Alan Moore – Page 32 – { feuilleton }

DeZ did it first

Rorschach from The Mindscape of Alan Moore.

The hype over the Watchmen film reached critical mass this week and as a consequence there’s been a spike of interest in the two Alan Moore interviews I posted in 2006, with Empire magazine and other movie sites linking here. I won’t bore you with my lack of interest in the film—read the book, it’s a masterpiece—but it’s worth noting that the feature-length DeZ Vylenz documentary, The Mindscape of Alan Moore, dramatised scenes from V for Vendetta and Watchmen back in 2003, long before Hollywood put either of them on screen. The Rorschach scene is especially interesting for having the opening monologue from Watchmen voiced by Alan himself. I’d never thought of Rorschach having such a gravel-throated delivery until I heard this. If Zack Snyder’s version is the same then you know where they swiped it from.

V’s dressing-room from The Mindscape of Alan Moore.

As I’ve mentioned a few times here, The Mindscape of Alan Moore is available on DVD in Europe and the US and includes a bonus disc of interviews with Alan’s collaborators, Dave Gibbons among them. All the packaging and interface was designed by yours truly.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Mindscape of Alan Moore: US edition
• The Demon Regent Asmodeus
• New things for June
• Alan Moore in Arthur magazine
• Watchmen
• Alan Moore interview, 1988

A design for life

A design for life | Jon Savage on the history of the Smiley symbol: Watchmen, Acid House and beyond.

Readouts

The HAL Project.

January flew by in a blizzard of work so posting here tended to rely more on pictures than words. As usual the things I’ve been designing will be unveiled when they’re closer to being published or released but for now here’s some new or not-so-new items worthy of note.

• The HAL Project screensaver. I’ve never had much time for gaudy screensavers, I prefer something which doesn’t get annoying when I’m otherwise engaged. For a while now I’ve been using the Mac-only Lotsawater which turns your monitor into a vertical water tank with slow motion ripples. I replaced that this week with Joe Mackenzie’s HAL Project screensaver (for Mac and Windows) which throws up random samplings of the HAL 9000 monitor animations from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sounds a bit dull until you see it in action, very crisp and detailed graphics, many of which mimic the animations of those in the film. I’ve belatedly realised how similar these fields of colour and their lines of white type are to the opening titles of A Clockwork Orange, yet another connection between the two films. Now I can sit trying to figure out some of the less obvious 3-letter codes for the spacecraft’s systems; Stanley Kubrick was so thorough you just know they all mean something.

Via the Kubrick obsessives at Coudal.

• A pair of new blogs. Designer Barney Bubbles should need little introduction here but if you require one then read this. Paul Gorman has been in touch to inform me of a new online companion to his BB book, Reasons To Be Cheerful, which already looks like a treat with displays of Bubbles creations that didn’t make the book.

Writer Russ Kick was also in touch this week with news of his books and book culture blog, Books Are People, Too. Russ is the author of several books for Disinformation and his Memory Hole website notoriously caused a headache for the Bush regime when he forced photos of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq onto the front pages of American newspapers.

• Songs of the Black Würm Gism. And speaking of books, the much delayed sequel to DM Mitchell’s landmark Lovecraft anthology, The Starry Wisdom comes shambling into the light of day at last. The Creation Oneiros website describes it thus:

The Black Würm Gism Cult – oceanic insect porn – a vortex of cosmic mayhem stalked by ravening lysergic entities – a post-human psychedelic seizure of Lovecraftian text, art and fragments. SONGS OF THE BLACK WÜRM GISM picks up where the acclaimed anthology THE STARRY WISDOM left off and goes beyond – way beyond! – what H.P. Lovecraft dared to show. Editor D.M. Mitchell presents an illustrated brainstorm of visceral deep-sea dream currents, aberrant trans-species sex visions, and frenzied ophidian entropy.

Contributors include: alan moore (cover illustration), john coulthart (introduction), grant morrison, david britton, ian miller, john beal, david conway, kenji siratori, herzan chimera, james havoc, reza negarestani, & many others

Yes, the rather pompous introduction for this volume is mine and the cover is Alan Moore’s psychedelic arachnoid rendering of the demon Asmodeus, the same picture I used to create my little hidden film on the Mindscape of Alan Moore DVD. The Starry Wisdom roused a vaporous fury among the more staid Lovecraft readers so I look forward to seeing what squeaks of outrage this new book inspires. Publication is set for September 2009 but you can order it now from Amazon and other outlets.

• Ghost Box haunts again. And if anything was going to provide a suitable soundtrack to “aberrant trans-species sex visions, and frenzied ophidian entropy” you could do worse than some of the works of the Ghost Box collective, especially the spooky and abrasive Ouroborindra by Eric Zann. Ritual and Education is a new download-only sampler of Ghost Box tracks and probably an ideal place to start if your curiosity is piqued by my recurrent raves about these releases. From An Ancient Star is the latest CD from Belbury Poly which swaps the Pelican Books graphics of earlier works for a convincing piece of crank lit. cover art which wouldn’t look out of place in the RT Gault archives.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Demon Regent Asmodeus
• The Séance at Hobs Lane
• Ghost Box
• 2001: A Space Odyssey program

Designs on Doctor Dee

Some work news. I finished this CD design last year but, as is often the case with these things, it’s taken a while to make its way into the world. This was the final piece of the Mindscape of Alan Moore project and it’s probably the last thing I’ll do which makes use of the famous Sigillum Dei Aemeth of Doctor John Dee (1527–1608), wax versions of which can be seen in the British Museum. Alan Moore is a great Dee aficionado and since the sigil appears in the DeZ Vylenz documentary it made sense to use it for the DVD package and interface. This led in turn to a new poster design for the film (below) and—eventually—the soundtrack CD. The latter should be shipping shortly from Shadowsnake Films.

Lastly, and also design-related, the New York Times this week had a short piece about designer Barney Bubbles based around Paul Gorman’s Reasons to be Cheerful book. My quote about Barney’s Hawkwind work being “cosmic Art Nouveau” was borrowed from the book’s text and the piece features one of those slideshow selections the NYT does so well. Once again it’s great to see how Paul’s book is stimulating new interest and appraisal of work which was neglected for far too long.

DVD menu.

Continue reading “Designs on Doctor Dee”

The Mindscape of Alan Moore: US edition

Yes, it’s that film again. The feature-length documentary by DeZ Vylenz about the Northampton Magus receives its official US release through Disinformation on September 30th. I designed the packaging (the original EU inlay is shown above) and the DVD menus.

As I’ve said before, this is a great film—shot on film, not video—a revealing insight into Alan’s life and work. The set includes a bonus disc of interviews with Alan’s artist collaborators: his wife, Melinda Gebbie (Lost Girls), Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), David Lloyd (V for Vendetta), Kevin O’Neill (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and José Villarubia (Promethea, The Mirror of Love); also an interview with comics historian Paul Gravett.

Big Shiny Robot interviewed director DeZ this week and there’s a trailer at the Shadowsnake Films site. The Mindscape of Alan Moore should be available from all the usual DVD retail outlets.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Demon Regent Asmodeus
• New things for June
• Alan Moore in Arthur magazine
• Watchmen
• Alan Moore interview, 1988