Entrevistas  /  Interviews

         Argentinian/Aussie fan EROOM NALA 

INTERVIEW with the Alan Moore fan Eroon Nala - Australia- great fan to Promethea and author of very good "Annotations " concerning it - see  at  http://www.angelfire.com/comics/eroomnala/Promethea.htm 

                                                                          by Jose Carlos Neves 

-First of all, let's begin with some background. Are you married? Sons? 

I was married in February 1998. I have two young daughters.

-What's your academic record? How did you get started?

After finishing high school I went on to University and studied Philosophy, Arts:Drama and Computer subjects but dropped out after 3 years without completing a degree. Tried my hand at computer work but ended up working in a library.In late October/early December, 1997 I attended a few literary functions that I found extremely interesting & entertaining. One was Stephen King's only public Australian appearance in which he told us what it was like driving around  outback Australia for 2 weeks on a Harley Davidson with a friend of his. He said  that our great central desert was very much what the American West must have  been like 100 years ago and that out there it was so absolutely quiet that you  could hear God breathing .After this he went on to read a short story entitled Autopsy Room 4 and then  took questions from the audience. I'm sure if he wasn't already a world famous  author who can demand as much as $17 million for his latest 1000 page novel then  he could make a slight less profitable though still quite good living as a stand  up comedian in the Lenny Bruce mould.
The other literary event I attended was the Michael Palin Literary Lunch.  Michael Palin (for those of you who have never seen it) is a member of the Monty  Python team though nowadays he is just as famous for hosting 3 different round  the world trips for the BBC entitled Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole  and Full Circle. Mr. Palin has been voted the nicest Python and he certainly was  a very nice and funny raconteur when it came to describing highlights and  lowlights of his latest round the world trip. One member of the audience asked  how many frequent flyer points he had stacked up. For me the highlight of the  lunch was the book signing when Mr. Palin not only signed 2 of his books that I  had bought

-What is it that attracted you to art and comics? What were your influences?

Well it’s better for my eyesight. First I stopped reading long novels with small print and started reading plays and screenplays. As Alan says in one of his interviews probably the first form of literature/storytelling was pictorial representations, cave drawings then hieroglyphics and its just a short step to comics from there and you get much more  input from a single page of a well drawn comic then you  would from a page of writing alone. Also artists like JH  Williams and Gene Ha do such wonderful drawings which you  can view on so many levels and just look at for hours.

-How did you first become interested in comics? What are your earliest memories as far as that goes?

I used to read Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge, Goscinny and Uderzo’s Asterix and Herge’s Tintin books when I was quite young. Also Spooky the ghost who wasn’t quite as friendly as Casper.I never got into Superhero comics until I discovered Alan Moore a few years ago. Even then the only Superhero comics I’ve read are the ones Alan has written.

-As a child, did you spend a lot of time indoors reading? Comicbooks only? Or mainstream literature, also?

Yes too much according to my mother. I wear glasses and work in a library. I did read some comic books but mostly I read literature. Mainly science fiction Jules Verne, HG Wells and  later on more modern authors like Philip K Dick and Kurt  Vonnegut. Also classic authors like Mark Twain, Voltaire , PG  Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle, Tolkien and that  sort of author but I also had an interest in esoteric  literature. Colin Wilson and similar authors. I started to  read Crowley’s autohagiography when I was about 20 but it  was a 2nd hand paperback copy smelling of heavy smoke and I  gave up on it after about 100 pages.
More than comic books I’ve always been a film buff so on TV  I watched a lot of the old Warner Bros cartoons with Bugs  Bunny and Daffy Duck before graduating onto more intellectual humour like Monty Python.

-What was the first comic you read that had been written by Alan Moore? -Did it have a special impact on you? Why?

From Hell, an article in a newspaper mentioned that it was the best graphic novel ever written and I saw it in a 
bookshop so I bought it. It did have a special impact on me because of the graphic nature and the horribleness of the crimes shown. I didn’t find the images attractive at all but the power of the story and the honesty of him explaining when he was making guesses and when he had a source for what he wrote shown in the extensive notes at the end was overwhelming. Just the incredible amount of research that Alan did to write it really amazed me

-What do you think is his best work, and why?

Because of the annotations site I do I’m tempted to say Promethea. (Clic here to Read special questions on Eroom about it)I like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen although I don’t think it’s his best work. I supposed I would have to say either Watchmen or Top Ten but Promethea is at least in the top 3 when it comes to his best work in my opinion. Miracleman is also good and some of the Swamp Thing issues are just brilliant. There’s really too much too choose from to say one is better than all the others.

-What do you think about Big Numbers? What do you think Alan intended to convey with this very promising story ( Big Numbers is, for me, his magnum opus, which has reached the status of a mythic work )? 

