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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

11 Comments

  1. John Higgs
    December 12, 2012 @ 1:02 am

    What always amuses me about the Highbury Working is that, at the exact time Moore was at Highbury Corner declaring that the Angel of Highbury existed because he imagined Her to, Dido was sat in a small Highbury flat writing her insipid 'No Angel' album. That album went on to conquer the world and, I fear, negated all Moore's best intentions.

    1 – nil to the forces of darkness.

    Thanks for the mention of my KLF book, BTW!

    Reply

  2. jane
    December 12, 2012 @ 4:49 am

    Now he mentions the KLF book, long after Christmas lists have gone out. Thanks, Phil. 😉 Anyways, this entry is great. I love seeing the other influences that helped shape this blog and the thoughts therein.

    So, is this psychochronography a magickal working?

    Reply

  3. Anton B
    December 12, 2012 @ 5:35 am

    The KLF book is on my Kindle right next to the two (so far) Eruditorum books. I'm gonna have loads to keep me busy this Xmas.

    Reply

  4. Elizabeth Sandifer
    December 12, 2012 @ 6:40 am

    I believe the KLF book is ebook only, so not a terribly useful Christmas list item anyway. Or at least, that's why I didn't worry about mentioning it before now. 🙂

    Reply

  5. Elizabeth Sandifer
    December 12, 2012 @ 6:40 am

    No problem. Sorry I didn't get it up sooner, but I knew this post was coming, and it just seemed the obvious place to plug it.

    Reply

  6. Sean Daugherty
    December 12, 2012 @ 7:23 am

    "He then spent the mid-to-late nineties putting out some of the weakest work of his career for Image Comics in an attempt to see if he could write for the nineties American comics market…."

    I take it you're not a fan of his run on "Supreme," then? More's the pity, I guess: it's one of my favorites of his, second only to "Watchmen" (and possibly tied with "V for Vendetta," depending on my mood).

    To be sure, though, I'm not sure it's the best blueprint for "Doctor Who" stories in general. Though I could see parts of it being appropriated for another Land of Fiction story. It would have been a better model than Steve Lyons's two New Adventures dealing with that setting, anyway.

    Reply

  7. Josh Marsfelder
    December 12, 2012 @ 8:11 am

    At first I read this and was very excited to see how you would collapse all this back into Doctor Who.

    Then I realised you'd most likely closed off the most productive path I could have (and should have) taken for my "A Tail in Twain" post. Looks like I need to rewrite that again

    Reply

  8. Ununnilium
    December 12, 2012 @ 11:24 am

    Very interesting. Makes sense.

    …but…

    "He then spent the mid-to-late nineties putting out some of the weakest work of his career for Image Comics in an attempt to see if he could write for the nineties American comics market"

    I am sorry, but Supreme is dazzling and awesome, Moore working past the ego-death of Watchmen and finding something transcendent and universal on the other side, the holiness to which Miracleman is the qlippothic shell.

    (Also, as a revamp of a character that's all about the character's personal experience of being revamped, it ties in very well to the Time-War-as-cancellation narrative.)

    Reply

  9. Kit
    December 13, 2012 @ 4:51 pm

    Still reading through this, but:

    "Lost Girls, his pornographic work with future-wife Melinda Gebbie, saw some issues published in 1991-92 before vanishing for fifteen years. From Hell had an only slightly smoother ride, managing to get all ten chapters out over the course of five years and three publishers."

    Lost Girls had five chapters published in Taboo in 1992, then two more in the second Kitchen Sink floppy in 1996, then the whole lot a mere ten years later.

    From Hell started in Taboo in 1989 (work started on the strip in 1988, the Ripper centenary), and the final serialised chapter appeared in 1998. I'd call it ten years and five publishers, as the Eddie Campbell Comics edition in 1999 was what really cemented the work's status as a finished book. [Before that I count Aardvark One (co-pub on early Taboos), Spider-Baby, Tundra, and KSP. {Mad Love's sometime credit was in logo only.}]

    This nitpicking is just for if you end up revamping and using the above in a book edition – looking forward to digging into the post proper; I've long said The Birth Caul is the best thing he's ever done.

    Reply

  10. Matthew Blanchette
    December 14, 2012 @ 7:46 pm

    …oh, and now I've gone cross-eyed. 😮

    I think my mind glazed over midway through the section on Snakes and Ladders, but really, just because Glycon might be a reality in Moore's mind does not make him actually real.

    I love Watchmen, I really do, but Moore went off the deep end. 🙁

    Reply

  11. Phil
    December 14, 2012 @ 10:35 pm

    Reality doesn't really enter into it. Moore's point is that what a god does to your mind and to your life is far more important than whether it's literally real in the same sense as the Eiffel Tower. Or as the man himself said, "the idea of a god, is a god."

    Glycon's basically a story, like any other religion. It doesn't matter if it's literal, it matters if it's important. Which to Moore, it is, even if he's a bit tongue in cheek about it.

    Reply

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