Remember...

I like the clever way this comic pokes fun at the use of V for Vendetta masks by protestors who seem to have been quickly distracted.

It also speaks to me of the ease at which online technology does become distracting.

There was a study I read about that looked at the phenomena of walking into a room and forgetting why one went there.

I think there's a similar process at work when we open an internet browser.

Alan Moore on advertising

"Advertising itself is the most blatant form of bad magic being practiced in the world today. Its practice progresses in leaps and bounds, even without the personally-targeted advertising which the internet allows, while our human neurology and our capacity to deal with these techniques progresses at a much more leisurely crawl."

Seen some weird shit

I think this detail from one of Lisa Taliano's paintings currently exhibiting at Griffith Regional Theatre might come from Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's excellent graphic novel Lost Girls.

Ten books that changed my mind

There's been a bit of discussion on Facebook about books, which seems kind of appropriate. So I thought I'd share my list of ten books that I reflect on regularly:

• Woman by Natalie Angier
• Mythologies by Roland Barthes
• Syrup by Maxx Barry
• Ways of seeing by John Berger
• Discipline and punish by Michel Foucault
• Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Republic by Plato
• From Hell by Alan Moore
• Culture club by Craig Schuftan
• Mixing with your mind by Michael Stavrou

Alan Moore

Like this sketch of Alan Moore, whose Lost Girls has been banned in New Zealand.

Jimmy's End

As a fan of Alan Moore I feel obligated to share this new work. It's very Lynchian but features many of Moore's preoccupations, like the tarot. Great design and lighting, it's moody and menacing.

Watching the Watchmen

There's an irony in the news that DC Comics are producing seven prequel comics based on the Watchmen series developed by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

According to the Wikipedia entry on Watchmen Moore first developed the story based on some out of date characters DC Comics had bought. The company baulked at the idea of potentially destroying these properties, so Moore and Gibbons created new characters. The story of Watchmen even seems to acknowledge this as it's a story featuring the children of superheroes.

In hindsight it's quite funny that these substitutes are getting a new lease on life when the originals were denied one.

Alan Moore lands a blow in saying "I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago."

I'm happy to reserve judgment on the new prequels until they garner enough critical praise that I feel the need to read them.

The Watchmen movie was fun and the original comics were extraordinary when they first came out but have dated. You really get a sense of the Cold War climate when reading them now and the innovation of adult themes in comic books isn't remarkable anymore.

Alan Moore, however, continues to amaze and surprise me -- most recently with Neonomicon, which has the dubious distinction of perverting the work of HP Lovecraft.