This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2009)

Howard Victor Chaykin (born October 7, 1950)^[1] is an American comic book writer and artist famous for his innovative storytelling and sometimes controversial material. Chaykin’s main influences are the mid-20th Century book illustrators Robert Fawcett, Al Parker, and others, along with a love for jazz, which is often reflected in his work.

Biography[link]

1970s[link]

Howard Chaykin began his career in comics as an assistant to such artists as Gil Kane and Neal Adams before going solo. His first major work was for DC Comics drawing a comics adaptation of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in Sword of Sorcery.^[2] Although the title was well received, it lasted only five issues before cancellation. Chaykin also drew the character Ironwolf in the science fiction anthology title Weird Worlds^[3] for DC. Moving to Marvel Comics, he began work as co-artist with Neal Adams on the first Killraven story, seen in Amazing Adventures #18 in 1973.

After this, Chaykin was given various adventure strips to draw for Marvel, including his own creation, Dominic Fortune (inspired by his Scorpion character, originally drawn for Atlas Comics), now in the pages of Marvel Premiere. In 1978, he also wrote and drew his Cody Starbuck creation for the anthology title Star Reach, one of the first independent titles of the 1970s. These strips saw him explore more adult themes as best he could within the restrictions often imposed on him by editors and the Comics Code Authority. The same year, he produced for Schanes & Schanes a six-plate portfolio showcasing his character.

In 1976, Chaykin landed the job of drawing the Marvel Comics adaptation of the first Star Wars film, written by Roy Thomas.^[4] This proved to be a massive success for Marvel, but Chaykin left after ten issues to work in more adult and experimental comics, as well the more lucrative field of paperback book covers.

Chaykin penciled DC Comics' first miniseries, The World of Krypton (July–September 1979).^[5]

In the next few years he produced material for Heavy Metal, drew a graphic novel adaptation of Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, and produced illustrations for works by Roger Zelazny. Chaykin also collaborated on two original graphic novels — Swords of Heaven, Flowers of Hell with writer Michael Moorcock, and Empire with Samuel R. Delany — and found time to move into film design with work on the movie version of Heavy Metal.

1980s[link]

Chaykin went back to Cody Starbuck with a story in Heavy Metal between May and September 1981, in the same painted art style he'd used for the Moorcock graphic novel.

[edit] American Flagg!

In 1983, Chaykin launched American Flagg! for First Comics. With Chaykin as both writer and artist, American Flagg! was successful for First and proved highly influential. Chaykin mixed all his previous ideas and interests—jazz, pulp adventure, science fiction and sex—into American Flagg!. For American Flagg!, Chaykin made wide use of Craftint Duoshade illustration boards, which in the period before computers, allowed him to add a shaded texture to the finished art.^[6]

After the first 26 issues of American Flagg!, Chaykin started work on new projects. Chaykin’s involvement in his original run of the series was that of writer for 29 issues, interior artist for issues 1-12 and 14-26, and cover artist for issues 1-33. He returned to full art and writing duties just for the American Flagg! Special one-shot in 1986. In 1989, a four-issue run was released, then the title was cancelled and relaunched as Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!. This new rendition failed to recapture the glory days of the title’s early years and only lasted 12 issues before cancellation.

Upstart Associates[link]

In Fall 1978,^[7] Chaykin, Walt Simonson, Val Mayerik, and Jim Starlin formed Upstart Associates, a shared studio space on West 29th Street in New York City. The membership of the studio changed over time.^[8]

[edit] The Shadow

The first new project was a controversial revamp of The Shadow in a four-issue mini-series for DC Comics in 1986. Rather than setting the series in its traditional 1930s milieu, Chaykin updated it to a contemporary setting and included his own style of extreme violence. In a 2012 interview, Chaykin stated "The reason I pulled him out of the period was because I thought it would be commercial suicide to do a period character at that point."^[9]

[edit] Time²

The American Flagg! Special one-shot was designed to introduce Chaykin's next major work, a graphic novel series called Time². The work—combining semi-autobiographical elements with a heavy dose of jazz, film noir and a fantasy version of New York City—resulted in two graphic novels (Time²: The Epiphany (ISBN 0-915419-07-6) and Time²: The Satisfaction of Black Mariah (ISBN 0-915419-23-8)).