I’ve only read Big Numbers #1 and haven’t seen #2 so I can’t really comment on it properly. Like From Hell I find the artwork unattractive but certainly good at conveying the mood of the story. I would have to see more of #2 and also his famous notes and diagrams for the rest of the story to really comment on it properly.

-Do you think that one day Alan might change his mind and think about it, again?

I doubt it, once he abandons a project he seems to lose interest. I read somewhere that he only tends to do work when he needs the money. When he runs out he works like a slave producing up to 5 or more titles at the same time and once he has enough money he takes it easy. With all the money he must have from the From Hell and LoEG films he could retire for life.

-What are your thoughts about Watchmen´s innovations in the way it tells it's story?

I’m not really familiar with comic book conventions of the pre-Watchmen era as I’ve only really read Alan Moore extensively so I’m not really sure what conventions he was breaking. I like the heavily written breaks at the end of each issue so that instead of just reading a comic with pictures straight through you have to read newspaper articles, files and other things to get the whole story. Similar to The Travellers Almanac in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in a way.

-Do you think From Hell could be considered to be a history of the birth of the 20th Century with it´s elements of paranoia, conspiracies and corruption? 

I suppose so. Especially when he includes such people as the Elephant Man, Wild Bill Hickock and the conception of Adolf Hitler into what could have just been another retelling of the story of Jack the Ripper and a guess as to who he actually was.

-What are your impressions of Brought to Light and it´s denouncements of the illegal C.I.A. operations around the world? Do you think comics can be a political instrument - that they can appeal to a wide audience for this purpose?

Unfortunately I haven’t seen Brought to Light so I can’t comment on it but I think that just about anything can be a political instrument, songs, comics, films, plays, books, posters, graffiti, people marching in the street.

- AM´s debut in mainstream literature, Voice of the Fire ( it has been just published here in Brazil, if you did not know) - do you think it accomplished it´s intention to tell the history of Magic, witchcraft, shamanism and so on, through the history of Northhampton? 

I’ve only read the first chapter which was mostly incomprehensible and the last one but I rushed reading it and had to return the library book so I’m eagerly awaiting the new reprint which I will buy and then read properly at my leisure.

-Do you think AM tried to redêem himself by this, as, in the introduction for "V For Vendetta" he almost demolished the city?

I don’t think he felt he had to redeem himself. Wasn’t London demolished in Miracleman ( See it Here) and he never wrote a "sorry about that London" story. It’s fun to destroy things in comic books (but not in real life).
He’s goint to destroy the ABC universe in the near future (Promethea #31) and I think he’s quite gleeful about 
destroying a world he’s created.

- What do you think about Magick and about Alan's lyrics, CDs, The Birth Caul and Snakes and Ladders?

Magick I find very interesting. I just which I had more time and leisure to really explore it fully. Unfortunately I’ve already passed my 40th birthday so I can’t emulate Alan by deciding to become a practising magician to avoid a midlife  crisis. I’ve only heard Snakes and Ladder although I have read Eddie  Campbells adaptation of the Birth Caul. His stage work is  certainly a great expansion on just writing comics and  having worked in theatre myself I can understand how the  feedback from a live audience must be gratifying to him.

-Movies and music, but mainly music, can affect us deeply -  arousing irrepressible emotions. Poetry does this, also.  They all can transcend their limitations. What about comics?  Do they have the ability to move people deeply? Could you  mention examples of comics which do this? Would AM be the  pioneer and maybe the main representative of this wider  scope of the medium, as a true art form?

Yes especially ones Alan Moore has written. Two examples  that spring to mind are Top Ten the Overview when characters  who have just been introduced die at the end and also Halo  Jones when she carries a wounded friend back from a war zone  talking all the while to her and then finds out that her friend died hours ago and she was just having an imaginary conversation. Also the nameless person of indeterminate sex whom nobody seems to notice and whose death goes unmourned. I’m sure there are a lot of people like that in reality. The Eleanor Rigbys of the world.And also the birth scene in Miracleman and the bit in V for Vendetta when she finds out who’s been torturing her.These example alone would be enought to place him amongst the best writers for comics today who help to expand its  target audience beyond just more superhero stories.

-Coming back to yourself, I know that you has born in our  neighbour Argentina. Why you have "emmigrated"to Australia,  so far away from South America? How is to live over there?

My parents emigrated when I was seven. My father had lost his job and need to restart somewhere else and the way Argentina was going in 1969 he had the good sense to try emigration overseas with a wife and two children. We were lucky to leave when we did. The Falklands War started on my  20th birthday and had I been living in Argentina at the time  I might have been in the army. Australia is a great country although again the politics  here isn’t exactly to my liking. The main political parties  seem to run on an agenda of scaring the voters with paranoia  about our Asian neighbours and illegal immigrants but the  weather is beautiful and the        country has a great  multicultural diversity to it.                                                              .
-How is the current "status" of Comics in your Country?

