Alan Moore has never failed to dissapoint. That said, I'm not paying $75 bucks for a comic book. Unless there are plans for a paperback, I will have to leave this "difficult" read to others. Speaking of "difficult", try the graphic novel on the 9/11 commission. Most tedious page-turner I've read in a while...

No mention of the fact that Moore and Gebbie fell in love over the course of producing this book and are now engaged?

I's also like to thank Salon for a recent uptick in the amount of Comics/Graphic Novel reporting lately! Just to balance out the hundreds of "subscription threats" I read on these comment boards every day...

$75 dollars doesn't seem overwhelming to me. I mean, it's 3 volumes. I didn't hesitate to pop down 20 dolloars a pop for Top 10, or any of Moore's other works. Simple math means this isn't so outrageous. I'm sure that the higher price also comes of the fact that it's intended to be kept out of the hands of the underaged.

By putting it all together, and slapping a initially daunting price tag on it, you also lend it credibility as artwork. If it was released one issue at a time for a run of 25 issues at 3 bucks a pop, it'd have a really different feel to it.

I don't suppose people would have anything to complain about the price of it then though. That'd be pretty much standard cost for comics these days.

Not really.

A. N. Roquelaure's "Sleeping Beauty" trilogy, anyone?

(Yeah, yeah, Anne Rice under a pseudonym, I know.)

The two works are vastly different. "Sleeping Beauty" didn't fuck Cinderella. And none of the characters in "Lost Girls" are forced to do anything.

"Top 10" disappointed you? "Tom Strong" was disappointing? "Promethea" disappoints you? My God, you poor man.

I had trouble following the review. It's about underage lesbian comicbook porn? Dear me. Are we on the Tokyo subway?

The Watchmen was the most overbloated pretentious nonsense - I'd rather read the Hulk or Spiderman (or, particularly, Cerebus - which never took itself seriously). The ending of the Watchmen was such a lame dissapointment, that any claim to seriousness could only be made by those too lazy to actually read a real novel - you know, the kind without pictures...

I am very curious to read this trilogy. I never read comics or graphic novels these days. But that strange little piece (now apparently adulterated and in the electronic ether of fact checker's hell) on child porn the other day got me thinking a lot about the issue of pedophilia. No, I ain't now perv, it's just got to be the most fascinating taboo left on the planet. The very language people use in talking about pedophilia makes it sound like they're hanging on to it as a horror of horrors because there's no other horror left.

Point is, Lost girls sounds like it may deal with this subject a little less clingy and reactionary than others. I'm fascinated by folks trying to make meaning out of this issue.

At any rate, I imagine my name is going to go on several government and Right Wing lists now, but I refuse to say anything anonymously in this world. Lost Girls is on sale through Amazon for $47.25. My guess is that you won't be able to find it at your local B&N or Borders.

Chin up! Life here in the 21st century is at least interesting...

Cerebus may have started out not taking itself seriously, but by the end Sims extreme misogeny, and mental illness, made it not only painfully to read, but pretentious to boot. Which is a shame, because at its best Cerebus was one of the most brilliant novels ever written, no matter the format.

Did Doug miss a joke there? Doesn't "Monsieur Rougeur" translate to "Mr. Rogers"?

So we've reached the point where Watchmen is "overbloated pretentious nonsense" with a lackluster ending. Someone is missing the entire point of the book if that's the stumbling block...

do you read me? People "hang onto it...because there are no other horrors left." Twaddle, Biddle. There are still horrors aplenty. And please remember that each child born into this world is a new audience and old horrors will suffice. And that offering hardcore porn or jive artporn is still a crying shame. We struggle with the language of pedophilia because we(most of us) know that pedophilia is possibly the one crime that cannot be rationalized.

I wrote "Alan Moore has never failed to dissapoint." What I meant was: "I should really be in bed as my toddler son will be rising in less than 6 hours. Oh, and Alan Moore has never dissapointed me." Sorry about that...

Another point of clarification that, due mostly to people's immeadiate overreaction to the subject even being mentioned, tends to get confused. Pedophelia is a mental disorder (classified as so) wherein an adult is sexually attracted to non-sexually mature children as young as pre-school age (don't even get started on Nepiophilia).

Ephebophilia, in contrast, is the attraction to adolescents of sexual maturity who may not be of the age of consent (which, of course, varies by municipalty). This is entirely normal and common and should not be seen as deviant (acting upon it, however, is not a good idea). One of Moore's points, I would guess.

OK, overreacting Broadsheeters! Do your worst!

My reply to Dian"CRUMB","History of Men's Magazines in America/TaschenBooks"Hanson's note to me of July 5th, when, assigned by BookForum to review LOST GIRLS, she asked me to help refresh her memory...

"DH

When Gebbie was the Next Big Thing, Jay Kinney and I had worked out a 5-page story for one of the last issues of YOUNG LUST. 'Pierce the Veil' was all about the Masonic Washington Monument as 'The Tower of the Elephant', from WEIRD TALES by Robert E. Howard... which Barry Windsor-Smith I guess had recently done as a strip for Marvel's CONAN...

Jay suddenly wanted to cram a Gebbie page into the book.

I hadda redraw the whole 'PTV' strip as 4 rows of panels instead of 3... aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I still have the original pencils. They way rock better.

Not Gebbie's fault, except for having been born...

xoxo ned"

Heh heh, no offense Melinda & Alan...