The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Ok, major comic strip geek-out entry here! Deep breaths all round!

Just finished reading the second volume of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume Century: 1969 (the middle part of the Century serial following 1910 and pre-empting 2009). For those not in the know (or only familiar with the 2003 film starring Sean Connery, which adds up to the same thing) let me explain. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a graphic novel series charting the exploits of a secret service group of adventurers, or in Moore’s words, a kind of “Justice League of the Victorian age”.  Moore has been a bit of a legend on the comic writing circuit for many years now, being the man behind the likes of Watchmen, The Dark Knight returns and V for Vendetta to name but three titles. Neill I knew from way back from his impressive work on 2000AD (I think Nemesis the Warlock was one of his strips).

Re-entering ‘The House of Daemon’- a cult British comic classic.

Readers in the UK will need no encouragement in discussing the weather. As a recognised national pastime, discussion of the elements has currently been given an extra source of vitriol (always the spice in any on-going argument) by the sheer grey gruesomeness of this island nation’s cloud cover. Summer isn’t sunny; alright, so we’re not the Costa Del Sol, but July 2012 has been especially grim. Despite the attempts at some distracting nationalistic colour in the shape of the Queen’s Jubilee and Wimbledon’s first British finalist in over seventy years, I’m thinking that most Brits are feeling literally under the weather.

So, as this is the perfect weather for sitting in and having a good read, and in the mind set of monochrome, let’s unearth this gothic jewel from many a thirty something boy’s past…from a time when comics played a big part in kids’ lives, and we were entertained by far more subversive and creative fare than arguably those on offer to a current generation…..I give you “The House of Daemon”, from the early 1980s incarnation of Eagle comic, scripted by John Wagner and Alan Grant (of 2000 AD fame), and beautifully illustrated by Spanish artist Jose Oritz.