Tales of the Uncanny -- cool Alan Moore comic from mid90s

Again With the Comics has a scan from a mid-90s comic series called 1963. The third issue was called Tales of the Uncanny and featured a story written by Alan Moore, penciled by Steve Bissette, and inked by Chester Brown. The result is a brain bending homage to Marvel's 1960s Tales of Suspense. Link

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Anonymous

S.R. Bissette teaches at my grad school, the Center for Cartoon Studies. He has brought up 1963 a handful of times, most recently when discussing contract negotiation. Evidently (and this is also mentioned in Wikipedia) the series was supposed to cross over into the Image 1993 universe. For whatever reason, this didn’t happen. A number of reasons have been speculated or eluded to including Jim Lee’s leaving the project. Mr. Bissette hasn’t gone into the reasons much, so a mystery they must remain! (it’s well known that there was a falling out between Moore and Bissette, but to Mr. Bissette’s credit, he has been nothing but positive when discussing his past with Mr. Moore.)

Anyway, that’s all the info I’ve got on 1963. Apart from to say that we student’s have been lucky enough to have access to the series via the library, and access to S.R. Bissette’s insane wealth of knowledge and experience.

-Morgan

Also check out the retro ads in the back of them here:

http://www.indevelopment.org/2002/1963/ads.htm

And of course, check out Steve’s blog here:

http://www.srbissette.com/

(I’m not affiliated with either site, by the way)

-Morgan
Nadra

I like the homage to the wunderful novel “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” from 1884! Especially when the hero has his own little flatland to study in his office. Read the book, it still has a lot to say about both dimensions and society! The author is Edwin A. Abbot, and it still available on Amazon (as a reprint).
Private Ivan

Goshes! It sure seems like Moore’s been reading some of Rudy Rucker’s stories/theories about the fourth dimension.
Chris Tucker

I have that entire series. Really, the insane amount of detail that went into creating a comic from 1963 was worth the effort.

Even the letters page rings true to the era.

I really regret that the series bombed out as it did.

It was a wonderfully sincere homage to that glorious era of comics.
rstevens

Talk about a fabulous series that was never completed. Probably the best thing to ever come out of Image!
Gunnar

Is it just me or is that the Yellow Devil Mega Man?
lipidfish

Alan Moore knows the score!
Anonymous

It is most certainly a homage to the 1884 novel “Flatland” by Edwin A. Abbott. Read it! It is beutiful, and still has something to say about our reality.
Anonymous

I’m pretty sure that story was actually a take-off on Basil Wolverton’s Spacehawk tales.
License Farm

Was it a bomb? Seems to me Moore can sell his own used toilet paper (coffcoffJudgmentDaycoff) and it’ll still do boffo biz.

I also have all the issues. I wonder which shard of the shattered original Image U owns the rights to those characters. My guess is on Silvestri, since I think some of the 1963 characters have surfaced in his Golden Age Shadowhawk stories.

Moore hasn’t weakened since buying his own hype; pretty much all his ABC books were phenomenal. If it seems like mystical gibberish you might consider researching what he’s talking about and be surprised. Like The Invisibles, the more you look into the topics alluded to the more sense it makes.
Halloween Jack

we’ll never again see the likes of his inarguable talents on the characters we *want* to see him on, such as Swamp Thing or even Superman.

Who’s “we”, fanboy? I’d rather see the Black Dossier than have Moore do work-for-hire for the company that tried to screw him and Dave Gibbons over Watchmen. If DC and Marvel want decent creators to work for them, they should treat them decently.
billy

yup! 1963 so so rocked. and i’d say not probably, def. the best thing to ever come out of image.
OM

…This was from the 1963 Image Comics homage/knockoff of Marvel back when the likes of Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Don Heck, Gene Colan and Steve Ditko were turning the comic book industry on its head. Although the series was really well received, it was plagued with delays caused by problems within Image itself and between some of the creators involved. The final wrapup was never completed, much less printed, and according to all involved it’s a totally dead issue.

…Another sad point is that this particular book came out right before Alan Moore began believing all the fanboy press and praise about his writing talents, and left on an ego trip that’s become so one-way that, unless someone walks up to him and beats his pompousness out of him with an annointed sacred 2×4, we’ll never again see the likes of his inarguable talents on the characters we *want* to see him on, such as Swamp Thing or even Superman. Granted, his indy stuff is great, but a lot of fans would still love to see him take Swampy back over and return it to the glory that the likes of Mark Millar stripped from it.