Fucking Hell

I spend a lot of my "spare money" on funnybooks and related items, but even I get royally pissed at the prospect of wasting money on something irrelevant. Now, many people would consider dropping ten bucks on a stretched-out interview with Alan Moore one of the aforementioned 'irrelevant somethings,' but not me. What I do consider bullshit is paying ten bucks for the same fucking Alan Moore interview twice.

I love Alan Moore. It would be ridiculous to point out at this stage that I mean this in a platonic, admiring way, rather than a sexually charged one. Make of it what you will; we all have artists whom we admire. I really dig Moore's work; I mean really, really dig it. I've read his works dozens and dozens of times over, and scrape up any interviews, text-pieces, or the like concerning him. Needless to say, I didn't bat too much of an eye when I ordered "Alan Moore Spells it Out" last year from Airwave Publishing.

The book is just under 80 pages, and contains an interview that might just as easily have fit nicely between the covers of an old Comics Journal or the like. It certainly wasn't bad, but as I said, it's pretty much a straight-up interview with Moore, formatted as a 'question and answer,' rather than prose. The dude who did the interview, Bill Baker, basically just typed out the questions he asked and Alan's responses, verbatim. It didn't exactly take too much effort, I'm sure. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the book; my point is, it's not a classic by any stretch.

So I felt a little burned at dropping a ten spot on it, but overall I was pretty pleased with the content. It was an interview of substantial length, and they covered some pretty cool ground. Again, it wasn't earth-shattering, but it was pretty decent. When I ordered "Alan Moore on His Work and Career" about a year later, memories of the previous tome flittered through my mind. I didn't want to waste more money on a glorified Wizard piece.

Imagine my utter disgust earlier this evening, as my shipment of funnybooks arrived, and I cracked open the cover of this latest inter-biography (tm), only to find it is the exact same interview.

College textbook manufacturers make big money off of 'revised editions,' since every school pretty much has to dump the old ones and order up the new version. The thing is, they have a certain percentage of content which has to be changed in order for it to qualify as a 'revised edition,' or so I was once told by a learned man. The thing is, the cover itself counts for the majority of that 'percentage,' so all they really have to do is slap a new cover on it and change the page numbers. I expect that kind of behavior from the piss-stained halls of Upper Academia, but not from the ever-lovin' funnybook realm.

I cracked that goddamn book open right away, and shut the pages in disgust within a minute or two. Hey, it took me that long to realize. Glancing at the indicia, I noticed it said "Large portions of this book were previously published as Alan Moore Spells It Out." Large portions? Try the whole fucking thing! They tacked on some bullshit at the end, like an 'Awards List' and an expanded (but pathetically far from complete) bibliography of Moore's work.

The real kicker is that they also added a glossary. A fucking glossary! Can you believe it? Thankfully it was two pages long, giving them ample space to explain what such mind-boggling concepts as "Synopsis," "Almanac," and "Epiphany" mean. Thank heavens; I'd have been lost without it.

Even more baffling is that, after an eighty-eight page (they made the font bigger) interview in which Moore discusses his entire career, pretty much from start to finish, the powers-that-be decided to slap on an "About the interviewee" blurb. Again, this is fucking retarded. This isn't on the back cover; oh, no. It's tucked within, beefing up that oh-so precious page count. What a bunch of happy horse shit. Who the fuck would need to read a one-paragraph "About the Interviewee" after they've read almost one hundred pages worth of his own words? That's like giving "Hello, My Name Is" stickers to everyone as they exit a conference room.

Now that I sound like a crotchety old spendthrift, allow me to backpedal a bit. I am assuming the initial volume is out of print, and has been usurped into this "Talking with Graphic Novelists" series' banner. That's all well and good, and if you enjoy Moore's work I actually reccommend seeking out this book. Just don't get it if you already have "Alan Moore Spells it Out." I just wish they would have warned a brother.