During a 1987 interview originally published in Amazing Heroes #132, Chaykin described plans for a third graphic novel. "It's probably going to be grossly different from the first two, because I'm taking things in another direction," Chaykin said at the time. "I want to do a story that is both very funny ... and at the same time very, very ugly. Really nasty and unpleasant. Because frankly, it's the place to do that sort of thing."^[10]

Although Chaykin hoped it would be available in summer 1988, the third book was never released.

Chaykin has described Time² as one of his favorites among his own output. "To tell you the truth, my first interest would be to do another Time² because that was a very personal product for me," he said in a 2008 interview. "It's a fantasia of my family's story."^[11]

[edit] Blackhawk

Before Chaykin returned to American Flagg!, he revamped another DC Comics character: Blackhawk was a three-issue mini-series that gave Chaykin another chance to indulge in the 1930s milieu, proving itself another successful revamping of a defunct DC character.

Chaykin also protested DC’s proposed system of labelling comics for violent or sexual content; Chaykin (with Alan Moore, and Frank Miller) boycotted DC and refused to work for the company. In Chaykin’s case, the boycott would only last until the early 1990s.

[edit] Black Kiss

In 1988, Chaykin created perhaps his most controversial title: Black Kiss, a 12-issue series published by Vortex Comics which contained his most explicit depictions of sex and violence yet. Telling the story of sex-obsessed vampires in Hollywood, Black Kiss pushed the boundaries of what could be shown in mainstream comics. Even though Black Kiss shipped sealed in an "adults only" clear plastic bag, its content drew much criticism. This did not stop it from selling well enough for Chaykin to describe it as "probably, on a per-page basis, the most profitable book I've ever done."^[12]

1990s[link]

Chaykin returned to DC to write a three-issue prestige format mini-series called Twilight, drawn by José Luis García-López, in a style blending Chaykin's storytelling and García-López's elegant line art. This was another radical revamp of DC characters—this time, DC’s science fiction heroes from the 1950s and 1960s, such as Tommy Tomorrow and Space Cabby. He then co-created/designed Firearm for Malibu Comics in 1993. This was followed by the four-issue miniseries Power and Glory in 1994, a superhero-themed PR satire for Malibu Comics' creator-owned Bravura imprint. It was optioned for film production, but was never made into a movie.^{[citation needed]}

In 1996, DC’s Helix imprint published Cyberella, a cyberpunk dystopia written by Chaykin and drawn by Don Cameron. Although it was not intended as a limited series, Helix decided to end the relatively poor-selling title at twelve issues.^{[citation needed]}

Chaykin began to drift out of comics by the mid-1990s. With the exception of several Elseworlds stories he wrote for DC Comics, including Batman: Dark Allegiances which he wrote and drew in 1996, his comic output became minimal as he became more involved in film and television work. He was executive script consultant for The Flash television series on CBS,^[13] and later worked on action-adventure programs such as Viper,^[14] Earth: Final Conflict^[15] and Mutant X.^[16]

Near the end of the decade, Chaykin started to drift back into comics and co-wrote with David Tischman the three-issue mini-series Pulp Fantastic for the Vertigo imprint of DC, with art by Rick Burchett. Pulp Fantastic was part of Vertigo’s celebrations for the new Millennium, and although it never sold well,^{[citation needed]} it would see the start of Chaykin becoming more involved with comics over the next few years.

2000s[link]

Chaykin began co-writing American Century with David Tischmann for Vertigo.^[17] This story, set in post-war America, would be a pulp-adventure strip inspired by the likes of Terry and the Pirates as well as the EC Comics war stories created by Harvey Kurtzman. That year, Chaykin became part of the creative team on Mutant X, a television series inspired by the Marvel Comics series of mutant titles.

American Century was a critical hit but sold poorly^{[citation needed]} and was canceled after 27 issues. This was only the start of an intense period of work for Chaykin at DC Comics. He also quit his television and film work during the run on American Century.^{[citation needed]}

His next work was Mighty Love, a 96-page original graphic novel published in 2004 and described as "You’ve Got Mail with super-powers".^[18] This was acclaimed as a return to the type of work he did on American Flagg! and contained his first art in a title since the early 1990s.

That year, Chaykin and Tischmann revamped Challengers of the Unknown in a six-issue mini-series for DC, as well as writing a mini-series about gangster vampires called Bite Club for Vertigo.^[17] The pair also wrote Barnum!: In Secret Service to the USA, a graphic novel in which real-life showman P.T. Barnum comes to the aid of the U.S. government.

