4. If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity. (The Last War in Albion Book Two Part Eighteen: Moore’s Perspective on the Ratings Controversy)
Previously in The Last War in Albion: An epic squabble over a proposed ratings system for DC Comics ended with DC shelving the system and the various creators who had protested its imposition making a grand show of everybody getting on again, although, as Gary Groth pointed out in an editorial in The Comics Journal, very little had actually been won and the whole thing was more tempest in a teapot than battle for the heart and soul of the comics industry.
But there’s one name, of course, that’s conspicuously absent from the reactions: Moore’s. This is unsurprising; unlike Chaykin, Moore had no problem taking it personally, in no small part because it blatantly was personal. Geppi’s attack on the loose morals of American comics was specifically aimed at Moore, and blatantly accused him of corrupting the youth of America. And DC had given into the attacks without blinking an eye, then spent months dissembling about it in the face of his protests while, in his view, trying to threaten him into coming back to work for them. Indeed, in his largest single piece on the controversy, an editorial in the February 13th, 1987 edition of Comics Buyer’s Guide entitled “The Politics and Morality of Ratings and Self-Censorship,” Moore decried the “disappointingly personal abuse” he’d received, and set out his own position in strikingly intimate terms, talking about his own children and the intensity with which he feels the need to teach them how to survive “in a world that is constantly changing and increasingly precarious.” In his view, responsible parenting means that he lets them read what they want, and “in the instance of their coming across something which puzzles or disturbs them – much more likely to happen with a newspaper than a comic book, incidentally – then I will simply do my best to explain the source of their distress or bafflement as honestly and as accurately as possible.” As for Geppi’s idea of shielding them from the idea of violence and sex, he notes that “when my eldest child was five she returned from school requesting money for a collection. When I asked her what for, she replied that one of her schoolfriends’ elder brother had gone berserk and murdered his mother with a kitchen knife before turning on his younger sibling, who fortunately escaped with severe injuries.” Subsequently, he went even further, declaring bluntly that he considered the people pressuring DC to be “actually evil.”
Given that these were the terms on which he viewed the debate, it’s hardly a surprise that he saw its resolution differently. This carried some risk, as Moore put it, of him “looking like a shrill, over-reactive prima donna,” and certainly that was what DC sought to quietly paint him as, calmly explaining that, as Dick Giordano put it, the ratings system was not “a moral issue at all. It was essentially a business issue,” and complaining that “there was no way I could respond to people who were becoming so emotional about what seemed to me a very simple marketing device.”…
This week I’m joined by Gene Mays of the superlative 
Secret Wars #7
On September 13th, 1993, exactly four days after my eleventh birthday, the world slipped forever from my grasp. As with anyone for whom this happens, my reaction at the time was little more than a vague annoyance and sense of disapproval. I really never played 
Holy shit that was good. An astonishingly well-tuned, clever piece of television full of surprises big and small. Every bit as good as you would hope from the writing credit, from the actors, from the directors, and really from Doctor Who. I am as thrilled to have watched this happen as I am jealous of those who got to see Terror of the Zygons on first transmission, and I have zero doubt that in 2055 fandom will talk about this like we talk about Terror today.
This week we’ve got a very special treat – a double length episode of the Series 9 Podcast in which I’m joined by comics writer Al Ewing, who co-wrote Titan Comics’ Eleventh Doctor comic, and is currently doing Contest of Champions, The New Avengers, and The Ultimates for Marvel. The first hour consists of us talking about The Zygon Invasion, while the back half is a wide-ranging interview about comics and numerous other topics. Yes, you read that right. Our podcast this week is like… a hybrid.
Uncanny X-Men #600
Holly Boson’s epic journey through the Amicus Films catalogue reaches the 1965 film The Skull, which features Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and the Marquis de Sade’s skull. One of these things is cursed. Holly is joined this time by Jack Graham. He is not cursed. We think.