Post 2 - Magus:Transpisciplinary Approaches to the Work of Alan Moore

(Melinda & Alan)
Saturday
We were straight in with the Panel on "Schizo Alliances"
Starting with Gary Lloyd (musician and producer) talking about "Moore and Music".
It was an interesting presentation on Moore's use of music over the years, from reading poetry to music, to the reference by PWIE (Alan Moore knows the score) and his own vocal range. Hearing Moore described as "oddly designed as an instrument" was amusing. It was a nice way to start the morning, something entertaining and less academic.

Next up was Cyril Camus (University of Toulouse) on "Neil Gaiman: A Portrait of the Artist as a Disciple of Alan Moore". Cyril considered the practical and extra fictional influence on Gaiman. He looked at Gaiman's willingness to pull characters from a blend of mythologies and religions, reality and his own mind and throw them together in his stories, also his use of mythological characters in a real setting. Similarities between 'Whatever Happened to the Man or Tomorrow' by Moore and Gaiman's 'Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader' were also drawn.

Finishing off the first session was Jasmine Shadrack (University of Northampton) on "V vs Hollywood: A Discourse on Polemic Thievery". Jasmine gave a very animated talk, obviously passionate about the political issues raised in V and talking about the impact the book had on her. She confesses to liking the film in spite of herself an dbeing pleased with some of what it did, but disappointed at the removal of the other female plots leaving only Yvie. She talked about Brian McFarlane's assertion that when adapting it is most important that the filmaker finds some sort of truth for themselves and the audience.

The panel I missed for this was on Chronotopia with Michel De Dobbeleer (Ghent Uni), Jochen Ecke (Uni of Mainz) & Charlie Blake (Liverpool Hope). Since I only just discovered what a chronotope was i'm not sure i'd have followed anyway.

After Lunch I opted for "Leaping Mediums"
Starting off with Stephen Keane (Uni of Northampton) whose field is film rather than Moore and who was looking a "Watching the Watchmen: From Panels to Frames in Watchmen".
Keane considered techniques that can be used in films to create the sense of recreating the comic experience, such as not moving the camera during the scene so we have the controlled view a panel provides.

Aine Young (Queen's University Belfast) presented "From Hell: The Adverse Journey from page to screen". Aine looked at the need to compress the extensive books into a movie and the level of comprimise this lead to. The part of her talk that interested me most was her discussion on Moore's effort to create a realistic vision of Victorian London and the move away from typical comic book art against the film using familiar cues to remind viewers they were watching a comic book movie.
In the last paper of the weekend Ian Dawe (Selkirk College, Canada) presented on "The Moore Film Adaptations and the Erotic - Grotesque". The focus was on From Hell and LXG. The discussion of Moore's use of groteque and carnivalesque was interesting and the role of Carnivalesque in society was particularly interesting to me as an almost anthropological perspective. The analysis of the films looked at how they had variously altered or removed these elements.

Alan Moore:
Ok this is what you all really came to hear about. Alan and Melinda turned up toward the end of lunch, mingled for a little while, were totally delightful and then headed into the hall for interviews and q&a.
(quotes may be slightly paraphrased rather than exact but are as close as I could get)
Asked what he made of the even Alan expressed his pleasure at discovering there were people out there considering levels he'd put into the books believing he would be the only person ever to notice them. He talked about the importance of language as a means of consolidating reality and the interdisciplinary approach to art in the 60's. Moore described artists as all being 'propagandists for their own state of mind'.
Asked about cruelty for transformation Alan said he felt it was neccessary in comics and expecially super hero comics where characters are polarised well beyond real life.
'Transformation requires a hot crucible'. Moore also agreed 'I am quite apocolyptic' defining apocolypse as meaning a shattering revelation.
Talking about magic Moore explained that he had gone as far as he could with rationalism and needed something beyond rationality which took him into magic which he considers a linguistic phenomenon. Quoting From Hell 'the one place gods inarguably exist is in the human mind'.
Talking about Moore's revelation on his 40th that he was a magician conversation then moved onto his 50th and the withdrawl around that time from the comic and film industries. Moore has been following his desire to focus on his home town and the issues in the neighbourhood he grew up in, which lead to the creation of his underground, paper only magazine, Dodgem Logic.
It is Moore's belief that globalism and globalisation will disapear and people will become more community based again.
Talking about the future it appears that the opera planned in collaboration with the Gorillaz will not be forthcoming, however the Bumper Book of Magic, with a Moore designed tarot deck will be.

Melinda Gebbie
Melinda talked about her work on Lost Girls and the need to include the darker elements of sex and sexuality as well as her role in the underground movement of 70's San Francisco. She is presently working on her memoirs where she will discuss this part of her life and the people around her. She talked about her artisitc influences, Kuniyoshi, Klimt and Rousseau. Melinda talked about art as a personal language needing midwifery rather than castigation when asked about the formal teaching of art, stressing the ease with which the self the artist puts into their work can be destroyed.

Alan & Melinda answered a number of questions together on various subjects and i'm afraid I was so sucked in I just have a handful of quotes and comments, which are in some cases paraphrased and I can't tell you who said all of them.
Discussing the nature of time - 'Live every moment as though we have to live it forever' AM
& 'Persistant illusion of transcience' AM
Describing humanity and earth if we are the only planet with sentient ife 'the last box of crayons' MG
Moore decribed artistic influences as a form of 'serial possession' and suggested that losing the empire had given the British more depth of character culturally.

And that is all I wrote. Well, I didn't give you all my notes on each paper but that would be a post per paper and who has time! There are rumours though of some of the papers being gathered in a journal and published so if and when that happens I shall let you all know. It was a brilliant weekend and all the papers led to interesting discussions in the q&a sessions.

For those of you who are interested a couple fo Alan Moore's books have been reviewed here on Un:Bound:
Moore, Alan - Watchmen , Watchmen (2) , Voice of Fire , From Hell ,
and my picture from this and other events are here.