Alan Moore, �The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen�
The other day, some guy came up to the counter at the bookstore with a huge stack of books. Well, not huge � nine titles to be exact. The odd thing was, that for the first time, I had read everything this guy was buying. And it�s not like he had a whole lot of Steinbeck, his tastes were varied. There was some sci-fi, some literature, some cultural criticism, some humor, and some various non-fiction. And I had already read them all.
It�s very odd to think about that � that some guy is getting these books for the first time, and for once, I can give an opinion on any one of them. Normally, people ask me about a certain book, and it�s usually some crappy popular flavor of the month mystery that I wouldn�t touch, if it wasn�t my job to put it on the shelf.
One lady on that same day asked me about five different titles � crappy mysteries, some Christian fiction, an alcoholic-recovery-type manual, something inspirational, and then a lame pop psychologist. When I answered that I hadn�t read any of them, she asked me if I ever read anything at all.
�Yeah,� I said. �I read a few things.�
So it�s odd for me to read this graphic novel, taken from a neat idea where Moore takes all these public domain staples of literature and combines them for a graphic novel. And yes, I saw the movie. When I saw the movie, I realized that every person featured � Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Dorian Gray, Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Mina Harker, The Invisible Man, and Tom Sawyer � were from books I hadn�t read.
Rather than reading all of these books, I was lucky enough to have this come into the store. But as it turns out, these aren�t even all of the same characters. Nemo, Quatermain, Jeckyll, and Mina are all here, but there�s no Dorian Gray or Tom Sawyer. Frankly, I was a little confused on why Tom Sawyer was in the group at all (in the movie). Everybody else has skills and powers � what is Sawyer supposed to do exactly? Spin down-home witticisms and convince the enemies to paint the fence?
Anyway, about the book, there are some great ideas with a fair amount of execution here. It goes from serious to nearly cartoony and back again within six pages, but it�s a goddamn comic book, so I guess I should expect that. Did it blow me away, like other Alan Moore titles such as Watchmen, Promethia, and Swamp Thing? Hardly. But I�ll keep reading, as long as it comes into the store.
And volume two just came into the store.
