Alan Moore fan Michael Karpas, from USA, author of an excellent chronological "Bibliography" to Alan Moore's works
                                        
                                                                                                                  by Jose Carlos Neves


  
-Some background, please. Are you married? Sons?  What's your academic record? How did you get started?

  Generally, I had a fairly well-rounded childhood.  I enjoyed reading immensely, but was active in many other areas as well.  I was reading comics every now and then like any kid, but they were basically disposable reading.  Most of my reading was confined to prose literature and short stories.   

The first comic I ever collected was Moore's The Killing Joke, more by accident than anything else.  My younger brother Peter was already collecting comics, and bought the book for me to read.  I believe it was on his advice that I actually ended up keeping it as part of my book collection.  The book was good, but it didn't do much to change my reading habits.

That came later, in 1992.  Again, it's my brother's fault J.  As a birthday gift, he sent me the first two Sandman collections.  Dave McKean's cover art piqued my interest since they didn't look like your basic comic books, and then Neil Gaiman's writing just knocked me out.  Sandman single-handedly opened my eyes to the potential of the comic art form.  Now there are many artists whose work I adore, but for me the writing usually comes first.  So from there I began to collect all of Gaiman's, Moore's, and Frank Miller's works, later on adding Garth Ennis, Grant Morrison, and Matt Wagner to my must read list.  Mike Carey is the latest writer who I think is doing a terrific job…   
               
-What do you think is Moore’s best work, and why?

  If you’re asking me which one is my favorite, I’d have to mention V For Vendetta, Swamp Thing, Captain Britain, Miracleman, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  It’s too difficult for me to choose only one of them as “the best”. 

On a technical basis, From Hell has to receive top-mention due to the insane amount of research that went into it.  For someone who didn’t attend college, it’s tantamount to being Moore’s graduate thesis.

-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 read the two published books and they were interesting, but as Bryan Talbot mentions in another of your interviews, we haven’t seen anything compared to what the finished book would have been like.  It probably was the first of Moore’s treatises: research-intensive projects like From Hell and Promethea.      

  -Do you agree with Chaos theory that our world (and the Universe as a whole, by extension) is ruled by fractals, strange attractors and so on, where a minor alteration in initial conditions can cause major, and irreversible, alterations in final conditions? Could a comic book (or a graphic novel, as some describe them) aspire to detail this complexity of human existence, common life, the whole Universe, and so on, as an unique, united system, as AM intended to do with Big Numbers?

  I can’t say that I particularly subscribe to the theory that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can eventually influence major weather patterns, but I do believe that a single person can make simple decisions with far-reaching consequences.  And a comic book could aspire to detail the complexity of human existence, but I would also add that most literature aspires to detail that same complexity in some manner.  But human existence is not a static condition; it’s an ever-changing and evolving state that has historically frustrated any attempt at creating a unified theory to predict its course or describe its nature. 

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

  Normally I would have said no, on the assumption that all the Big Numbers research is trashed in a pile in some dusty corner of Moore’s house, but with the upcoming release of Moore’s and Talbot’s Nightjar (another assumed-to-be-long-lost story), who knows?

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

  Maybe I came too late to the party, but by the time I read Watchmen it didn’t have the same effect on me as it did on readers when it was first published.  I hope I don’t sound too jaded now that I’ve publicly made that comment…  J
                  
-What are your impressions of Brought to Light and its 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?

  Brought to Light was a great piece.  Most successful governments (read: those with money to spare) usually can’t resist mucking around in foreign politics either in a public or clandestine manner.  It’s been the way of the world for as long as history has been recorded, unfortunately.

  And I think many comics already ARE political by nature:  most U.S. newspapers carry political cartoons in their pages every day to a very wide audience.  Quite a few of these strips end up in the op-ed pages just for that reason (like “Doonesbury” does in my local paper). 

  - 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 its intention to tell the history of Magic, witchcraft, shamanism and so on, through the history of Northhampton?  Do you think AM tried to redeem himself by this, as in the introduction for "V For Vendetta" he almost demolished the city?

  I’m waiting for the Top Shelf edition which is due to be published shortly, so I haven’t had a chance to read it yet…
                           
- What do you think about Magik and about Alan's lyrics, CDs, The Birth Caul and Snakes and Ladders?

  Hmmm, I’m going to sound like a heretic here since I’m not a big fan of his lyrics and CD’s (and yes I actually own the Sinister Ducks flexi-disk).  The Birth Caul and Snakes and Ladders are intellectual musings; as such they were worth reading but they didn’t move me as much as his other works.  Which brings us to…

-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 that do this? Would AM be the pioneer and maybe the main representative of this wider scope of the medium, as a true art form?

  Absolutely comics have the ability to move people deeply!  Books like Miracleman #15, LOEG vol.2 #5, Sandman #8, the entire Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits TPB, plus too many others to mention.  Comics are as valid an artform as any other.  It’s too bad that the comic industry (at least in the U.S.) still seems to have an inferiority complex compared to other media, when imho it’s undeserved.  Internationally, it’s an accepted and revered media form. 

-Maybe in Japan and other Asian countries, and for sure in Europe, but not here in Brazil,also...

...Alan Moore paved the way in terms of literate storytelling in comics.  I don’t know that I would call him the “main representative”; I rather consider him to be a founding father.   I think Moore himself would put Will Eisner or Jack Kirby before himself as a “main” representation of the artist pursuing the true art form.  

-Coming back to yourself, tell us the "history" of your acclaimed "Bibliographies".  Your motivations, resources, feedback.

  As a side venture, I was a partner in a small comics shop in the early nineties.  I wanted to spread the word to our customers about my favorite writers’ works, so I started to put together their bibliographies.  I set them up chronologically, mainly to show the development of each writer.  My brother later set up www.enjolrasworld.com as a website dedicated to pooling together comic-related annotations and bibliographies.  They are officially posted there, and I’ve kept updating them ever since.  Fortunately, I’ve had plenty of input from fans and creators alike, so they are fairly comprehensive at this point.

  -Your bibliographies effusively promote Alan Moore's work.  Do you know if he knows something about them (although it is well known that he hates the internet and is not "on-line")?

  It would be nice, but the on-line thing is kind of a sticking point, so I imagine not.  Surprisingly, this goes for Garth Ennis too. Who would have figured them for computer-phobes?

-What about a book compiling them (like jess Nevins has done with his LOEG's one)?

  The biblios tend to make for dry reading, unlike Nevin’s incredible annotations for LOEG, so probably not.  But most of the Moore biblio was actually printed in the catalogue Argumentos for the Moore exhibition in Amadora, Portugal.  Thank you Pedro Mota! 

  -See also my Bibliography Section, it´´s a very large one! Any new project related to Alan Moore?

  Other than keeping up with all of his books and related projects, no.

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

  Yes.  He had a star turn with his run on Wonder Woman.  The man knows how to draw the beautiful ladies… 

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

Don’t be so modest, there is a TON of material to explore.  It’s a wonderfully dedicated site, so no complaints from me…
                 
Thanks you so much,