CINEMA PURGATORIO: THIS IS SINERAMA - ALAN MOORE & KEVIN O’NEILL

  Another Lawrence public library find, this was a collection I didn’t know existed from one of my favorite writer/illustrator teams. Well, let me couch that. Moore is one of my favorite comics authors. I like almost all of his work and I like is bizarro hash-wizard persona. O’Neill is someone who I don’t think I’m at all familiar with him, outside of his work on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But LoEG as some of the best artwork in the whole Moore overau (which has some high highs) so I was very excited to learn they’ve gotten back together. The comic itself is very oriented around movies. The basic plot is that this woman keeps finding herself in this increasingly nightmarish and strange movie-theater. The issues, and I believe 18 are collected here, feature a page or so of her strange wondering in the lobby or interaction with an usher who looks like Hitler, but are mostly given over to the movies she’s supposedly watching. The movies are mostly about movies or greater movie/Hollywood lore there’s one about Howard Hughes, one about the Black Dahlia, one about King Kong, one about stunt men, etc. These were all good and interesting, something like an Alan Moore take on the podcast, YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS. It’s interesting how deeply Moore thinks about film and film-lore and history given how much he hates all the movies made from his comics and how often and vocally he talks about his hatred of comic book movies generally along with his full-throated defense of comics as their own art- form capable of feats impossible in film. But I also know he’s interested in making film and has made a few, none of which I’ve seen but would love to, so this seems like a work that’s exploring that boundary and overlap between film and comic. And honestly, I’d love for Moore and Hollywood to team up. Let Alan Moore direct and star in a Dr. Strange. It will be 9 hours and both be about and take place within the Kabbalic tree of life.  But the art was predictably great even though the ending was simply predictable and a notch below what I (perhaps unreasonably) expect from Moore. I don’t know if Moore will ever make good on his promise to leave comics, I hope he doesn’t, especially if he’s writing stuff at this level or better. 1962 old movies.