Alan Moore | Batman: The Killing Joke and Watchmen creator on Imagination (Part 2)

This is part 2 of an exclusive How To Academy event. Watch part 3 here: • Alan Moore | Watchmen ...
Few figures make such a seismic impact on their artistic medium that they transform its reputation from childish pulp entertainment to a vital and exhilarating creative form, capable of exploring the great mysteries of metaphysics, science, and the human spirit - but Alan Moore is one. Coming together with sculptor, performance artist, novelist and poet Brian Catling, this conversation will restore your faith in the power of art to transform life.
Brian Catling was born in London in 1948. He is a former Professor of Fine Art at the Ruskin School, Oxford, and is an acclaimed performance artist and sculptor. His Vorrh trilogy is followed this year by Earwig, which is being filmed by Lucile Hadžihalilovic. On KZbin, Brian has been featured on The Centre for Fiction, SFF180, GOldmark Gallery, PPermaculture Magazine and John Rogers.

Alan Moore, born in Northampton in 1953, is a writer, performer, recording artist, activist and magician. His comic-book work includes Lost Girls (2009) with Melinda Gebbie, From Hell (1991) with Eddie Campbell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (for which he won a Bram Stoker Award in 2000) with Kevin O’Neill. He has worked with director Mitch Jenkins on the Show Pieces cycle of short films and on forthcoming feature film The Show, while his novels include Voice of the Fire (1996) and his epic Jerusalem (2016). He lives in Northampton with his wife and collaborator Melinda Gebbie. On KZbin, Alan has been featured on Wisecrack, AlanMooreVids, Alan Moore Archive, The Top Comics, John Higgs, faberandfaber, Lex Records, Fact Fiend - With Karl Smallwood, Channel 4 News, Crack Magazine, ComicTropes, Nottingham Contemporary, Go! El monitor geek, Matt Draper, AlloCine, Comic Book Girl 19, Cartonist Kayfabe and Rapid Trailer.

Robin Ince is the co-presenter of Radio 4’s multiple award winning The Infinite Monkey Cage. He spent 2019 appearing across the world in the Universal tour with Brian Cox - travelling from LA to Oslo, Wellington to Aberdeen and ending up in Reykjavik after shows at the 02 and Wembley Arena. Robin co-wrote How to Build a Universe (part 1) with Brian Cox and his most recent book is I’m a Joke and So Are You, a book about why we become who we become and how we deal with it. He has spoken at TED and TEDx, has featured on BBC Radio 4 and Richard Herring’s podcasts on topics as far reaching as Creationism and Wonder, to Ricky Gervais and Chaos, and is the founder of The Cosmic Shambles Network.

[@punishedbarca761]

Thanks for uploading these!

[@wbabdij]

Great conversation, can't wait for the next part

[@scottlette]

Alan Moore STILL knows the score. I will do what I can to try to reverse the infantilisation of the imagination. And bring back a sense of wonder!

[@thereallycool]

Verily!!!

[@oneoflokis]

​@@thereallycoolHow do you do that: when the New Testament for one, bids people "be ye as little children"... 😏

[@curtisowen]

I feel privileged to listen to this conversation - thank you for the upload 😊

[@kohhna]

Well Alan a chara, you did indeed write several of your own masterworks wherein the work itself "solves" the society around it, Gull gives birth to the 20th century, Adrian achieves world peace, V brings down the fascist govenement, Miracleman creates a post scarcity Utopia wherein all can have anything including being an immortal superhuman, Promethea Solves reality by bringing the dialectical distintionsn between it and non reality to a happy synthesis. I think even the BoJeffereis got bougie and go up in the world at the end. You do good work that is there to bring the best out of people. That's what it does for me.

[@AVTR]

Alan Moore is truly based.

[@williamgass9242]

11:11 Hits hard.

[@wallacelovecraft8942]

Hmm nice vid.

[@aybee63]

The future will look back at Hollywood and wonder how it was ever allowed to disseminate such horrible representations of the human mind manifested as entertainment. Is why very few creative people can imagine beauty, magnificence, and even love. A lot of what we experience are their own inner feelings many haven't had particularly good upbringings or have developed an unhealthy ego.

