The Pocket Essential Alan Moore by Lance Parkin

This is an update of a 2001 printing of this book, a comprehensive guide to master graphic novelist Alan Moore. The book’s approach is, roughly, to tell Moore’s life story, pausing for analysis whenever Moore writes something new. This works quite well, because after promising beginnings Alan Moore’s work became consistently fascinating. From Marvelman and V for Vendetta through Watchmen and From Hell to the present day, this book covers it all succinctly but fully. There have been personal low points for Moore, particularly the legal wrangles over Marvelman and, later, film rights. Parkin summarises these about as concisely as he can. The most revealing sections of the book deal with lost projects, including the very promising Big Numbers which disappeared after one issue. There’s not much in the book that wasn’t in the 2001 edition, but this is a very useful guide for fans of comics. [Keir Hind]