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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.

18 Comments

  1. Matt
    July 10, 2015 @ 2:34 am

    You tease…

    Reply

  2. Aylwin
    July 10, 2015 @ 6:37 am

    A man walking into a street, dropping his glasses and shooting a dog?

    Reply

  3. Cleofis
    July 10, 2015 @ 11:46 am

    Would you peg Morrison's recently-announced assumption of the head editorial position at Heavy Metal as being a similar attempt to "become the landscape," as such?

    Reply

  4. Elizabeth Sandifer
    July 10, 2015 @ 11:47 am

    Ha. It was actually something of a challenge getting this to connect to what I wanted as the first sentence of Book Two. And I was amused that the end result means that the first sentence of Book Two is actually part of the same sentence that ends Book One.

    Reply

  5. Robot Devil
    July 10, 2015 @ 5:48 pm

    "But there are also stories where Morrison excels with genuinely clever and well-executed ideas. “Curse Your Lucky Star,” for instance, is a solid story about a doomed effort to get rid of a man named Jeremy Chance who has freakishly good luck, but always at the expense of other people, resulting in an endless chain of catastrophes around him"

    This was the premise of a great X-Files episode. I'm not sure if it was written by Vince Gilligan, who quoted Watchmen at the climax of Breaking Bad…

    Reply

  6. elvwood
    July 10, 2015 @ 11:46 pm

    Can I just say I've particularly enjoyed this brief foray into Morrison territory? I've picked up quite a bit of info about Moore from books, articles and DVDs, so while I always enjoy your perspective (con artist – brilliant!) you are going over quite a lot of ground I've seen before. There are some points reading LWiA where I'll think "hang on, hasn't he covered this already?", only to realise that I'm remembering Lance Parkin. Morrison, on the other hand, is pretty much a blank slate to me – I know some of his early DC work (Animal Man, Doom Patrol, The Invisibles), but virtually nothing outside of that other than what I've learned here.

    Still, I shall bide my time and enjoy your take on Watchmen…

    Reply

  7. Elizabeth Sandifer
    July 11, 2015 @ 12:50 am

    There's going to be more Morrison in Book Two than you might expect.

    More broadly, there's very much a Tone Shift about to happen. Book Two goes about things in a very different way. Still one that's unmistakably Last War in Albion, but nevertheless a very different sort of story to what has gone before.

    Reply

  8. Elizabeth Sandifer
    July 11, 2015 @ 12:51 am

    I think it's Morrison's greatest self-satire to date.

    Reply

  9. Andrew Morton
    July 11, 2015 @ 8:31 am

    I remember the idea of an individuals luck being detrimental to the health of those around them appearing in Ringworld by Larry Niven

    Reply

  10. Karl Thomasson
    July 12, 2015 @ 4:44 am

    It's fascinating to note how the war is still going on, and has even kept developing since this project started. Often just subtly, but sometimes with obvious antagonism. Morrison's Pax Americana, from the DC Multiversity "event" seems the most pertinent in how he is dissecting Watchmen for what he believes works and doesn't. Does that him Stalin, reverse-engineering the Manhattan project?

    Reply

  11. Daru
    July 13, 2015 @ 10:38 pm

    Brilliant!

    Reply

  12. Daru
    July 13, 2015 @ 10:40 pm

    What was the Watchmen quote in the Breaking Bad climax?

    Reply

  13. Daru
    July 13, 2015 @ 10:41 pm

    Looking forwards to the next book and I have enjoyed the forays into Morrison's territory too as I am less well read on him than Moore.

    Reply

  14. Daru
    July 13, 2015 @ 10:47 pm

    It is odd, but when I think back to reading the Moore Future Shock's section of the War, I experienced a massive wave of nostalgia as I was seeing the stories again for the first time in decades – that was so sweet. But somehow I can't recall in the same way Morrison's Future Shocks, and that surprises me. I do vividly remember Zenith which I loved deeply as a story – it could be the case that I dropped out of reading 2000AD for a while, but I'd have no way of knowing unless I dig out the originals from my parent's attic.

    So I am finding the whole war an interesting exercise in memory and nostalgia too, and it is really interesting to come across things I was sure I had read that I haven't.

    "But the shape of that conflict is impossible to define, a fractal geometry where every act of precise measurement reveals nothing save for more measurements to take. This is, of course, the inevitable nature of a war that rages through what Moore will come to define as Ideaspace."

    This whole paragraph is beautiful.

    Reply

  15. FrF
    July 15, 2015 @ 8:44 am

    I'm also very much looking forward to Vol. 2 whose serialization will be our companion for the next two years! ("The coverage of Watchmen will be as large as the coverage of everything before it", as https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027287602/the-last-war-in-albion-and-other-tales/description says.) And because The Last War will be continued at least to Vol. 6 — the funding of Vol. 7 is almost a certainty, I think — it is already close to a ten-year project. Let's all admire Phil's enthusiasm and stamina 🙂

    Reply

  16. Elizabeth Sandifer
    July 15, 2015 @ 9:00 am

    /weeps

    Reply

  17. Daru
    July 15, 2015 @ 11:24 pm

    Your'e a hero Phil.

    Reply

  18. Daru
    July 15, 2015 @ 11:29 pm

    I visited my parents yesterday and grabbed out of my large stash in their attic a bunch of comics I'd not seen for years! So I managed to find my original copies of Near Myths, A1, Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy, Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, including tons more and even an interesting interview with Moore post-Watchmen in the Comics Journal and one nice thing by Moore (in a collected edition) with Eddie Campbell called (I think) Tourism for Agoraphobics.

    I'm looking forwards to a massive binge-nostalgia read and all inspired by this blog – really looking forwards to the Watchmen section (found that too).

    Reply

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