In 2005, Chaykin produced the six-part City of Tomorrow, a DC/Wildstorm production involving a futuristic city populated by gangster robots. Chaykin described the mini-series as "The Untouchables meets West World at Epcot."^[19] Also for Wildstorm that year, he wrote the four-issue mini-series Legend updating the character Hugo Danner.

He also illustrated 24 College Ave., a story serialized online in 54 chapters for ESPN.com’s Page 2 section. ESPN.com columnist Jim Caple wrote the text, each episode of which was accompanied by a single-panel Chaykin drawing.^[20]

In 2006, he began working on his first superhero title for DC Comics, pencilling Hawkgirl, with Walter Simonson writing, starting with issue 50.^[21] With issue 56, he stopped drawing the series, mainly to get time to work on Marvel’s Blade with Marc Guggenheim, although he continued to draw Hawkgirl covers for a few issues.

Also in 2006, DC Comics published a two-page Black Canary origin story drawn by Chaykin for the series 52. Later that year, DC released Guy Gardner: Collateral Damage. The two-issue series, written and drawn by Chaykin, revolves around the Green Lantern Corps' role in an interstellar war.

After Blade was cancelled with issue 12, he pencilled issue 50 of Punisher, Wolverine (vol. 3) #56-61, Punisher War Journal (vol. 2) (#16-24) and an issue of Immortal Iron Fist. Chaykin has also illustrated the 2008 Marvel MAX comic War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle, scripted by Garth Ennis. He wrote Supreme Power #1-12 for Marvel. In 2009, he wrote and penciled Dominic Fortune.

In 2010 he wrote Die Hard: Year One, a comic about John McClane from the Die Hard series for Boom! Studios.^[22] Marvel in June 2010 published a Rawhide Kid mini-series drawn by Chaykin and written by Ron Zimmerman.^[23]

Marvel Comics in 2011 announced Chaykin would write and draw a five-part miniseries, Avengers 1959, a spinoff of a storyline first introduced in The New Avengers. The first issue is scheduled for an October 2011 release.^[24]

Chaykin serves on the Disbursement Committee of the comic-book industry charity The Hero Initiative.^[25]

Bibliography[link]

His work as an artist (interior pencil art, except where noted) includes:

DC[link]

• Adventure Comics (Shining Knight) #438 (1975)
• Batgirl & Robin: Thrillkiller #1-3 (writer, 1997)
• Batman: Dark Allegiances (writer/artist, 1996)
• Batman Black and White, miniseries, #1 (writer/artist, 1996)
• Batman/Catwoman: Follow the Money (2010)
• Batman Family #14 (1977)
• Blackhawk #260 (1983)
• Blackhawk, miniseries, #1-3 (writer/artist, 1988)
• Challengers of the Unknown, miniseries, #1-6 (writer/artist, 2004)
• City of Tomorrow, miniseries, #2-3 (2005)
• Detective Comics (Batman & Robin) #441 (1974); (Human Target) #483 (1979)
• Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #7 (1972)
• DC Holiday Special '09 (Enemy Ace) #1 (2010)
• Guy Gardner: Collateral Damage, miniseries, #1-2 (2007)
• Hawkgirl #50-56 (2006)
• House of Mystery #277 (1980)
• JSA: All-Stars, miniseries, #5 (2003)
• Justice Society of America 80-Page Giant #1 (among other artists) (2011)
• Men of War (Enemy Ace) #9-10, 12-14, 19-20 (1978–79)
• Mighty Love, graphic novel (writer/artist, 2004)
• Orion #7 (co-writer/artist, 2000)
• The Shadow, miniseries, #1-4 (1985)
• Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #240 (1978)
• Sword of Sorcery (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser) #1-5 (1973)
• Tarzan (backup story) #216 (1973)
• Twilight, miniseries, #1-3 (writer, 1990)
• Weird War Tales #48, 61-62, 67, 69, 76, 82 (1976–79)
• Weird Western Tales (Cinnamon) #49 (1978)
• Weird Worlds (Ironwolf) #8-10 (1973–74)
• World of Krypton, miniseries, #1-3 (1979)

Marvel[link]

