Most People Still Haven't Read Alan Moore's Work, And We're Doomed
The author Alan Moore (Wiki Commons)
Let's face it, most people still don't know who the writer Alan Moore is.
Today is Alan Moore's 66th birthday, and I wanted to write to you to tell you that it's urgent for more people to read Alan's work.
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons published the comic Watchmen to the world in mid 80's Reagan era, and since then, that novel has won several awards and risen to become one of the most important books of the 20th century. It's right up there with classics such as Heart of Darkness, The Great Gatsby, Lolita and Ulysses. This is not hyperbole on my part. I really mean it.
Did you know that it was Watchmen's ideas that inspired me to write How to Kill a Superhero? Yes. Although most vanilla people and non-readers may not know this, I wrote my series in order to purge myself of the romantic ideas about superheroes, and to explain to the world, that superheroes who would have real lives and real sexualities wouldn't look like goody-too-shoes men in tights in the Hall of Justice. That's the irony, folks. Most people think I'm in love with everything having to do with superheroes, but it's in fact the opposite. With everything I write in my books and create visually, I am still trying to dissect and take apart the superhero archetype.
My main character Roland turned out to be a sort of monster, with a taste for secrecy and violent sex. Throughout the four books, he is very aware that people dressed in bright spandex fighting crime would never measure up to his real-world job, which was to be a nurse. I wrote my book as a fuck-you to people who think that superheroes are meant to be safe, palatable and straight.
And I owe that inspiration to Alan Moore, and certainly Dave Gibbons, who did more than simply illustrate in the masterpiece that is Watchmen.
It's a damn shame that most people still haven't read any of Alan's work. Of course, if you have glanced at social media or Google in the past fifteen years you know that Alan hates the comics industry, the superhero genre, and most mainstream media. And in fact, he even had the producers of Alan Snyder's Watchmen film remove his name from the movie altogether. He keeps a low profile and is not on social media, so it's not surprising that a new generation of readers don't know who the hell he is, or why they should care about his writing. He has chosen to keep away, even if it means less fame and money.
It takes some fucking balls to do that, and Alan Moore is the baddest motherfucker, because he has the writing chops to do it. And I'm not talking just about Watchmen. He wrote Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, From Hell, and many more classics. And every single one of those movies has turned out horribly, in my opinion. No one can truly capture Alan's intellectual and witty ideas on film. Yet.
I feel strongly about Watchmen as a book. Every person on the planet should be reading that book, especially as the buzz around HBO's new series based on the franchise is ramping up. Before we even had the word LGBTQ ally, Alan Moore was already writing queer characters and people of color to be on our side, and to fight against fascism, corporate greed and government surveillance. Alan Moore literally changed the consciousness of his readers, but nowadays, you wouldn't know it, because reading is on the decline.
You see, we live in an age of laziness. Day by day, I meet more people who tell me, "I wish I had more time to read books, Pablo." Or they say, "I used to read so much, but I just can't." The worst is when they just flat out say "I don't read." When they say that last one, I want to punch their teeth out of their skull. They tell me these things with a straight face, even though we know they are spending their free time on Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and other smartphone activities.
Look, I am also busy and get hooked on my phone, but I still make time to read every fucking day for at least one hour or two. Anyone can do this.It's not superhuman nor special.
I try not to judge people based on their political views, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or religion. But I do judge motherfuckers on one single issue: reading books. If a person doesn't read books, he, she or they have failed at being a human. They have chosen to be trash. People may think my stance on this is too harsh, but take a fucking look around the world right now. We have an onion-faced dictator in the White House. Climate change is cooking the planet and destroying species, including us. We have cops killing black people, and white kids with guns killing school children on almost a daily basis. Our whole civilization is on the decline. Reading isn't a magic solution, but if more people read books instead of fuck around on the internet, we would be making more progress. Books can help all people learn more about human consciousness and what is required to make this a better world. It's why I still consume books like they're crack, and why I write and publish a book about once a year.
People like to say that we are living in a dystopia. If we use amount of books being read as a measuring stick, we are. And we are all going to suffer from it.
Today's message is truly an homage to Alan Moore, who I respect, because he has never minced words. I hope that if you have never read Watchmen, that you will reach out to me one day to tell me what you thought of it. And hell, if you have read a good book recently, tell me about that too. I would rather hear about your latest read than episodes of The Mandalorian.
Let's raise our wizarding cups to Alan Moore, and let's wish him many more decades on this planet.
–Pablo Greene