[@sca8217]

You cannot have a "committee" of thinkers. Each thinker, for better or for worse, has to work independent of other thinkers. When you collectivize thinking, you get Hollywood scripts.

[@remc0s]

What beauty, magnificence and love is, is entirely up to the beholder. Nobody needs snobs telling people what they should and shouldn't enjoy.

[@williamgass9242]

That's why whenever batman comes around, people get rid of him.

[@jjjjjjjjkigghh8662]

@Remco Schedel-the SKULL It’s not snobbery, we do need more new forms in art. We need new forms.

[@HakuYuki001]

It’s no wonder. It’s capitalism. Always has been.

[@madahad9]

It was only within the last decade that I heard about the theory that Batman kills the Joker at the end of The Killing Joke. I never came to this conclusion and that hard cut from Batman and Joker laughing to a puddle outside as an indication that that Batman finally put an end to his greatest foe. There's really nothing to support this theory but it was interesting to hearing it.

[@m1lst3r89]

I don't know if it's him that started it, but it was Grant Morrison who interpreted that ending in The Killing Joke

[@oneoflokis]

Jeez! 🙄 What an annoying lie!! 🙄🙄

[@oneoflokis]

​@@m1lst3r89Yes. It was. And I thought Moore hated everything Morrison said? 😏

[@d.owenpowell9023]

Do you think that remote viewing is simply connecting to the infinite imagination of creation, which never stops but has always been?

[@punkbastrd]

no

[@tonoornottono]

it’s probably more like a bootstrap paradox. you know now what you will know in the future. when did you really learn it? maybe we’re making use of little paradoxes.

[@robotatomico83]

Read Jerusalem, its a game changer.

[@ThaKid14]

I'm just about to start. I've procrastinated starting, I have a full hard cover sitting on my shelf......I'm ready! How good is it?

[@robotatomico83]

@@ThaKid14 I's hard to say life-changing without sounding hyperbolic... but close enough

[@holbvgbbbbkfz]

You are so lucky

[@oneoflokis]

​@ThaKid14 I'm listening to it as an audio book, as it comes free with Audible. The characters are quite... engaging; more so than all his pompous superheroes. But it's just too long (if you sat in front of the audiobook listening non-stop, you'd be there for days on end.) And most of this is due to over-description, which holds up the plot.

[@peacestonehand]

Cyprus is Jerusalem ;)

[@akuntes7584]

From you family family wish you a god health for Dedy dedy hand hand sonding new king master Rendy all man end Asia fasipic uniErofa love Darling perparticion god internasional tube one family World Citty Exfreess Darling you

[@walterhoward5512]

Wouldn't the bible and Christianity be the true source of the simple, hero narrative?

[@Captaiesqueleto]

The Bible has real stories every in the Bible is truth

[@oneoflokis]

That's what I was saying!

[@edwinbloemendaal1519]

The Sumerian/ cuneiform tablets have much older hero stories, some of which are imitated in the Bible. It’s so amusing that Christians seem to think that the Bible was the beginning of history. The Vedas go back 1000 years. More hero stories.

[@oneoflokis]

@@edwinbloemendaal1519 The Epic of Gilgamesh.. 🙂

[@oneoflokis]

"The Donald"? And THAT'S a "superhero name"?? 😄😄😄 And if we were to call Moore, "The Alan", would that be a superhero name, too? 😏

[@My20GUNS]

8:23 and the Trump fetishizm has only gotten worse.

[@oneoflokis]

Very little of this video concerns superheroes: so again, what exactly is the point of the thumbnail text? 😏 Yeah... I can see what you mean about very simplistic plots.. 😏 But really that is a feature of Western narrative in general: and MOST of it has to do with religion: specifically the Christian religion. The Christian religion (a totalitarian belief system) creates simplistic "heroes" and "villains" from the start. It's always God/Jesus versus Satan. This phenomenon is known as moral Dualism. Neopagans have known about it for many years. Google Isaac Bonewits on the topic. As for superheroes per se... They have definitely been known in various cultures for thousands of years. Not just the ancient Greek heroes and demigods (as Stan Lee for one pointed out decades ago.) Google also the Russian "bogatyri". They had superpowers. Demigods have long been a part of the human imagination.

