Once again, the Roman snake god Glycon graces us with its presence! Top Shelf released a PR Friday stating that the fourth installment to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, following The Black Dossier, would be released tentatively in April.

courtesy Top Shelf

“At last! The League returns, better than ever! It’s a new age,
a new publisher, and an all-new adventure, packed with even
more metafictional fisticuffs and diachronic derring-do!

Top Shelf is proud to announce the all-new chapter in the
breathtaking series by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill.
In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Vol III):
Century #1 (”1910″), our familiar cast of Victorian literary
characters (or what’s left of them) enters the brave new world
of the 20th century!

The present installment is set against a backdrop of London,
1910, twelve years after the failed Martian invasion and nine
years since England put a man upon the moon. In the bowels of
the British Museum, Carnacki the ghost-finder is plagued by
visions of a shadowy occult order who are attempting to create
something called a Moonchild, while on London’s dockside the
most notorious serial murderer of the previous century has
returned to carry on his grisly trade. Working for Mycroft
Holmes’ British Intelligence alongside a rejuvenated Allan
Quatermain, the reformed thief Anthony Raffles and the eternal
warrior Orlando, Miss Murray is drawn into a vile opera acted
out upon the waterfront by players that include the furiously
angry Pirate Jenny and the charismatic butcher known as Mac the
Knife. Sounds like a ripping good tale, eh?

This book will be the first of three deluxe, 80-page,
full-color, perfect-bound graphic novellas, by the original
League of Extraordinary Creators: Alan Moore, Kevin O’Neill,
Ben Dimagmaliw (colors), and Todd Klein (lettering). Each
self-contained narrative takes place in three distinct eras,
building to an apocalyptic conclusion occurring in our own
twenty-first century!”

Start catching up on your early 20th century occult fiction! I know I am.

Christian characters in modern comics are jokes. This can be debated, of course, but the general attitude towards these token characters tends to be hostile. The secular mindset prevails in most comics and gets the last word over Christians that may be in any given book. Other religions are another issue - non-Christian religions are usually respected, yet when secular or atheist negativity appears it is usually directed towards the Christians. Every once in awhile a writer will throw in what they feel is a genuine Christian character, you know to be nice to that minority, and it usually comes off as a flat representation of what people think Christians are.

courtesy DC

Alan Moore’s Top 10 was a fantastic series, not just because of the crazy homages to super hero and comic conventions, but because its characters where fully developed in the short time they were introduced. Peregrine is a super hero who flies using a wing suit, happily married to her husband, and a member of the Top 10 police force. She also happens to be Christian. Moore handles this character with respect, putting her in a faith questioning situation in the original comics, and reinforcing her beliefs even though Christianity is in disagreement with Moore’s practice of magic and belief in a Roman snake god.

Let’s jump forward to the first “sequel” to Top 10, Top 10: The Farthest Precinct. Here writer Paul Di Filippo was just mean to the character Peregrine. He has Peregrine see Jesus drunk in a bar, having been called in to deal with his disorderly conduct. This sends her into a faith questioning spiral that was handled without regard for the way Moore had already set up the character. Likewise, this recent issue of Top 10 Season Two, not written by Moore, has Peregrine’s husband cross dressing into other costumes, a socially unacceptable practice, especially for this conservative Christian. In fact, the couple goes to Premise Keepers, clearly a parody of the Christian men group, the Promise Keepers. Read the rest of this entry »

America’s Best Comics Returns!!!

Yes! This is it! I’ve been waiting 4 years for this! Top Ten: Beyond the Farthest Precinct was a travesty, a book too bizarre and random, undercutting the serious human issues Moore presented in his original series.

This new series, the second season, is what Farthest Precinct should have been. The characters are set up; old, new and underused alike to get set loose in a brilliant maze of story that all converges at one glorious end.

America’s Best Comics are the best modern comics readers can find, and naysayers need to read Top Ten to prove them wrong. Everything a super hero book should be - bizarre, epic, emotional - Top Ten is. Zander Cannon and Gene Ha know what they’re doing, and we should listen when they speak.

courtesy DC Comics

courtesy DC

While many of you know about Alan Moore’s V For Vendetta and Watchmen, no one outside of comics will have heard of Moore’s sub-imprint of DC’s Wildstorm imprint, America’s Best Comics.

These stories are the best comics have to offer. What Moore did was instead of write a single title, he wrote a dozen series all part of the same universe. With each title, he could use different artists to tell different stores. Tom Strong was a campy Superman/Doc Savage pulp hero, while Promethea was a dark fantasy exploration of Moore’s religious philosophy. Each title had a different theme, but the characters shared a central universe.

America Best Comics’ was Moore’s attempt at saving comics. He gave different writers and artists the chance to play in a unique toy box of characters that homaged the wonderfully stupid legacy of comics. But, all of the series were eventually canceled, and ABC was left on hiatus.

Hopefully, with this trade paperback that reprints all the title’s first issues and the announcement of a Top Ten (the super hero police title) sequel, ABC may be back on the rise. If sales and interest justify it, these brilliant series may soon return.

Plus, this book is only $5.