League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century onwards

Chat about stuff other than Transformers.
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Terome
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Post by Terome »

Denyer wrote:Nice find. Not going to be as complete, but the style's engaging. Looking forward to having chance to re-read the books as a set and go through the annotations alongside.

Thoughts on what Haddo was referring to by "subtle game" ?
I took that to be the punchline to all the John Dee / Subtle punnery in the Black Dossier. Haddo recognised Orlando and Mina as what they were - agents of Prospero. Prospero has somehow turned Haddo's strange new age of the 21st century into his own, which I think is Moore's version of a happy ending.

The fact that Mary Poppins is at Prospero's command (or at least his suggestion) is more than a little bit unsettling.

It was a line that certainly got my mind spinning about what the long-ruminated over LOEG: 3000 could be like...

I don't know much about The Books Of Magic - is there anything to suggest that our antichrist here something of a portmandeu of Potter and Hunter and possibly that other one from 2000AD... Luke Kirby? I've not read the Potter books but my girlfriend scanned over those school wanding pages and told me that some of the characters weren't analagous to anything she recognised.

My favourite background detail though was probably the skeleton of Thomas The Tank Engine outside Hogwarts.

Can't shake the feeling, though, that the central premise of Century was kind of misguided. The idea that our collective imaginations and cultural heritage has declined is flat out nonsense, in my opinion.
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Denyer
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Post by Denyer »

Possibly more that we're running out of scope (volume of material produced has multiplied more rapidly over the past century, much of it slight variations) and rushing past most of it in without being affected or engaged, or protagonists harmed in anything other than symbolic (even if fatal) ways. Moore generally offers a more visceral experience that doesn't shy away from consequences and alternative readings, and the characters have a realism even when fantastic.

Bit of a long shot, but possibly Prospero was aiming to delay the moonchild until a point at which Mary Poppins (seemingly this universe's The Authority godhead) wouldn't suffer it to continue - i.e. a modern teenager rather than a less objectionable evil spawn of yesteryear?

Liked Orlando a lot more in this entry than the last two.

Potter's already a fairly generic absorption of earlier "magic school" fiction, including the Worst Witch books I read as a kid. Nevins is starting to build references now -- http://jessnevins.com/annotations/2009annotations.html

That Mindless Ones blog is a neat find; it's always nice to have some opinions and digression with the detail-spotting, even if accuracy isn't the first priority.
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Terome
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Post by Terome »

Yess! Nevins goodness. As the only human being who has never seen The Fast Show, this was a valuable lesson.
Possibly more that we're running out of scope (volume of material produced has multiplied more rapidly over the past century, much of it slight variations) and rushing past most of it in without being affected or engaged
That's probably a better way of looking at it. I'm sure I read somewhere once that remakes and sequels and 'safe' media are pretty closely correlated with economic downturns. If that's true, it's pretty canny to have the recession populated by all these Bond-clones and catchphrase characters. I guess what rankles me is that everyone, Moore included, seems to assume that most culture today is a rehash or a sequel without offering any data. That's almost certainly an example of me spectacularly missing the point, however.
Bit of a long shot, but possibly Prospero was aiming to delay the moonchild until a point at which Mary Poppins (seemingly this universe's The Authority godhead) wouldn't suffer it to continue - i.e. a modern teenager rather than a less objectionable evil spawn of yesteryear?
I'm been puzzling over what exactly Prospero was doing this morning. I think the key is Excalibur. Excalibur seemed to summon Poppins. Orlando was needed, as its wielder and someone who Prospero could easily manipulate and Mina was needed as someone who could get Orlando to focus and carry out his orders.
Incidentally, I loved how Potter recognised Excalibur and thought it was cool. That was a very neat moment amongst the Akira-like carnage of the climax.

So if that specific time and place was vital to Prospero's exceedingly long game, was he behind the failures of previous moonchildren too? Rosemary's baby and Damien are referenced as antichrists that never got off the ground.
Potter's already a fairly generic absorption of earlier "magic school" fiction, including the Worst Witch books I read as a kid.
I knew it was a trope but I wasn't quite aware of how far-reaching it was. I missed just about all of that as a kid. I think I arbitrarily decided on being in the science fiction tribe quite early on.

