FANS OF ALAN Moore and his prescient comics like V For Vendetta and Watchmen knew he’d one day anchor a revolution. They weren’t surprised when 21st-century revolutionaries from Anonymous to Occupy rebooted Vendetta‘s Guy Fawkes masks, drawn with grinning malice by David Lloyd, for their viral iconography. More recently, Moore penned an extensive essay for Occupy Comics, a Kickstarter-funded comic book series devoted to the themes and ideas of the Occupy movement. Wired has an exclusive excerpt of the essay, titled “Buster Brown at the Barricades,” a discussion of the intertwined history of comic books and counterculture.
The reliably outspoken Moore revealed himself as a supporter of the Occupy movement in 2011, touting it as a “completely justified howl of moral outrage” after The Dark Knight Returns icon Frank Miller dismissed its activists as “louts, thieves and rapists. “After that geeky comics dustup, Moore visited the occupiers he had “admired from afar”, and further defended their populist outrage in the press and appearances. He even recently released his debut music single “The Decline of English Murder” for Occupy London’s label, Occupation Records.
The full version of Moore’s essay will appear in the Occupy Comics final anthology, currently slated for Spring 2013. Published by Black Mask Studios, Occupy Comics features the work of comics creators including David Lloyd (V for Vendetta), Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead), Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night), Bill Ayers and many others, and is rerouting all funds past the costs of printing the collection to the global Occupy movement.
Teased in our World’s Most Wired series profile of Black Mask’s Matt Pizzolo and exclusively excerpted below, Alan Moore’s slice-and-dice commentary is a dense and smart-ass reminder that nonconformity and social change have a graphic cultural history that goes back way, way further than V For Vendetta. Enjoy.