Magic Words The Extraordinary Life of Alan Moore by Lance Parkin

Magic Words The Extraordinary Life of Alan Moore by Lance Parkin

Author:Lance Parkin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Aurum Press
Published: 2013-11-07T00:00:00+00:00


‘At his fortieth birthday party, he declared himself a magician. He wasn’t of course. He couldn’t even do balloon animals. Not long after that, he started worshipping a snake. You can see how we might have worried about him.’

Leah Moore, Introduction to The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore

On 18 November 1993, Alan Moore announced to his friends and family that he would be devoting his time to the study and practice of magic – and early the following year, he declared that he had become a devotee of the snake god Glycon. Since then, much of his work has been inspired by his exploration of magic, even ‘subsumed within magic’, while the art itself represents ‘communiques from along the trail’ of his progress.

Most interviews with Moore and articles about him have made a point of touching on the subject of his belief system. His pronouncements contain clear elements of showmanship and bullshitting – he once told the NME ‘I am a wizard and I know the future’, and fobbed off another interviewer with the reply ‘since the Radiant Powers of the Abyss have personally instructed me to prepare for Armageddon within the next twenty years, this is all pretty academic. Next question’ – but this theatricality is entirely consistent with his brand of magic, indeed is a vital part of the process.

Moore is a magician who is more than happy to explain what he is doing and what he hopes to achieve: ‘I’m prepared to lay it on the line: if I do something … I’m quite prepared for people to say “Well, that isn’t magic”. Or, “That isn’t any good”,’ he says with a chuckle. ‘I’m prepared to do it in the open, on a stage, in front of hundreds of strangers and they can decide whether it’s magic or not. That seems to me to be the fairest way. Not to put yourself above criticism by only performing in darkened rooms with a couple of initiated magical pals. Do it in the open, where people can see what you have up your sleeve. Where they can see the smoke and the mirrors. And where they can see the stuff that appears authentic.’ Regular revelations in interviews and essays along the lines that he had advanced so far as to be exploring the sixth of ten Sephira of the Tree of Life, or that he had on 11 April 2002 ‘acceded to the grade of Magus, the second highest level of magical consciousness’ have led numerous critics, readers and colleagues (although, tellingly, few friends or family) to wonder if Alan Moore has gone at least a bit mad.

Since walking away from DC, Moore had worked on Big Numbers, From Hell and Lost Girls, all projects defined both by great artistic ambition and a vicious circle of massive delays and funding issues. He had been writing his prose novel, Voice of the Fire, but this was also proving to be slow going. Nothing came of his plan to illustrate Steve Moore’s Victorian-set graphic novel Endymion.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.