Later this year, Alan Moore is publishing a new collection of short-ish fiction work titled Illumination: Stories. The 500-plus page hardcover will include nine prose stories spanning the last four decades of Moore's career, some of which has been talked about before ("A Hypothetical Lizard" was adapted into comic book form before the prose was ever published). But there's one piece in particular that stood out to me. From the book jacket:
In the monumental novella "What We Can Know About Thunderman," which charts the surreal and Kafkaesque history of the comics industry over the last seventy-five years through several sometimes-naive and sometimes-maniacal people rising and falling on its career ladders, Moore reveals the dark, beating heart of the superhero business.
Alan Moore returning to the well of superheroes to deliver a "Kafkaesque" prose story about the history of the industry that famously fucked him over time and time and time again? I'm intrigued!
Illumination: Stories is out October 11, 2022 from Bloomsbury Publishing. It will be followed by the first of a five-part saga called Long London, which sounds a bit like Gaiman's Neverwhere, though I'm sure it'll have its own uniquely Moore-ish twist.
Illumination: Stories [Alan Moore / Bloomsbury Publishing]
Alan Moore's "What We Know About Thunderman" Comic Industry Novella [Rich Johnston / Bleeding Cool]
Image: Gaius Cornelius / Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0)