I really only read Alan Moore comics so I’m not really sure  about Australian Comics. Eddie Campbells seemed to be doing OK but has stopped self publishing recently. Comic books  shops seem to do good business but there are only a handful  of them. And they mostly seem to thrive on imported titles. Just today there was an article in a Sydney newspaper where  an Australian comic book fan named Daniel Zachariou who  arranges Comicfest and Supernova events on an annual basis  mourns the fact that children no longer read comic books but  mostly play video games and  "the few hundred comics that sell in Australia each week are  mostly bought by collectors over the age of 16".  Any imported items such as books and comic books incur a  goods and services tax in this country so that everything is  a bit overpriced.

-What about movies? How is the reprecussion of the Washoski  Brothers decision to film the booth Matrix II-Reloaded and  III, revolutions over there?

Movie wise Australia does pretty well. Fox studios opened  recently in Sydney and most of the Matrix films were shot  there as well as Star Wars I and II. I think we’re cheaper  to shoot in as is New Zealand. Lord of the Rings would have  cost a lot more to make if it had been shot anywhere else.  Also Aussie actors who do really well overseas sometimes  come back to boost the industry and more high profile  international films are being shot here than was the case say ten years ago.

-Tell us the "history"of your "Annotations". Your motivations, resources, feedback. -Your Annotations effusively promotes Alan Moore's work. Do you know if he  know something about them ? (although it is well known that he hates internet and is not "on-line")                                                                     

Before I began reading League of Extraordinary Gentlemen I discovered Jess Nevins famous annotations on the net. After I started reading League Vol. 2 I offered a couple of additions to the annotations he had and was pleasantly surprised to not only find my annotation added but also my name placed in the acknowledgements. Once I really started getting the Alan Moore bug and reading everything he had written that I could find I searched for other annotations sites and found that there really wasn’t one for Promethea so I decided to start one up myself and was quite happy to  find people emailing me about it and complementing me on it.  People like JH Williams and Jose Villarrubia even volunteered  information which helped enormously with the annotations I  had stared. The Resources I use are listed on my Reference Page http://www.angelfire.com/comics/eroomnala/Ref.html and I also consult the Promethea Message Board at Wildstorm  on a regular basis. If you go there you can even get JH  Williams to answer your questions directly when he’s not too  busy. (Clic Here to see a Promethea Pencil Sketch by J.H.Williams)
Feedback has generally been positive. The only negative  email I got was a complaint that my site wasn’t as good as  Jess Nevins and that I didn’t have much to offer but this  was in the early days before I’d done much annotating. I doubt if Alan Moore has ever looked at my site as he’s a  bit of a Luddite when it comes the the net and email but I  think he must be aware of it because people who see him  regularly have emailed me and I even managed to get some  answers to a few Promethea questions I had that he answered  (not personally) his friend told me what the answer was. (Have you read this from Joel Biroco's website? I thought it was hilarious
"I once had someone who is annotating Alan Moore's comic  Promethea writing to me on an almost daily basis asking  me questions about the various occult minutiae of  Promethea.- Me-! In the end I told him I'd ask Alan (right). So I asked Alan, 'What did you mean when you wrote about  this qabalistic pathway called "The Fountain", there  isn't a qabalistic fountain path, this guy who's  annotating Promethea keeps emailing me asking me  questions about it.' Alan looks at me: 'I made that shit  up Joel' Now you know the inner workings of creative talent, the deep significance embedded in each creative  choice that some worker ant will later write a  commentary on, annotating every detail with voluminous  notes. I smiled: 'Now I understand why you aren't on  email.'

-Any new project related to Alan Moore? (Tell us about your  "Promethea Competition")

I’ve stared a Halo Jones annotations site but have been to  busy to do much with it. It’s at http://www.angelfire.com/alt/gabe/HaloJones.html and I’ve got a Halo Jones club on Yahoo with a small number  of members that I hope to use to help me do annotations in  detail when I get a chance. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/halojones/ I’ve just launched a competition mainly motivated by the  fact that I would like to write a Promethea Essay myself but  can’t seem to get started so I am bribing any Alan Moore  fans with prizes of 3 Alan Moore items going to the best 3  essays about Promethea - (Note-Eroom just included Stories and Comic Strips also,in his Competition)  After reading through what other  people like and dislike about Promethea I’m hoping I can get  started on an essay of my own. Full details can be found at http://www.angelfire.com/comics/eroomnala/Comp.html entries close on 30th August so get your essays in soon  people

- Do you know the comic art of the now famous Brazilian,  Mike Deodato?

No. I’ll have to look him up on the net.

-For finish, what are your considerations about our modest  Site and suggestions to improve it? 

You could try and improve the outlay of the site. Something  like The Alan Moore Fansite I think has a good outlay and is  easy on the eye. Black backgrounds with colored writing  aren’t too good for people with eyesight like mine. I prefer  black writing on a light screen.

Muchas Gracias y Saludos, Eroom.