• Amazing Adventures, vol. 2, (Killraven) #18 (along with Neal Adams), 19 (1973)
• Avengers 1959, miniseries, #1- (2011)
• Blade #1-8 (2006–07)
• Captain America #600, 616 (among other artists) (2009–11)
• Captain America Theater of War: America First! (2009)
• Chamber of Chills #4 (1973)
• Conan the Barbarian #79-83 (1977–78)
• Hulk! (Dominic Fortune) #21-25 (1980–81)
• Immortal Iron Fist Annual #1 (among other artists) (2007)
• Iron Man, vol. 5, (Tony Stark) #503 (2011)
• James Bond for Your Eyes Only #2 (1981)
• Kull and the Barbarians (Red Sonja) #2-3 (1975)
• Magneto #1 (2010)
• Marvel Comics Super Special #9, 19 (1978–81)
• Marvel Preview (Dominic Fortune) #20 (1980)
• Marvel Spotlight (Nick Fury) #31 (1976)
• Marvel Team-Up (Spider-Man) #76-77 (1978)
• New Avengers #21 (2007)
• New Avengers, vol. 2, #9-on (along with Mike Deodato, doing "Avengers 1959" flashbacks) (2011)
• Punisher War Journal, vol. 2, #16-25 (2008–09)
• Star Wars #1-10 (1977–1978)
• X-Men vs. Vampires, miniseries, #2 (2010)

Other publishers[link]

• American Flagg! #1-12, 14-26 (writer/artist); #13, 27-29 (writer) (First, 1983–86)
• Black Kiss #1-12 (writer/artist) (Vortex, 1988–89)
• Creepy #64 (Warren, 1974)
• The Scorpion #1-2 (writer/artist) (Atlas/Seaboard)
• Star*Reach #1, 4-5 (1974–76) (Star*Reach)

Compilations[link]

• American Flagg! Volumes 1, 2, 3 (collect issues #1-9, First Comics)
• American Flagg! Volumes 1 and 2 (collect issues #1-14, Dynamic Forces and Image Comics, 2009, ISBN 1-58240-419-4)
• Batman: Thrillkiller DC, 1998, ISBN 1-56389-424-6
• American Century:
  • Scars & Stripes (collects issues #1-4, with David Tischman and Marc Laming, DC/Vertigo, 2001, ISBN 1-56389-791-1)
  • Hollywood Babylon (collects issues #5-9, with David Tischman, Marc Laming, John Stokes and Warren Pleece, DC/Vertigo, 2002, ISBN 1-56389-885-3)
• Thick Black Kiss (SC, Vortex, 1993), Big Black Kiss (SC, Eros Comics, 2002), Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss (HC, Dynamite, 2010, ISBN 1-60690-021-8)
• Challengers of the Unknown: Stolen Moments, Borrowed Time DC, 2006, ISBN 1-4012-0941-6
• City of Tomorrow (collects the mini-series, DC/Wildstorm, 2006, ISBN 1-4012-0945-9)
• Blade:
  • Undead Again (collects #1-6, with Marc Guggenheim, Marvel, May 2007, ISBN 0-7851-2364-4)
  • Sins of the Father (collects #7-12, with Marc Guggenheim, Marvel, October 2007, ISBN 0-7851-2365-2)
• Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (collects the Marvel/Epic mini-series, with Mike Mignola and Al Williamson, Dark Horse, 2007, ISBN 1-59307-713-0)
• Dominic Fortune (Marvel, 2010, ISBN 0-7851-4042-5)

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

This section includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2010)

• Howard Chaykin at sequart.com
• "Howard Chaykin’s Resources". Howtomakecomics.net. Archived from the original on 2008-04-08. http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20080408110813/http://www.howtomakecomics.net/people/Howard%20Chaykin. 
• Moran, David (August 1, 2008). "CCI: Spotlight on Howard Chaykin". Comic Book Resources. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17544. 

Interviews[link]

• Howard Chaykin interview
• Lee, Jim (January 6, 2004). "Jim Lee-A-Rama: Howard Chaykin". Newsarama. Archived from the original on April 14, 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20040414025018/http://www.newsarama.com/pages/JimLeeWeek/Leearama_3.htm. 
• "Howard Chaykin Interview". Westfield Comics. September 2001. http://westfieldcomics.com/wow/frm_int_053.html. 
• Doane, Alan David (2004). "The Comic Book Galaxy Interview: Howard Chaykin". Comic Book Galaxy. http://www.comicbookgalaxy.com/chaykin.html. 
• Schweier, Philip (March 13, 2006). "Howard Chaykin: Back to the Drawing Board". Comic Book Bin. http://www.comicbookbin.com/bubble072.html. 
• Anderson, Ho Che (December 18, 2009). "TCJ 300 Conversations: Howard Chaykin & Ho Che Anderson". The Comics Journal. http://www.tcj.com/tcj-300/tcj-300-conversations-howard-chaykin-ho-che-anderson. Retrieved April 21, 2010. 

