Illuminations: Stories

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More vexing than the label, though, is the theme: an extended hatchet job on the US comics industry. There was a sense of real, horrifying danger that underlies Moore's imagination and it is visible from the very first page. Another I sort of have, the opening Hypothetical Lizard, in that I have the comics adaptation, but I remembered little past the premise from that, so can only assume it didn't do full justice to the story as collected here, which is an ingenious, poisonous thing, its prose bolstering the horror of the premise, as when a key character wrings her hands: "They looked like crabs mating after having been kept too long in the dark. I kept stopping to absorb and appreciate the exact way he spins a phrase or the way in which he reveals the mind of a character, all the subtle and indirect associations that give us a true insight into the meaning behind each story. Watchmen and From Hell creator Alan Moore on Illuminations: 'I wanted to exorcise my negative thoughts about comics' ".

The second is as a bitter screed by a creator intent on taking revenge on those who took advantage of him by turning everyone in the industry, whether they deserve it or not, into grotesque caricatures.In addition to an often dangerous undercurrent, another theme is the notion that no one can be trusted. Alcune storie lasciano frastornati e l’interpretazione è spesso astratta e soggettiva, come se l’autore volesse metterci alla prova chiedendo uno sforzo emotivo e riflessivo in più.

There's no path out to successful creator-owned work, certainly no big films or TV shows based on properties the creators still own, such as The Walking Dead.It’s a fake Beat poem about a one-day pilgrimage across San Francisco – another Alan Moore thematic retread, aping Joyce, having a character wander, doing little but evoking all sorts of tension and mystery based on geolocation alone. I read it once before and confess I didn't reread it in Illuminations; perhaps illustrating Moore's limits, Anthony Johnston's mid-2000s comics adaptation, which I prefer to the story proper, mutes its ornate verbosity and clarifies its central conflict.