I love Alan Moore. He is the greatest things that happened to comics ever, and he is a damned good writer in his own right. After this overlong comedy of comics we get an analysis of an imagined beatnik poem. While it is clever it... well, I think it is easy to write a clever piece, if you do it with analysis in mind. Also, I didn't really see the point of the whole thing. A critique of literary critics perhaps? You called comics "sublime" just then and it really does feel like, despite everything, you still have a love for the medium. Is that fair? He reminded me of your character from Voice of the Fire’s 'I Travel In Suspenders,' who’s like the most terrifying guy ever.

The centerpiece of Illuminations is 'What We Can Know About Thunderman,' and it discusses the ideas at the core of superhero stories, but also the power of myth to influence people without them necessarily knowing why. What makes those concepts go together? Some of the most grotesque scenes I've embellished and in some of them I've flat out lied, but I think that it captures the character of the comics industry and a lot of the most physically appalling things in there are very close to actual reality. I’d like to start by asking, how are you doing? I've read that you’re still socially isolating as much as possible. How have you been? So, how do we be human? If we've got everything we want, how do we be human? You can’t, can you? How is there any feeling in anything that humans do in the face of these demigods? They cancel humanity. That’s basically my objection to them.Díaz, Junot (October 10, 2022). "The Genre-Shattering Fictions of Alan Moore". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. When you’re talking about the foundation of myths, and that’s sort of an undercurrent of a lot of Illuminations, I can’t help but think of Voice of the Fire, particularly 'Hob's Hog.' For readers who don’t know what 'Hob’s Hog' is, it’s a pastiche of a traditional hero’s tale. He tries to get the girl, he tries to kill the wizard, and it doesn’t quite work. The first time I heard about virtual reality, I said somewhat cynically, ‘Oh, yeah, like there’s another kind…’ because we already have a virtual reality, it’s just that our headset is our head. We don’t experience reality directly, it’s compiled somewhere on the loom of our consciousness from the sensory expressions that we receive. And we do that moment by moment. So it’s not that big a leap between reality as we experience it and virtual reality. Would it be possible

O'Reilly, Séamas (October 11, 2022). "Watchmen and From Hell creator Alan Moore on Illuminations: 'I wanted to exorcise my negative thoughts about comics' ". Independent.ie . Retrieved October 21, 2022.That’s why I completely freaked out when I got my newest ARC from the man, the mystical, the legend! You talk about Thunderman as being sort of a disappointing father figure. How much of this would you say this is part of the American sense of having to “level the playing field?” Perhaps my favorite story of the bunch is "The Improbably Complex High-Energy State" (2019), which frames the birth of sentient life as concurrent, and implicitly synonymous, with the birth of hegemony - and, pursued far enough, the birth of totalitarianism and fascism. The story balances the cosmic wonder and whimsy of Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics with a profound cynicism; the epic rise and fall of the first empire in this story's nascent universe takes place over an immeasurably short span of time, so as to say, in a very Moore fashion: "This may as well never have happened, insofar as it always happens just like this; it is ugly, and inevitable, and completely absurd." Much happier. I think that those last four stories in Illuminations feel like I have a certain spring in my step and a lot of enthusiasm. I've got a freedom now and all the work I'm doing is work that I own and I’m being legitimately rewarded for it. So yeah, this is delightful. It's a good way to end up and the work that I'm doing, I'm really, really pleased with.

You know, John Dee, actually – much as I think he is probably the greatest magician in history in terms of his effect on the world – it has to be said that most of that effect was negative. Dee invented the British Empire, which was probably not a good thing. It was John Dee who invented America, in that he came up with a plausible-sounding legend by which Elizabeth could claim that America already belonged to England. He wanted to create a world based upon Christian Kabbalah which had Elizabeth I essentially as a kind of moon queen at the centre of it. No, I don't think that having a court magician would be a good idea at all. Braswell, Liz (October 14, 2022). "Science Fiction & Fantasy: Alan Moore's 'Illuminations' ". Wall Street Journal . Retrieved October 22, 2022. In a Nutshell: This anthology will find its niche audience. But it wasn’t for me. Too longwinded and slow-paced. There’s probably no better person to write a biography of “TV talking head, pop culture conceptualist, entrepreneur and bullshitter” Tony Wilson than Paul Morley, a man who formed an esoteric writing career in his Manchester orbit. Still, Morley immediately understands the pitfalls of this enterprise: he calls Wilson “beautiful, foolish, dogmatic, charming. Impossible.” This moving portrait of Manchester from the late 1970s onwards is richer, more complicated and thoughtful than mere biography; a history, of sorts, of a city long since passed into memory. I decided, when I was drunk on my 40th birthday, that I was going to become a magician. Then, when I sobered up the next day, I realized that I was going to have to go through with that, no matter how ridiculous it made me look. The first person that I sought advice from was my friend and mentor of many years, Steve Moore, who taught me how to write comics, whom I’d known since I was 14 or 15, and who was my greatest friend. He was already involved in a strange metaphysical relationship with the Greek moon goddess, Selene. His relationship with that goddess was probably the biggest romantic relationship of his life. And that isn’t necessarily a tragic thing. Because it was a real relationship. Having experienced it at close hand, it was as good a relationship as many physical, real-world relationships that I’ve witnessed.

Alan Moore: I’ve been in Northampton forever. I’ve barely been out of this house for the entire pandemic. Me and Melinda [Gebbie, Moore’s wife and collaborator] have been shielding. I think pandemics are pretty much tailor-made for writers. This is how we live, not seeing our friends for months on end, living in a silent room without any communications from the outside world. We’ve been handling it all right, I think. Yet Illuminations isn't a claim to perfection from a literary titan whose every word is thunderous and wondrous, but an exercise - and a mostly successful one. It serves as a reminder of Moore's oft-overlooked grounding; like the worlds he builds, he exists simultaneously in the sweeping cosmic gestures and in the minuscule and intimate. When he falters, it's often due to either his excessive need for control or his often-uninterrogated social premises; when he succeeds, it's almost impossible to deny that he is among the finest craftsmen most of us can name. Illuminations is his way of saying "I am large, I contain multitudes" - and for worse or (more often) for better, he proves himself right. Side note: I just read Moore’s Fashion Beast and I definitely got the feeling these were written around the same time in his career. If you enjoyed the overall feel of that one, you’ll love this one! Moore scholars of the future will be able to spend whole careers annotating this Dunciad of the comic-book world: but his postlapsarian anger gives it a vigour and depth of feeling that will resonate even with readers who don’t know the heavily hinted at real-life identities of the characters – indeed, they might be the story’s ideal readers, as they won’t be distracted by the point scoring.