Alan Moore
Born	Alan Oswald Moore (1953-11-18) 18 November 1953 (age 58) Northampton, Northamptonshire, England, UK
Pen name	Curt Vile Jill de Ray Translucia Baboon
Occupation	Comics writer, novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, musician, cartoonist, magician
Nationality	British
Genres	Science fiction, fiction, non-fiction, superhero, horror
Notable work(s)	Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Batman: The Killing Joke, Voice of the Fire, Lost Girls
Spouse(s)	Phyllis Moore Melinda Gebbie
Children	Amber Moore Leah Moore
Influences William Blake, Angela Carter, William S. Burroughs,[1] Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson, Clive Barker, Bryan Talbot, Michael Moorcock, Bertold Brecht, H. P. Lovecraft, Iain Sinclair, Will Eisner,[2] Steve Ditko,[2] Jack Kirby,[3] Edgar Allan Poe, Dave Sim
Influenced Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke, Joss Whedon,[4] Kurt Busiek, Brian Azzarello, Brian K. Vaughan, Mark Millar, Geoff Johns, Damon Lindelof,[4] Dax Riggs, Tim Burton

Alan Oswald Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell.^[5] Frequently described as the best graphic novel writer in history,^{[6](p10)[7](p7)} he has also been described as "one of the most important British writers of the last fifty years".^[8] He has occasionally used such pseudonyms as Curt Vile, Jill de Ray, and Translucia Baboon.

Moore started out writing for British underground and alternative fanzines in the late 1970s before achieving success publishing comic strips in such magazines as 2000 AD and Warrior. He was subsequently picked up by the American DC Comics, and as "the first comics writer living in Britain to do prominent work in America",^[7](p7) he worked on big name characters such as Batman (Batman: The Killing Joke) and Superman (Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?), substantially developed the minor character Swamp Thing, and penned original titles such as Watchmen. During that decade, Moore helped to bring about greater social respectability for the medium in the United States and United Kingdom,^[7](p11) and has subsequently been credited with the development of the term "graphic novel" over "comic book".^[9] In the late 1980s and early 1990s he left the comic industry mainstream and went independent for a while, working on experimental work such as the epic From Hell, pornographic Lost Girls, and the prose novel Voice of the Fire. He subsequently returned to the mainstream later in the 1990s, working for Image Comics, before developing America's Best Comics, an imprint through which he published works such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the occult-based Promethea.

Moore is a Neopagan, occultist, ceremonial magician, wizard, vegetarian and anarchist and has featured such themes in works including Promethea, From Hell and V for Vendetta, as well as performing avant-garde spoken word occult "workings" with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.

Despite his own personal objection to them, his books have provided the basis for a number of Hollywood films, including From Hell (2001), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), V for Vendetta (2005) and Watchmen (2009). Moore has also been referenced in popular culture, and has been recognised as an influence on a variety of literary and television figures including Neil Gaiman,^{[10](pp16–18)} Joss Whedon,^[4] and Damon Lindelof.^[4]

Biography[link]

Early life: 1953–1977[link]

Moore was born on 18 November 1953, at St. Edmond’s Hospital in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England, to a working class family whom he believed had lived in the town for several generations.^[6](p11) He subsequently grew up in a part of Northampton known as The Boroughs, a poverty-stricken area with a lack of facilities and high levels of illiteracy, but he nonetheless "loved it. I loved the people. I loved the community and… I didn’t know that there was anything else."^{[6](pp13–16)} He lived in his house with his parents, brewery worker Ernest Moore, and printer Sylvia Doreen, along with his younger brother Mike and his maternal grandmother.^[6](p14) He "read omnivorously" from the age of five, getting books out of the local library, and subsequently attended Spring Lane Primary School.^[6](p17) At the same time, he began reading comic strips, initially British strips, such as Topper and The Beezer, but eventually also American imports such as Flash, Detective Comics, Fantastic Four, and Blackhawk.^[6](p31) He later passed his eleven plus exam, and was therefore eligible to go to Northampton Grammar School,^[11] where he first came into contact with people who were middle class and better educated, and he was shocked at how he went from being one of the top pupils at his primary school to one of the lowest in the class at secondary. Subsequently disliking school and having "no interest in academic study", he believed that there was a "covert curriculum" being taught that was designed to indoctrinate children with "punctuality, obedience and the acceptance of monotony".^{[6](pp17–18)}

