50 Book Challenge: book 24
Tomorrow Stories – Alan Moore et al
Another graphic novel and I think I am going to have to swim against the tide with this one. Tomorrow Stories was a series which saw Moore collaborating with several different artists, including Jim Baikie and Melinda Gebbie, on a collection of four or five short stories which appeared with a new instalment in each issue. At the time of publication it failed to hit the spot and was widely disliked by readers for what was perceived as rather patchy quality – the format giving Moore little time or space to develop his characters or storylines. Read more here.
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Here’s a quote from Pocket Essentials: Alan Moore by Lance Parkin:
The most experimental of the ABC line is the anthology series Tomorrow Stories. While British comics have remained anthologies filled with lots of short strips throughout their history, the format is unusual in America nowadays. Tomorrow Stories has four running strips and they tend to be comedic, or at least a little arch. Greyshirt is a crimefighter in the mould of The Spirit or The Question. Drawn by Rick Veitch, the series has been used by Moore to tell lurid, pulpy crime stories using experimental layouts and narratives. Cobweb is another crimefighter, a decadent woman, as sensuous as Melinda Gebbie can make her. More pulp fiction, this time with kinkiness and eroticism that’s so near the surface it could barely be called subtext. The First American is a complete change of pace – a satirical superhero strip whose most obvious antecedents are Mad comics and the Simon & Kirby strip The Fighting American. The square-jawed, vain hero and his barely legal girl sidekick face off against the forces of commercialism and popular prejudice representing the crass, greedy America that icons of the American way of life like Superman and Captain America never seem to encounter.
For the first issues, the first strip was Jack B Quick, about a young boy genius whose experiments lead to Alice in Wonderland-like logical absurdity. He butters a cat’s feet to create perpetual motion – because the cat spins forever, trying both to land on its feet and butter-side up. 20 years ago, in 2000AD, Moore was writing light-hearted Dr Dibworthy and Abelard Snazz strips about geniuses who invariably end up destroying everything in the pursuit of science. Jack B Quick was popular but, to give Kevin Nowlan enough time to draw the strip, for the moment he was replaced by Splash Brannigan, a strip of energetic visual comedy almost in the Chuck Jones mould.
I do agree that this isn’t one of Moore’s towering achievements. But, if I want to make life hard for myself, I’ve got From Hell waiting, sitting unread on the bookshelf on the other room. But From Hell is not always what you want to read. I found some of the stories entertaining and amusing, others I felt failed to work. But in terms of giving the writer and artists space to experiment with the comic book form it’s an incredibly interesting and thought-provoking read. Also, Moore’s inimitable style is well in evidence with humour, satire, irony and endless references to everything from George Orwell and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to the history of superhero comics and noir detective fiction. If you’re interested in comics on anything more than a superficial level then you will find this interesting and satisfying and I would counsel not being put off by the bad press it’s had, while also being aware that it does have flaws. I will definitely be keeping my eyes open for Book 2.