[@jmack8767]

Dear me. These gentlemen have fallen rather badly behind...

[@vandammejam]

In what sense?

[@HakuYuki001]

Talk about contributing nothing..

[@Chadhogan111]

They miss the point of Trump.

[@darlalathan6143]

They certainly misunderstood his origin story! Republicans voted for him as a conservative backlash against the Obama administration , a moral panic against Islam, because of terrorism and reality show fandom. The latter's appeal is showbiz careers for everybody, without need of talent. These guys are blaming comic book movies for a fascist President!

[@tonoornottono]

@@Clickie13 i don’t think that phrase means what you think it means

[@PalimpsestProd]

the dunce cap?

[@oneoflokis]

What is the point of Trump?

[@Chadhogan111]

@@oneoflokis To annoy morons

[@remc0s]

Alan Moore is brilliant, but at the same time he overvalues himself and his views. He creates art, and then when people enjoy his art, he hates his fans for loving his art. Moore is the poster boy for the phrase: "Never meet your heroes." He created a character who despite his horrible childhood decides to make a difference by fighting injustice and protecting the innocent and at the end of Watchmen is the only character who refuses to let go of his principles. If Moore considers his fans fascist for considering that a true hero, maybe Moore did a really bad job of writing Rorschach as an unlikeable character. Rorschach is not a bad character; Rorschach is what liberals would consider a bad man, which is someone who fights to protect exactly that which is worth fighting for instead of sacrificing everything on the political correct altar of some non-existing "greater good."

[@GodLovesComics]

On one hand he's "brilliant" on the other hand he "overvalues himself and his views." Presumably because you disagree with his views of his own work. Moore did not want to create a one-dimensional character in Rorschach nor in any of the other Watchmen, all of whom have flaws (you know, kind of like real people). The fact that you adore Rorschach (and fascism in general), and yet try to somehow place the blame on "liberals" undermines any hope your argument could have had. Rorschach is effectively based on Steve Ditko's bizarre principles that there is no gray area, no moral ambiguity, only good and evil. By that standard then any defense you have for Rorschach himself is ruined. He can't be a good man who does morally reprehensible things, because no such person can possibly exists in his purview. In fact his saving grace is that he actually knows and understands that he is a massively screwed-up creature who cannot possibly function in a utopian world in the aftermath of Ozymandius' pseudo-Apocalypse. Fascists love simplicity. Simple answers and as little ambiguity as possible. The problem is they mete out "justice" only as it suits them. It may seem cool and just to simply kill a criminal on the streets, no trial, no jail time...until it starts happening to people who are wrongly accused (often people of a single race deemed offensive by the fascists in power). Choose your heroes more wisely.

[@FIDELOROZCO]

I think your political bias made you unconfortable to you to hear Moore not praising any conservative value like Rorschach stands. That made him a true artist: His art tell to people more than he is pretending to do, or even, contrary views to his own. If he only worked making clear his own ideas, it will be propaganda, not art.

[@hasibulashraf2218]

rorschach hates veidt yet his entire vigilante career was doing what was veidt master plan in a small scales,few people deciding the fate of majority.

[@Noobslayar]

This is why you should meet your heroes, so you can see their truth. Imagine if you actually met Rorschach how you would feel about him and he about you.

[@tenkenroo]

Rorschach is a human flaws and all. The man is a psychopathic bigot, but he is human. Earlier in the story it is mentioned that he thought the US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were for the greater good of peace( he writes a letter to Truman) but when he actually sees that choice played out millions of people dead (who he himself didn’t care about) it mentally breaks a guy who cannot see grey. It’s why he takes off his “face” before dying.

[@blacktionjackson7133]

Alan Moore: "Maybe my big brain made Brexit happen." Yeah, or maybe you had all the same trite, cliche' thoughts about the political climate around Brexit as every other shitlib. Only Alan Moore could think he was a god for making the British equivalent of an "Orange Man Bad" allegory.

[@HakuYuki001]

Lol such sophistication. Keep thinking deeply dork.

[@kelzuya]

Donald Trump is a bad person that has had a horrific and outsised bad effect on the world. Do you think that's even up for debate?