The struggle in terms of the strange

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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.

12 Comments

  1. reservoirdogs
    November 19, 2014 @ 3:01 pm

    "Moore pushes it to mild self parody without actually going so far as to suggest that Watchmen wasn't good."?

    Reply

  2. Elizabeth Sandifer
    November 19, 2014 @ 3:03 pm

    Like Rorschach and Night Owl, you're too late – I already pushed the button to fix it.

    Reply

  3. encyclops
    November 19, 2014 @ 6:28 pm

    And then it suggests that all of this is, for better or for worse, a bit limited and, dare I say it, hermetic. Which has always been a fair critique of Watchmen.

    Oooh. YES. I mean, I love Watchmen and all, but was always more interested in what V for Vendetta had to say, and this, if you mean what I think you mean, is pretty much why.

    And then you mention that Quitely's drawing it, so I'm just all in.

    Reply

  4. reservoirdogs
    November 19, 2014 @ 7:07 pm

    I'm more of a From Hell guy myself.

    Reply

  5. ferret
    November 20, 2014 @ 12:30 am

    Hi Dr S – looking at your "recent comments" list, it looks like the Eruditorum may be being heavily spammed…

    Reply

  6. Anton B
    November 20, 2014 @ 1:17 am

    Holy synchronicity! Inspired by the recent dialogue in the comments about tarot etc. I've been meditating on the Magician card. Particularly the infinity symbol, the sideways figure eight that floats above the magician's head on the Rider Waite card. Then along comes Morrison the Chaos magician with Pax Americana with its recurrence of the figure eight, the eight panel grid, the 8 algorithm, the question mark and the hunchback. (is this a quote from somewhere or did Morrison make it up?) So far I've only read it once but there seem to be enough resonances and references there to keep an infinite number of annotaters annotating to infinity and what perfect timing from the point of view of this blog for Morrison to finally directly respond to Watchmen. Frank Quietely's art is perfect recalling both Watchmen and his and Morrison's own Flex Mentallo.
    I've been lukewarm about Multiversity until now. This book alone is worth the whole series.

    Reply

  7. Tom
    November 20, 2014 @ 1:22 am

    I think Watchmen anticipates (and kind of agrees with) the criticism – I feel invited to delight in its magnificent airtight intricacy, but at the same time the character in the book who is a hyper-intelligent symbol-manipulator and master-planner is also very much a dick. As a rock critic put it to me in a pub once – paraphrasing a much longer conversation – "The problem with Watchmen is that it's a comic Ozymandias would like". Which I don't think IS a problem as I've phrased it, I don't think you should read the comic and think Moore wants you to accept the intricacy uncritically as a good thing in itself, but at the same time he possibly likes doing it a bit too much. It's one of those elements in Watchmen – like Rorschach's badassery – where Moore loses control of his own seductiveness a bit.

    Reply

  8. reservoirdogs
    November 20, 2014 @ 5:16 am

    Reply

  9. Anton B
    November 20, 2014 @ 5:21 am

    I thought I'd seen it before. Thanks.

    Reply

  10. Theonlyspiral
    November 20, 2014 @ 7:52 am

    It's been a rough few years for Iron Man fans.

    Reply

  11. ReNeilssance
    November 21, 2014 @ 4:27 am

    Is Moon Knight good enough that it justifies reading despite how much of a creep Brian Wood is?

    Reply

  12. xec tilus
    March 21, 2015 @ 2:17 am

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    Reply

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