Annalisa Di Liddo-Alan Moore Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel (Great Comics Artists Series) (2009) by Annalisia Di Liddio

Author:Annalisia Di Liddio [Liddio, Annalisia Di]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-01-10T15:39:57+00:00

116

moore and the

crIsIs of

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Ish Ident

Ity

moore and the

crIsIs of

engl

Ish Ident

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Fig. 3-5. Evey muses about V’s identity. From V for Vendetta, pages 249–50. © DC Comics.

117

118

moore and the crIsIs of englIsh IdentIty

Fig. 3-6. Interpreter Zhcchz is on his way to Birmingham. From Skizz, page 12 (excerpt). © Rebellion.

in a degraded future society populated by punks and misfits, which in fact

resembles the vision of the future of England offered by Derek Jarman in his

1977 film Jubilee, thus confirming Moore’s penchant for erudite quotation while

also paying tribute to another great homosexual artist. The society of Halo Jones

proves unable to provide for its members: the young woman ends up roaming

the galaxies, because the lack of a steady job compels her to move constantly.

Unemployment is also among the central motifs of Skizz, which Moore pub-

lished in 1983 in collaboration with artist Jim Baikie. In this work, the jobs issue

powerfully stands out thanks to the setting: the story takes place in the indus-

trial city of Birmingham in the 1980s. An alien from a faraway planet lands in

the outskirts of town after an accident with his spaceship. Before managing to

leave the Earth, he makes friends with a young student called Roxy despite the

merciless persecutions of the British intelligence. The plot of the graphic novel

develops a motif well known in science-fiction narrative, and besides, Skizz was

serialized shortly after Steven Spielberg’s film E.T. was released. Its most strik-

ing elements, then, reside in the abundance of references to English culture. As

Brent Keane stated in an article on NinthArt, “Skizz is very much a product of

its time and place: the early days of England under Thatcher. A time of high

unemployment, of miners’ strikes and white riots, of another music in a dif-

ferent kitchen—the dying strains of punk, dub and reggae infecting the main-

stream. . . . Far from being jarring, though, the cultural details serve to anchor

the story, rather than to pull focus from it” (Keane “Skizz”). Moore is right

when he ironically defines his comic book as “an ultra-realistic saga” (Moore,

“Skizz” 5) in his introduction to the collected edition. The science fiction story,

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