A blog by Dr El Sandifer of TARDIS Eruditorum about the ongoing magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.
Makes Just as Much Sense in Context.
Tropes featured include:
- Anachronic Order: Telling the history of comics from the perspective of Moore and Morrison means she often has to go back and fill in the history of genres and comic companies once they become relevant. Book Two has the structure of each chapter mirroring the equivalent chapter of Watchmen, including flashbacks in the appropriate places. Most obvious with Chapter Four, which is Moore's entire history in the style of Dr Manhattan jumping through his own life.
- But I Digress: Dr Sandifer enjoys it when the main topic of a blog entry isn't the official subject but a digression which will tie back in at the end of the entry. On one occasion, a parenthetical comment runs for three entries, after which she carries on exactly where she left off. Taken to the next level in the chapter on Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, where rather than single "here's what you need to know about this tangential concept" posts that end with a sort of "Anyway, lets get back to the comic", she goes off on digressions which lead to other digressions, which then lead back to Arkham Asylum, to create a sort of labyrinthine structure that mirrors the effect of exploring (but also being trapped in) Arkham.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Moore's habit of getting into feuds.
- Flash Forward: Dr Sandifer's TARDIS Eruditorum entry for "Nightmare in Silver" is written as an excerpt from a future Last War In Albion chapter about The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which has briefly diverted into other work Neil Gaiman was doing in 2013. At the time it was published Last War itself was less than halfway through V for Vendetta.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
- For Book One: The Early Work all the blog entries are titled with assorted quotes from comic creators. The full version of the quote is then used as an epigram.
- In Book Two: Watchmen, the titles for the blog posts in each chapter are successive sentences of a lengthy quote, which is then quoted in full at the nominal end of the chapternote (riffing on Watchmen's own Idosyncratic Episode Naming system):
- Chapter One: The passage from Kieron Gillen Talks Watchmen beginning "Art that cannot effectively move people..."
- Chapter Two: Dr Bruhauner's lecture in the opening of Book Two of The Ballad of Halo Jones
- Chapter Three: The Comics Code
- Chapter Four: The time-travelling assassin Conrad telling his wife he can't keep fighting in Grant Morrison's "The Checkmate Man" (Near Myths #5)
- Chapter Five: The second half of Moore's palindromic incantation "The Demon Regent Asmodeus" from The Moon & Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels. (With the twist that the quote at the end is the first half, continuing the chapter's theme of symmetry.)
- From Chapter Six onwards each entry is an entire chapter, so the post titles are just a single line from the lengthy quote at the end.
- Book Three: The Rise of Morrison returns to the Book One system.
- Real-Person Fic: Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. With other players including Steve Moore, William Blake, Neil Gaiman...
- Serious Business: Comics, some obscure and weird, and magic.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: One entry considers the idea that given both Watchmen and Morrison's pastiche The Multiversity: Pax Americana blur cause and effect, it's perfectly legitimate to consider the latter comic as a possible influence on the original.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The "British Invasion" of mainstream comics in the late 1980s. Actually pretty closely based on the true story, apart from the conceit that magical beliefs are real, which is usually more implied than stated. Until the end of Book Two.
- Viewers Are Geniuses: The reader is assumed to be at least somewhat familiar with things like William Blake's work, principles of occultism, and a lot of comics, many of which are obscure and haven't seen reprints in ages. Or, if not familiar, at least open-minded enough to try to learn.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Alan Moore and Grant Morrison are both documented as taking this approach to occultism. Alan Moore's line in From Hell about gods being real in our minds is an obvious example. Alan Moore now worships the Roman snake god Glycon.
- Wham Episode: The end of Book Two, which lays out the central concept: Moore unconsciously created Watchmen as a magical ritual to prevent nuclear war. And it worked. But the energies of the potential war had to go somewhere, and all magic has a price, hence the creation of his own war.
