Daniel Robert Epstein: Alan Moore - Lost Girls

oh i cant fuckin wait!

Wow, Alan Moore's a fan of The Wire. Very cool. Best show on TV these days by a mile. Now if they'd just get the fourth season on the air...

When he said what he did about The Sopranos needing to have a beginning, middle and end, I thought, "He'd like The Wire." And then it turns out he did. That show's amazing, because initially I thought it seemed okay for a cop show and then it just got better and the mystery got deeper with each episode. Great stuff.

Regarding the actual interview: really, I wish Alan Moore was always being interviewed around here. Like Neil Gaiman, he's fascinating and seemingly very nice. Provided you aren't adapting his comics, anyway.

I'm still a bit skeptical of this project, but I'm definitely curious. I'll probably break down and get it at some point, though I'd like to see a few pages first.

wow, great interview - i hadn't known much about this book until now.

also great to hear that Moore is a fan of Pelecanos.

pant pant pant.

Actually, the beginning of the book was published years and years ago by the now defunct comics venture, Tundra -- which eventually became Kitchen Sink Press. They published two or three issues worth of material. If you can find those you'll be able to get a feel for it. Melinda Gebbie is a talented but quirky artist whose work fluctuates between primitive and sophisticated. If those early issues are any indication the art is a mixture of watercolor and colored pencils. Very colorful, but kinda unconventional. The narrative, of course, is fascinating.

Unfortunately, the finished work is coming out in three volumes -- each costing $75. I'm crossing my fingers it will be worth it.

my understanding is that it will be three bound volumes packaged together in a slipcase, all three totalling $75. not that that isn't expensive as it is, but it is less expensive than what you were thinking, at least. $150 gets you the signed and numbered edition...

That's correst. And it's fifty bucks on Amazon, which is a good enough deal that I'm tempted.

I definitely agree that more TV needs to go with the beginning middle and end structure. I think it's made some of the more successful series I've watched, like Babylon 5, and to a degree, Buffy and Angel. (They were never conceived, so far as I know, as having a definite end to the series, but each season was done more or less in that format, barring perhaps the first.). Not that not doing it is necessarily bad. (I'm still enjoying the Sopranos). But it leads to shows that continue well past their prime, sometimes well past their senile dementia. (X-Files, I am looking at you.)

If anyone is interested in some of the Victorian porn that Moore is referring to, I recommend "The Pearl," which was an anonymous underground pornographic newspaper that appeared briefly in the late 1800s in London. It's certainly not Steinbeck's little novel, which is what I thought it to be when I picked up a copy at a library booksale nearly 20 years ago. The sequential issues were collected into one large book in the 70s and reprinted in 1996. Now it is all online here: http://thepearl.tailfeatherz.com/

Moore directly referenced one of the stories -- "Miss Coote's Confession" -- in Volume One of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, much to my amusement.

alan moore is awesome. I met him yesterday!

I just found out about this graphic novel tonight and while reading about it on wikipedia I saw a link to this very interview! I'm so glad DRE interviewed Alan Moore about this, it definately seems like a fantastic work and I'm really impressed with the subject matter. More people need to speak out on things like this, especially like Moore has done in his interview with CBR.

I hope to be able to read these graphic novels soon! Not at all for the pornography, but for the social commentary. I think THAT's the very best thing about this graphic novel.

I actually got my girlfriend to get me Lost Girls for Christmas (very interesting opening it in front of the family…) and it's fantastic. The books are beautifully bound, and the story is amazing, and get better and better as it goes alone. I think that Alan and Melinda have put something in for everyone in these books. I can't recommend it enough.