TagPreacher

The Church Of Stop Shopping

“Outside the Disney Store on Fifth Avenue 35 bellicose elves were chanting, “Silent night, we’re on strike: no outsourced toys for little tykes”, while a red-robed choir sang, “Stop, stop shopping”. In the midst of this chaos stood a white tuxedoed preacher bellowing into a bullhorn: a “shopocalypse” was coming, the Reverend Billy warned baffled shoppers – “the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!”

In recent years the Church of Stop Shopping – a secular street-theatre group led by Bill Talen, a 57-year-old playwright and actor – has mounted other similar performances, but this year, with the release of What Would Jesus Buy? , a documentary produced by Morgan Spurlock, director and star of Super Size Me , the protest is going nationwide. The film follows the Rev Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they tour the US exhorting Americans to think about the real meaning of Christmas. Chief among a number ofconfrontations-cum-provocations is the occasion when Rev Billy attempts to exorcise Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Arkansas.”

(via The Financial Times)

Alan Moore: Comic Book Genius Turned Magician

Alan Moore is the author of such acclaimed works as The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and is a magician to boot.

Initially Moore worked as both a writer and an artist on a detective strip called “Roscoe Moscow,” but he decided he was a poor artist and decided to focus on writing. From there he went on to work for 2000 AD and Dr. Who Weekly (as many British comic authors did…) and eventually began working on the anthology Warrior.

It was here that Moore created two of his most seminal works: Marvelman (later called Mircleman) and V for Vendetta. The former would be reprinted and continued by Eclipse, the latter would be reprinted by DC (it is now part of the Vertigo imprint).

Moore was then hired by DC to write Saga of Swamp Thing beginning with issue 20. Moore continued working for DC and produced Batman: Killing Joke and most notably, The Watchmen.

The Watchmen was a politically savvy and realistic portrayal of a super hero universe. Along with Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, Moore and artist Dave Gibbons revolutionized comicsand paved the way for future mature readers series (such as The Sandman, The Crow, Preacher and many more).

However, disputes over the royalties of the Watchmen caused Moore to leave DC and vow never to work for them again. He then began his own company, Mad Love Publishing. Under this imprint he published two issues of Big Numbers. Around this time he also began two series for Tundra’s anthology Taboo: “From Hell” and “Lost Girls.” From Hell continued as a graphic novel series published by Eddie Cambell Comics.

Moore began working with rogue publishers Image Comics in 1993 and where he created 1963 which was cancelled due to low sales. Moore also wrote Wild CATs and a large amount of Spawn related material, including WildCATs/Spawn

Moore then began his relationship with Rob Liefeld and his Image off-shoot company Maximum Press (later Awesome Comics) where he worked on Supreme, Warchild, Judgement Day and other titles before Awesome comics went bankrupt.

After Awesome went under, Jim Lee’s Image off-shoot company, Wildstorm Productions (now an imprint of, ironiccally, DC Comics) offered Moore his own imprint. Moore accepted and America’s Best Comics was born. Moore has continued to write a number of books under his own imprint as well as other titles under the Wildstorm banner.

Alan Moore Fan site good starting point.

Twilight of the Super Heroes a rejected series proposal to DC by Moore

D.R. and Quinch scan page tribute to Moore and Alan Davis’ 2000 AD stories. Includes scans of an entire segment.

Alan Moore @ comicon.com lots of info and a small collection of works. Includes some performance art stuff.

Italian page a page dedicated to Alan Moore’s music, in Italian

Salon Books: From Hell an excellent article on Moore’s From Hell

V for Vendetta Shrine V for Vendetta fan site

Alan Moore interview an interview from Another Universe

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen review

Watching the Detectives illustrated annotations.

1963 annotations

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen annotations

Ralf Hildebrandt home page Watchmen annotations

The Annotated Watchmen more Watchmen annotations.

V for Vendetta annotations

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