on the sexist contingent. The “comic book press” is so starved for material, they are ever-ready to pounce at the slightest whiff of “controversy” (see also: Dave Sim’s misogyny). Overreaction seems legion for these alleged “journalists”; we as the audience must bear in mind that it’s our responsibility to think for ourselves.
Justin, your comment seems to posit that the enjoyment of a comic is the exact opposite of an appraisal of its moral or ethical value—that if we start to think about the supposed sexism of Moore’s comics, it ruins the fun.
That’s not how it works for me, though. I’m perfectly OK believing that Moore is both (a.) a great formalist comics writer, and (b.) a writer with a disturbing fixation on rape (WATCHMEN obviously, but NEONOMICON especially). And I enjoy talking about and analyzing both these aspects of Moore’s career (and other aspects as well). For me, fun and analysis really aren’t as antithetical as you claim.
Dave Sim’s comics have only a “whiff of controversy”? Hmm. I think they smelled a lot stronger than that. “Tangents” and the Biblical revisionism in the later issues of CEREBUS reads like attempts to proselytize rather than entertain…
I don’t think analysis and entertainment are antithetical, and didn’t mean to imply that. What I mean is it’s easy to OVERanalyze a medium that is – at its core – entertainment. Approaching fiction from a moral standpoint is a slippery slope. I don’t necessarily care about an author’s personal intent. I think a lot of people lose sight of their own power as a reader, their ability to interpret, when they get too caught up in the “outrage” surrounding a strong personality. It’s an impulse I’ve tried hard to shake over the years, and it’s a tough one, ‘cause it’s only natural.