Was the character who Haddo was inhabiting - the Hogwarts administrator, I think - a reference to anyone? It would make sense that a dispirited and exhausted Haddo would jump into a nobody after Voldemort, but I'd have thought there was someone who fit the bill.

I had a fanciful notion that perhaps Poppins took Haddo's head back in time to hang up in Orlando's room for him to hack at lazily in the opening chapter of the Woolf book. That would be worth a chuckle.
That Mindless Ones blog is a neat find; it's always nice to have some opinions and digression with the detail-spotting, even if accuracy isn't the first priority.
Yeah, they are great fun. I tend to absorb most of my information through listening in on online discussions so a well-coordinated and relatively focused version of that is right up my alley.
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Post by Denyer »

http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/League/loeg0023.html

^ I don't think he's taking aim at all modern culture, but "most" would be a fair target IMO. Besides what passes for TV or bestsellers these days, even mash-ups that achieve a glimmer of popularity such as "zombies meet classics" have become conveyor-belt produced.

(Odds on the Nemo book actually making it out this year?)

Haven't seen comment elsewhere on a Tetsuo analogue, but it jives with the showdown... apophenia's a wonderful thing. Excalibur's been seen previously -- possibly we're meant to take the fact that it's been under wraps for a long time as therefore having greater power because it hasn't been over-exposed. Or possibly, like Fables, recognition gives some ideas more power in certain contexts.

Although the series works as a personal journey for the main characters, I think Moore's gone overboard with the subtlety and abdicated filling in much of a story. The big bad is almost an irrelevance and most of the plot has been passive or negative, rather than injecting much sense of wonder. It's an interesting sprawling mess, but no less a mess.
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Post by Terome »

I guess really I'm just sort of leery of what someone who disdains the internet and computer games on a point of principle has to say about the state of fiction. But then I suppose you're right in that Moore does seem to be mostly talking about the bestsellers and blockbusters, which I'd agree are certainly in a dire way with very few exceptions.
apophenia's a wonderful thing
That could be the phrase that sums up just about everything Moore has done.
Excalibur's been seen previously -- possibly we're meant to take the fact that it's been under wraps for a long time as therefore having greater power because it hasn't been over-exposed. Or possibly, like Fables, recognition gives some ideas more power in certain contexts.
Hadn't thought of it that way. There was very clearly something different about Excalibur this time as opposed to when it being used to slash up pirates. (Didn't Orlando said she'd pawned in back in the 70s? Or was she just saying that to wind up Allan?)
Maybe there's some punnery to do with how Excalibur featured in the original Arthurian legends. I know next to nothing about any of that.
(Odds on the Nemo book actually making it out this year?)
I was in on that Pekar memorial interview - it's available online now, but I seem to recall him saying that 'O Neill had started on the artwork. I'd expect it at around February 2013.
Although the series works as a personal journey for the main characters, I think Moore's gone overboard with the subtlety and abdicated filling in much of a story. The big bad is almost an irrelevance and most of the plot has been passive or negative, rather than injecting much sense of wonder. It's an interesting sprawling mess, but no less a mess.
That's something I quite liked about Century, though I am partial to messes. There does seem to be a whiff of contempt towards the by-the-numbers adventuring of the first volume but there's never been any doubt that Moore generally writes this stuff primarily for his own amusement.
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Terome
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Post by Terome »

More from Mr. and Mrs. Mindless Ones:
http://mindlessones.com/2012/07/01/leag ... ghts-plus/

They get right stuck in!

And there's a guest appearance by Kieron Gillan, who I only just realised is Kieron, that guy who is always on the next table over at comics conventions. He's a nice chap.
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Post by Denyer »

Not long until the Nemo book now...

