Comics legend Alan Moore (Watchmen, V For Vendetta and many more) "is attempting to break into the film business on his own terms with original project The Show," starring Tom Burke and directed by Mitch Jenkins, Deadline reported, adding that "the fantastical adventure, set in Moore's hometown of Northampton, follows a man's search for a stolen artefact, a journey that leads him into a surreal world of crime and mystery." Moore granted a rare interview to Deadline to discuss what "has been something of a passion project for the writer." Among the highlights from the q&a:
You retired from comics after finishing The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in 2018, any thoughts on getting back in the saddle?
I'm not so interested in comics anymore, I don't want anything to do with them. I had been doing comics for 40-something years when I finally retired. When I entered the comics industry, the big attraction was that this was a medium that was vulgar, it had been created to entertain working class people, particularly children. The way that the industry has changed, it's 'graphic novels' now, it's entirely priced for an audience of middle class people. I have nothing against middle class people but it wasn't meant to be a medium for middle aged hobbyists. It was meant to be a medium for people who haven't got much money...."
You said you feel responsible for how comics have changed, why?
It was largely my work that attracted an adult audience, it was the way that was commercialized by the comics industry, there were tons of headlines saying that comics had 'grown up.' But other than a couple of particular individual comics they really hadn't. This thing happened with graphic novels in the 1980s. People wanted to carry on reading comics as they always had, and they could now do it in public and still feel sophisticated because they weren't reading a children's comic, it wasn't seen as subnormal. You didn't get the huge advances in adult comic books that I was thinking we might have. As witnessed by the endless superhero films..."
In retirement, are you still creating, do you still write?
I've only retired from comics. I'm finishing off a book of magic now. It's been stalled for a while but I'm also working on an opera about John Dee with [musician] Howard Gray. I've got some short stories coming out. And I've also been thinking a lot about what we want to do after The Show feature film. We hope that it's enjoyable as a thing in itself, but to some degree it could be seen as an incredibly elaborate pilot episode, we think there's quite an interesting story that we could develop out of it as a TV series, which would imaginatively be called The Show.