V for VendettaWritten by Alan Moore
Art by David Lloyd
1989
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The 1980s were a different time. Hell - they were a different world. Populated by a people who may have looked like us on the outside: but smelt different [1], spoke different [2] and thought different.
Of course it may not seem it now: nowadays we can laugh it all off as big hair and shoulder-pads [3] but if you pay attention to the stuff behind all the ill-advised revivals and cheesy nostalgia clip shows (or do they not make those anymore?) for those poor souls having to live through it - nuclear war wasn't so much a science-fictional "what if?" - it was more some ginormous inevitability hanging over the world's head just waiting for it's chance to drop [4].
So yeah - V for Vendetta is set in 1997 which - for those of us lucky enough to have made it this far - is no longer some distant far-away future unimaginable point - but rather a shabby year way back in the ever receding past and getting smaller all the time. But - hey - credit where it's due: altho Moore and Lloyd flunked things like who was going to win the 1983 General Election and just how destructive a nuclear war can be - at the time they wrote this the idea of security cameras on every street corner was just a hippy's nightmare rather than an accepted fact of reality.
Obviously that frozen smile on the cover has different connotations nowadays then when this comic was first being serialized back in eighties. (And if you want to feel your heart break a little then check this clip and check the moment when the protestor talking to Alan Moore refers to "doing the same kind of thing that the character does in the... movie." Ouch: although ironically fitting seeing how stems from a book that argues for (amongst other things) the indestructible power of a good idea - and if a character's reputation can overcome a scene where he speaks in words nothing but words beginning with the letter 'V' (see here for the full awfulness): then it's obvious that there's something special there).
V for Vendetta created with David Lloyd was Alan Moore's first step into the genre of supehero comics. Stepping away from 2000AD it was published in Warrior (originally in black and white) starring a enigmatic heroic vigilante anarchist with a Guy Fawkes mask with the unlikely name of "V". Set in a bleak future England controlled by a facist far-right government it seemed like just another "one man fighting against the dark forces of control" but soon unravelled into something a little bit more curious and a little bit more nuanced with a sprawling narrative and willingness to see things from more than just the one person's point of view. There are explosions, fights and cool set-pieces but there's also lots of stuff about individualism, anarchy and fascism. Or to put it another way (my desperate bid for the cover quote): it's 1984 meets Batman.
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[1] "It's hard to say goodbye to a man who wear Brut."
[2] Wail: Awesome; cool. Ex. "That song wails"; "your new outfit wails".
[3] Exhibit A: Meet the Fatboy Slim Family.
[4] If you've never seen Threads - which (for me) - up there in Top 10 scariest films of all time - well - it's on youtube: knock yourself out.
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Links: Mindless Ones Article, GraphiContent Article: Notes On Teaching V for Vendetta, Supervillian Article: On perspective and influence in Orwell’s “Shooting An Elephant” and Moore & Lloyd’s V for Vendetta, The Hooded Utilitarian Article: V for Vile.
Further reading: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century, From Hell.
Profiles: Alan Moore.
All comments welcome.
