PeterDavid.net

Perfect!

If anything deserves a spoof, TLOEG needs one. (And I'm a fan...)

Travis

I look forward to reading it.

Hurricane Heeran

Travis, I agree. Much as I like "League," there seems something a little too smug about Alan Moore's literate references to British fantasy literature so obscure you can't even find it in the public domain. (And doesn't his own comic line, ABC, really stand for "All British Comics?")

Thomas E. Reed - British fantasy literature so obscure you can't even find it in the public domain.

Are you seriously trying to tell me you can't find King Solomons Mines; Bram Stokers Dracula; 20,000 leagues under the sea; The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Invisible Man in a library, or in a bookstore anywhere!?

Also Jules Verne was French and Bram Stoker was Irish, both of whom would have been insulted to be refered to as British.

As to ABC, the Only British person involved is Moore, everyone else to my knowledge is American. ;-)

Oh and PAD, my apologies for the three sets of questions in the questions column, only the first one was important. The other two postings were thoughts sparked by reading someone elses question, and can be ignored for times sake if you so wish. Thanks again for the opportunity to ask you them.

- Rob Wilson

I'm always surprised at how little fan attention the CLAYPOOL comics recieve. I've been reading them since almost the start, and have found them to be entertaining, and well worth the price of admission. (And hey, they take more than 10 minutes to read -- that's got to be worth SOMETHING!)

SOULSEARCHERS is probably my favorite, followed by DEADBEATS. ELVIRA is a different book altogether, but it's much more hit or miss with me.

d

Are you seriously trying to tell me you can't find King Solomons Mines; Bram Stokers Dracula; 20,000 leagues under the sea; The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Invisible Man in a library, or in a bookstore anywhere!?

I think he was referring to the more obscure references... not the blatant ones.

Sax Rohmer's Doctor Fu Manchu (which isn't obscure, okay. Marvel had use of him for awhile, or a facsimilie thereof) ... Campion Bond, from Poe... and I'd have to go back and read it all again to point out tons of references. Mind you I love the stuff, but Moore can be almost Dennis Miller-Like in his literary references. (My favorite was the photo showing Dr. Syn)...

Travis

OK, so I can pick out LeStrade, Renfield, and the Martian. Who are the others? (Could the maid be Mary Reilly, from Dr. J & Mr. H?)

Something about one of the characters looks a little familiar...

But I suppose that sometimes a Martian is just a Martian.

At the risk of being anal-retentive, the Martian is drawn like the George Pal Martian from the 1950s War of the Worlds movie, not like the beaked Martians from the H.G. Wells book. I hope it's okay to use THAT particular likeness, as that is NOT in the public domain.

Travis - Yeah I suppose stuff like Nana would be thought of unusual, but I think he's mixing up the fact that the references are obscure, rather than the works they reference. ;-)

For instance I thought Campion Bond was an Amalgam of the Edwardian detective Campion and James bond, rather than catching it as a Poe character (which book by the way?). So the reference is Obscure, not the material it references.

Even my provincial library can source all the books I noted as I read the series, so I doubt you could ever claim any of them are not easily available to the Public.

Hugh Casey - I reckon you're correct on the maid (it's who i thought of) but I'm confused as to the Woman at the back - is it meant to be The Invisible Woman? And if so who's the last character?

DJ Anderson - If you think they get little fan notice in the US, try finding them here in the UK!

I think the maid may be from Gone With the Wind.

I'm reasonably certain that Campion Bond is a creation of Moore's. (I've never heard him positively identified as anything else.)

Brilliant concept Peter; look forward to the story. My guess for the maid is also Butterfly McQueen's character from Gone With The Wind (the "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies Miz Scarlet" one)...and is that Carmen Miranda's ghost in the back? No clue who the mustached and goateed character is though.

Looks nice.

Maybe a crazy question (the last question thread got shut down before I knew it existed), but what are the chances of a third Soulsearchers trade? Some of those early issues are impossible to track down.

Whoo-hoo! oh dang, now I gotta see if I can get my store to get me a copy fo that issue. When's it coming out? Issue number? Is Amanda Conner also doing interior art, or is it the usual gang?

FYI Mary Reilly isn't in the novel Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She's mostly a creation of the movie and its source novel (Mary Reilly, by somebody other than R. L. Stevenson). The novel has almost zero female characters. Lends itself to good homoeroticism discussions in lit class. In any case, PAD seems to be pulling 'em from movies (i.e. the George Pal Martian) so I'd go for Gone with the Wind maid.

As for the goatee dude, I'd wager he's Mandrake's inept illusionist brother. (Hey, it's PAD we're dealing with here...)

eddie

Stuff like this makes me wonder why SOULSEARCHERS is not better known. The concept looks great. I have bought every issue and will continue buying it as long as you are writing the book.

This is one title that needs to be reprinted in manga-style trades and distributed to book stores.

Cool! We had thought about doing something similar for a stage show, but concluded that we couldn't pull it off. I'll be interested to see how it goes in the comics format.

Eddie Bart - FYI Mary Reilly isn't in the novel Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She's mostly a creation of the movie and its source novel (Mary Reilly, by somebody other than R. L. Stevenson).

Well remembered that man, I had to grab a copy and zip through it to find that out. Obviously a little cultural contamination of my memory there. ;-)

The housekeeper hired by Jekyll to maintain Hyde's Soho house was only described as "An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy: but her manners were excellent."

I've never read Mary Reilly so I don't know whether she was meant to be Jekyll's housekeeper/Maid or Hydes'. Either way the description clearly doesn't match the Lady in the illustration.

- Rob Wilson

Got me on the Mary Reilly reference... It had been so long since I'd read Stevenson, I thought that she was named in the book. My bad.

Looking at her, it could be Mammy from GWTW... It was Hattie McDonald's character, not Butterfly McQueen's. Or maybe not...

Gotta add this to the list when it comes out!

H.

Didn't mean to be a showoff on the Mary Reilly thing- its just a byproduct of having a Victorian Lit professor who did most of his academic work on Jekyll and Hyde. (Shout out to Dr. Martin A. Danahay) It was interesting to find out how much we already had preconceived notions about the story without having ever read the original story itself. For one of my essays, I actually used LOEG, and turned my prof onto the miniseries- gave him my TPB to read. When I told him a second one was coming out, he was like "When?!?" (Sorry, getting farther offtopic here...)

eddie

I'm reasonably certain that Campion Bond is a creation of Moore's. (I've never heard him positively identified as anything else.)

I agree... I was wrong... for some reason I kept on thinking of Inspector Dupin.

Sorry,

Travis

Maybe the “invisible woman” is Cathy’s phantom, from WUTHERING HEIGHS?

Well, Dupin wasn’t an inspector, but a private detective (the very first one in literature, I presume).

And, yeah, Campion Bond was Moore’s creation.