Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Who wrote the Watchmen?

Hi All,
Please find below some biographical info on the writer and artist of Watchmen.
Alan Moore (The writer)

Alan Moore was born in Northampton England November 18th 1953. Oldest son of a brewery worker and a printer, Moore's childhood and youth were influenced by poverty. Expelled from a conservative secondary school (and not accepted into any other school) Moore and so remained unemployed with no job qualifications. During this time he worked on a magazine he was publishing with his friends called Embryo and was married in 1974, having two daughters shortly after.

Over his writing career, Moore has contributed to many iconic science fiction titles including the Doctor Who Weekly and 2000AD as well as many other smaller publications before going on to create his own pieces of literary history.

The Miraclemen and V for Vendetta were two of his first ground breaking works which would earn him recognition - a British Eagle Award (1982) and Best Comic Writer (1983).

With his own reputation developing, Moore was offered his own title in the US called Saga of the Swamp Thing. This enabled Moore to address topical issues facing the world (gun control, racism and nuclear waste) and show the depth of his work.

Moore also during this time penned works for DC and Marvel Comics and wrote for some of their major characters including Batman, Superman, X-Men, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Spawn. For a full biographical list click here http://www.alanmoorefansite.com/bibliography.html.

In 1986, Moore released one the most influential comic stories of the modern era - Watchmen, originally published as a 12 issue run for DC in 1986-87

It was hailed as altering the tone of the comic book genre and changed how it was viewed as a literary medium. It won a comic award at the time (the 1987 Jack Kirby Comics Industry Awards for Best Writer/Artist combination) and has continued to gather praise since.

Since completing these iconic works, Moore has worked for several comic companies including Image Comics, and his own publishing house, America's Best Comics (ABC).

Information from http://www.alanmoorefansite.com/ & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Moore

Dave Gibbons (the artist)

Dave Gibbons has been a major force in comics for more than 30 years. As an artist his credits include Batman, Superman, Dr Who, Green Lantern, Rogue Trooper and of course, his best known work Watchmen.

He has won many awards for his work over the years including 4 Jack Kirby Awards and 2 further nominations.

A full list of his works can be found on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Gibbons.

2 comments:

Nic said...

I think it is very interesting that reputedly Alan Moore was extremely unhappy that Watchmen was going to be filmed. By all accounts the movie is very true to the book, visually and with the dialogue, almost too close according to one review Ben recommended.

Nic said...

Also, among all the acclaim it gathered, Watchmen won the Hugo Award (pretty sure it was the first graphic novel to do so and they may even have created some special category for it, something like that is ringing a bell) and was named one of Time magazine's 100 best books of all time.