Delicious. Alan Moore, Lost Girls, vol. 1 (Top Shelf, 2006)
I find it endlessly amusing that my library refuses to lend Ice-T's The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a [censored]? with its dust jacket (for one cannot have a printed profanity defaming the eyes of the kiddies!), and yet lends Lost Girls in all its glory. We don't have the collected edition, in its tasteful, plain-blue case; no, we have the individual volumes. The back cover of volume 1 will probably do more damage to the library's reputation than will Ice-T's f-word, if any of the busybodies who worry about such things ever get their hands on it.
The controversial contents of said book are just as illicitly stimulating, concerning the meeting of three well-known female stars of fairy tale-dom at a posh hotel. There is great lasciviousness all around as the three of them meet for the first time, telling the tales of how they got to be the disgraced fairy-tale figures they are. (There's a bit of dalliance among them, but you'll have to wait till later in the series to get to the meat of that; this is a story of beginnings.)
Moore is, of course, one of the finest writers of graphic novels going today, having given us such lights as Watchmen and V for Vendetta. It would be ludicrous to assume, as many seem to have, that when turning his attention to more adult material, Moore would lose his incisive gaze and immediately assume drooling-fourteen-year-old status. Pish-posh. Artist Melinda Gebbie, probably best-known (previous to this, anyway) for being one of the principal animators on the 1986 film When the Wind Blows (as a side note, if you've never seen it, you must-- one of the best, if most neglected, pieces of art to emerge from the nuclear hysteria of the eighties), contributes lush drawings that mesh well with Moore's randy prose. The characters have personalities, and Gebbie transmits them through minor drawing quirks in a lovely way; Dorothy's innocence is tempered with red cheeks that speak more of hard drinking than the stereotypical apple-freshness, while Alice's aristocratic demeanor is presented with an air of defeat, a slight stoop in the shoulders that even Alice is loath to admit.
This is amazing work. Buy, beg, borrow, or steal a copy. The first real evidence since the death of Georges Bataille that "pornography" and "literature" can walk hand in hand and look each other in the eye. **** ½
The Lost Girls Collected Appreciated having my order placed on a waiting list until available.
Alan Moore's laziest work I know I will get negative votes for this review but I have to be honest. I thought that the name Alan Moore in the cover of anything was the guarantee of a good story, but this magazine proved me wrong. I call it a magazine and not a book or graphic novel because the story is only 24 pages long and consists of three much shorter independent stories, merely snapshots. The stories are lazy (Mr. Moore didnt try hard enough this time), they are supposed to be erotica, but I found them nearer to drama than anything else, and now to the worst part: the art, very childish, very amateurish, hardly evoking any emotion at all. I will read The League of Extraoduinary Gentlemen tonight because I need to forgive Alan Moore.
Not really my taste I like Moore's work. Actually, I adore it, and have started collecting unfamiliar titles on the strength of his name. That's why I picked this up. Well, and also for my collection of Alice in Wonderland spin-offs.
Now, I like comic books, and i like unusual comic books. I don't need more superheroes (unless we get to see something new done with them, such as Watchmen or Top 10). I like some of the weirder, more stylistic stuff (Johnen Vasquez comes to mind) and I adore fantasy comics (Sandman, ElfQuest, Thieves World). This is all to say that I have a taste for variety and for trying out new things.
However, this one did very little for me. I have no complaints against the art. Though at times it does seem a bit flat or amateurish, it has a consistancy and a storytelling strength that makes the style work. The writing is also some of what Moore is best at, people being people in all their glory and foibles. Even so, I felt something was lacking. Maybe this simply an issue of the erotica genre, but Lost Girls didn't seem to have a hook to hang on.
What I love most in literature is the dream behind the reality; and Moore does play with this a bit in the first two stories, but i felt somewhat unsatisfied by a lack of anything really going on. The third story, "Missing Shadows," was, I think, the most clever. Using the storytelling power that only comics can muster (though film could certainly make a stab at it), it dissected a Victorian marriage with grace and subtlety that was shocking for its brevity.
Maybe the sense that nothing is really happening owes to this being the first volume of a series. But i don't think i have any interest in collecting more of it, and it's tempered my Moore enthusiasm a bit, so i'll be more wary of what I buy next. It probably shouldn't, but there it is.
In any case, this really is Moore doing what he does best, writing human souls. The flaws owe entirely, I think, to the kind of story being told, literary erotica. If that genre holds any interest for you, you'll probably find this well worth the reading; and if not, it's possible this could draw you in to an appreciation. But it's not for me, and I don't imagine it's for very many.
WARNING!!! The bad news it that this book is part of a series that was not completed before the publisher went bankrupt. However, Top Shelf is planning on publishing (finally after over 10 years of waiting) the full series in three hardcover collections and will make a slipcase available as well to store them in. It is my belief that this volume here only constitutes part of one of the planned Top Shelf collections, so buying this older softcover version will not likely save you any money. However, if the few chapters that have already been serialized in the now defunt Taboo anthology are any indication, this is some of Moore's best work.
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