Alan Moore - Masterclass

[Brutal_One]

One writer, or I guess genre really I absolutely love is the Graphic Novel. In part it is the juxtaposition of the incredible artwork in conjunction with intelligent and imaginative story telling. One giant (to my mind anyway) is Alan Moore. I still remember reading Watchmen for the first time.

I was visiting a friend in Manchester during mid July so the weather was warm and sunny. My friend was working so while waiting for him I went into a book store and picked up a copy of Watchmen. A quick browse of the cover and a read of the first few pages and I was sold. BIG TIME.

Long story short he became probably my favourite all time writer of Graphic Novels (Neil Gaiman is a very, very close second).

I have just discovered recently (this very week) whilst starting to re read his epic Jerusalem (highly recommended but also a difficult read).

I was curious and did a web search and came across a BBC Maestro writing master class by Alan Moore.

An interesting aside I have recently started working for the BBC but not in any creative capacity (sadly) but as an IT software engineer.

But whilst you may argue it’s cost (GBP 80) his Master Class contains 33 lessons delivered by the man himself over a series of videos of approximately 10 or so minutes each plus a workbook.

If you want to treat yourself and discover some golden nuggets (including very many decent references to books and films he refers to) irrespective of your writing skill or success I guarantee you will not be disappointed and you will discover many, many techniques that will be new and exciting you can take on board and consider in your own writing.

https://www.bbcmaestro.com/courses/...lessons/character?autoplay=true#lesson-player


Brutal One

 

[gunhilltrain]

$90 isn't that much, but I don't have it. In any case, my - prejudice? - is that you can learn more from reading other writer's work rather than listening to them tell you how they did it. They may be trying to be honest about it, but I suspect they can't fully explain it. Also, I put more stock into advice given out for free, sort of off the cuff. I'm sure Alan Moore is sincere, and he may even have some interesting things to say. But he does have a business deal going there with the BBC.

I'm sure that the other people there telling you how to cook and bake bread - those might be useful to listen to, because it's an entirely different kind of skill. For graphic novels, are the drawings perhaps equal in weight to the story? That's yet another skill; maybe that can be learned.

 

[NotWise]

I think most of the work is in the drawing. It doesn't take that much effort to write a story.

That's generally true of illustrations, and a lot of authors -- possibly most authors -- don't realize that the effort in the illustrations is usually much greater than the effort in the story.

 

[NoJo]

Back in 2000 AD (!) I met him at a comic con. He gave a talk on graphic novels as a bone fide art form. He was rather dour, a bit like his novels. I got Gilbert Shelton's autograph (of Furry Freak Brothers fame) there. I like my comics comical.

 

[JGittes]

I think most of the work is in the drawing. It doesn't take that much effort to write a story.

That's generally true of illustrations, and a lot of authors -- possibly most authors -- don't realize that the effort in the illustrations is usually much greater than the effort in the story.

Which is why I write and don't draw.

It will be no surprise to anyone who read any of my stories that I was a life drawing model for 25 years. I'm a terrible writer but my stories do okay here. Of the thousands of drawings I've personally watched being created, only a handful are worthy of not being used to line the bottom of bird cages.

I've seen documentaries where Picasso dashes off a wall-sized mural of stunning beauty in a couple of hours, seemingly without thought or effort. He appears to flail his arms about without reason and magic happens. People see the finished product and think that because it looks so simple, and they feel Picasso splashed it out without effort, they can do it too. They forget that visual artistic genius is rare, and he put in decades of painstaking effort to appear so effortless.

 

[NoJo]

I think most of the work is in the drawing. It doesn't take that much effort to write a story.

That's generally true of illustrations, and a lot of authors -- possibly most authors -- don't realize that the effort in the illustrations is usually much greater than the effort in the story.

I'm currently attempting my first illustrated lit story -- and while I agree that the illustrations can take a lot of time and effort, for me it's the writing that's much harder work -- probably because my standards for the writing are higher than for the illustrations, because I know that I'm crap at illustrations, but suffer from the delusion that I can write good.

 

[lovecraft68]

Alan Moore is amazing, Watchmen V for Vendetta the lesser none From Hell, but it was his work on Swamp Thing that blew me away, not only reimaging the long time character, but bringing in a horror element that resurrected a dying genre. Issues 37-50 comprise the American Gothic a tour de force of modern horror and introduced us to John Constantine.

Yeah, I'm a fan boy.

Thanks for posting this, I think I may sign up for it.

 

[Auden James]

Of the thousands of drawings I've personally watched being created, only a handful are worthy of not being used to line the bottom of bird cages.

And that's probably due to the modernist dogma according to which the "first impulse" is somehow fresher and more honest. But how should students ever learn to find the right lines when all their university's art department offers them is drawing classes of five-minute poses? It's simply not purposeful to develop one's drawing skills in this speedy way. As Edgar Degas said:

Make a drawing. Start all over again. Trace it. Start it and trace it again. . . . You must do over the same subject ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must appear accidental even a moment.

And about Picasso and the supposedly "stunning beauty" he created "in a couple of hours" nothing more needs to be said.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think most of the work is in the drawing. It doesn't take that much effort to write a story.

That's generally true of illustrations, and a lot of authors -- possibly most authors -- don't realize that the effort in the illustrations is usually much greater than the effort in the story.

If you're talking the average Batman or Spider-Man comic maybe. When you're talking about some of the material in Moore's graphic novels, I doubt it. The stories are too deep and the dialogue and narrative too complicated to be conveyed just with the pictures.

Marvel did an event called "Nuff Said" no dialogue, only the artwork. It was cool, but the stories were also very simple and relied on a lot of action.

 

[MadeleineSinha]

Back in 2000 AD (!) I met him at a comic con. He gave a talk on graphic novels as a bone fide art form. He was rather dour, a bit like his novels. I got Gilbert Shelton's autograph (of Furry Freak Brothers fame) there. I like my comics comical.

I see what you did there

 

[gunhilltrain]

If you're talking the average Batman or Spider-Man comic maybe. When you're talking about some of the material in Moore's graphic novels, I doubt it. The stories are too deep and the dialogue and narrative too complicated to be conveyed just with the pictures.

Marvel did an event called "Nuff Said" no dialogue, only the artwork. It was cool, but the stories were also very simple and relied on a lot of action.

Now that I think about it, it's only $90, which is much cheaper than a creative writing program at a university. As for myself, I can draw a fair depiction of inanimate objects, but forget about drawing people.

Alan Moore looks like he could be a character in one of his own books. Wow, a "1,266-page experimental epic novel set over centuries and realms in his hometown of Northampton."

I guess I could do that for The Bronx, starting with the Dutch buying/leasing/obtaining hunting rights from the Lenape (which apparently happened at the northern tip of Manhattan, just across from what became The Bronx), continuing with the Revolutionary War (thus my eponymous Gun Hill Road), Cornelius Vanderbilt and his first railroad, the building of the els and subways, immigration, the New York Yankees, Dion and the Belmonts, the arson and abandonment of the 1970s - I forgot Henry Hudson sailing up the river named after him. That takes us back to 1609.

But I have neither the patience nor the expertise for such a thing. So Alan Moore, I have to give credit to you for accomplishing such an ambitious goal.