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/09/04/ ... scription/

edit: And I'm just getting around to reading their breakdown. :up:
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Post by Terome »

I look forward to this coming release.
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Post by Denyer »

Still a bit annoyed it takes annotations to get all that much out of Century. Hoping this next slice is more focused.
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Post by Terome »

Not fussed really, I honestly find the discussion to be a big part of the fun.
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Post by Terome »

Also, this will be a good motivator for brushing up on my Lovecraft. (Fnarr?)
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Denyer
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Post by Denyer »

I'm assuming there'll be flashbacks, so there'll be some trad adventure, and Nemo was always a favourite. Modern fiction struggles to be as interesting unless it's heavily new-concept-based, personally... and it'd be nice if we got characters enjoying themselves a tiny bit before they get assaulted with creatures from beyond.

Immortals whine too much.

edit: I mean, I'm pretty sure I could easily fill a few centuries.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

TBH, the more I re-read anything this side of Vol 2 the more self-indulgent it all seems. The first two minis function as agreat adventure stories with decent characters and backgrounds packed with fun details for those into that sort of thing. BD and Century (which, to be fair, I kicked into orbit after the shower of shit that was 1969) seem to be just trying to check as many boxes as possible with a healthy dose of orchestrated outrage (Bond the **** [blah blah Fleming whatever], Tom Riddle the rapist, Mandingo Golliwogs) and seem to have forgotten having a good story or even really any decent characters in there (we find out everything worth knowing about Orlando after, what, two frames?).
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Terome
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Post by Terome »

Cliffjumper wrote:TBH, the more I re-read anything this side of Vol 2 the more self-indulgent it all seems.
I'd agree with that and the idea that plot structure seems to have fallen completely by the wayside. There are a lot of wasted panels and irrelevancies in 1969 and 2009. Which is odd, coming from Moore, as his scripting is usually a masterclass in structure.

But I like an arch muddle of tick-boxing as much as I like a tightly-plotted romp. The main reason why I like them, I think, is because it seems to get the imagination moving in a pleasing way - hence why the discussion and the theorising is an important part of the book for me.
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Post by Denyer »

League: The Roses of Berlin, Providence and other projects:

http://comicsbeat.com/interview-with-alan-moore-part-1/
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Terome
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Post by Terome »

Cheers, Denyer. Some nice information there. Jerusalem sounds a bit like something Adrian Mole might write.

We didn't talk about Heart Of Ice when it came out. I thought it was great stuff. Nothing mind-blowing but solid through and through. Definitely cast in the mould of Volume Two.
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Post by Denyer »

Yeah, main drawback was it feels rather slight, but the text story at the end helps. I'm sure that with the next couple of shorts it'll round out into a good Janni arc, although I'd have liked more of crew members to have survived, having taken time to establish them.

Could really do with reading She before going back and seeing if the Ayesha bits feel less superfluous -- I enjoyed King Solomon's Mines quite a bit.

Also, have never watched Citizen Kane. Most of Moore's recent League stuff has been drawing from periods that don't have quite the same personal appeal as v1/v2/BD.
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Post by Terome »

Hmm, I didn't think much of the text story. Seemed a little bit too transparent about its function in drawing a family tree. Looking forward to more of Janni and Jack and friends.

And see, I loved the Ayesha bits. All of those furnishings with Kane as a 20s supervillain was worth the price of admission for me.

Haven't read She but King Solomon's Mines was stupidly good for something written in a few days. It's a lot like Citizen Kane in that every scene has been stolen or homaged for something you probably have come across.
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Post by Denyer »

Roses of Berlin was... alright, I guess? That's a bit unfair, as mostly I think it's just that the length forces a certain linearity.

Not a fan of how they've put it, but some gripes about the plot conveniences that stand up;

http://mindlessones.com/2014/03/06/leag ... he-review/

Useful as ever -- http://jessnevins.com/annotations/rosesofberlin.html

Black Dossier vinyl -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3auDJEsy9gM
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Post by Terome »

I liked Roses of Berlin but it was a step down from Heart of Ice in my opinion. The main problem I'm finding in both of them is the fact that the clever ideas have all been presented already in The Black Dossier and The New Traveller's Almanac.

Is the writer of that Mindless Ones piece a crazy person?
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