Alan Moore

Alan Moore (born 18th November 1953) is a comics writer and occultist from Northampton, who has been described on occasion as the most significant comics writer in history and one of the most important British writers of the last fifty years. Among the best selling and critically a\cclaimed series' he is responsible for are Watchmen', 'V for Vendetta', 'From Hell', Marvelman and the reinvention of DC's 'Swamp Thing', though he actually began his career working in fanzines in the 1970s before moving on to work for 2000AD (where he began working on Tharg's Future Shocks before creating characters such as Abelard Snazz, Skizz, D.R & Quinch and Halo Jones) and Marvel UK (where he wrote several backup strips in Star Wars and Doctor Who and a lengthy Captain Britain epic, amongst other things). He was one of the creators involved in the now legendary though sadly short lived Warrior magazine (for which he wrote Marvelman and V for Vendetta) but really rose to prominence after breaking into the American market with his work for DC on Swamp Thing, and later Watchmen and such well remembered stories as 'The Killing Joke' (starring Batman) and 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow' (starring Superman). His often thought provoking work gave comics a degree of respectability they had never previously attained in either britain or the US.

Moore left mainstream comics for a time in the late eighties before returning to create series' such as 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' and 'Promethea' for America's Best Comics. Several of his works have been turned into movies, though Moore (a sometimes controversial figure who has at one time or another had disagreements with virtually every company he has ever worked for and seemingly with almost everyone he has ever worked with) has generally been unsupportive of these projects and refuses to be credited on them (consequently the movie version of V for Vendetta, for instance, carries the credit 'Based on the graphic novel by David Lloyd, Lloyd having been the artist).