In the late 1960s Moore began publishing his own poetry and essays in fanzines, eventually setting up his own fanzine, Embryo. Through Embryo, Moore became involved in a group known as the Arts Lab. The Arts Lab subsequently made significant contributions to the magazine. ^{[6](pp33–34)} He began dealing the hallucinogenic LSD at school, being expelled for doing so in 1970 – he later described himself as "one of the world's most inept LSD dealers".^[12] The headmaster of the school subsequently "got in touch with various other academic establishments that I'd applied to and told them not to accept me because I was a danger to the moral well-being of the rest of the students there, which was possibly true."^[6](p18)

Whilst continuing to live in his parents' home for a few more years, he moved through various jobs, including cleaning toilets and working in a tannery. Around 1971, he met and began a relationship with a Northampton-born girl named Phyllis, with whom he moved into "a little one-room flat in the Barrack Road area in Northampton". Soon marrying, they moved into a new council estate in the town's eastern district whilst he worked in an office for a sub-contractor of the local gas board. However, he felt that he was not being fulfilled by this job, and so decided to try to earn a living doing something more artistic.^{[6](pp34–35)}

Early career: 1978–1980[link]

Abandoning his office job, he decided to instead take up both writing and illustrating his own comics. He had already produced a couple of strips for several alternative fanzines and magazines, such as Anon E. Mouse for the local paper Anon, and St. Pancras Panda, a parody of Paddington Bear, for the Oxford-based Back Street Bugle.^{[7](pp16–17)} His first paid work was for a few drawings that were printed in NME music magazine, and not long after he succeeded in getting a series about a private detective known as Roscoe Moscow published using the pseudonym of Curt Vile (a pun on the name of composer Kurt Weill) in the weekly music magazine Sounds, earning £35 a week. Alongside this, he and Phyllis, along with their newly born daughter Leah, began claiming unemployment benefit to supplement this income.^[6](p36) Not long after this, in 1979 he also began publishing a new comic strip known as Maxwell the Magic Cat in the Northants Post, under the pseudonym of Jill de Ray (a pun on the Medieval child murderer Gilles de Rais, something he found to be a "sardonic joke"). Earning a further £10 a week from this, he decided to sign off of social security, and would continue writing Maxwell the Magic Cat until 1986.^{[6](pp36–37)} Moore has stated that he would have been happy to continue Maxwell's adventures almost indefinitely, but ended the strip after the newspaper ran a negative editorial on the place of homosexuals in the community.^[13] Meanwhile, Moore decided to focus more fully on writing comics rather than both writing and drawing them, stating that "After I'd been doing [it] for a couple of years, I realised that I would never be able to draw well enough and/or quickly enough to actually make any kind of decent living as an artist."^[14](p15)

To learn more about how to write a successful comic book script, he asked advice from his friend, comic book writer Steve Moore, whom he had known since he was fourteen.^[14](p20) Interested in writing for 2000AD, one of Britain's most prominent comic magazines, Alan Moore then submitted a script for their long running and successful series Judge Dredd. Whilst having no need for another writer on Judge Dredd, which was already being written by John Wagner, 2000AD's editor Alan Grant saw promise in Moore's work – later remarking that "this guy's a really fucking good writer"^[15] – and instead asked him to write some short stories for the publication's Future Shocks series. While the first few were rejected, Grant advised Moore on improvements, and eventually accepted the first of many. Meanwhile, Moore had also begun writing minor stories for Doctor Who Weekly, and later commented that "I really, really wanted a regular strip. I didn’t want to do short stories… But that wasn't what was being offered. I was being offered short four or five page stories where everything had to be done in those five pages. And, looking back, it was the best possible education that I could have had in how to construct a story."^{[14](pp21–22)}

[edit] Marvel UK, 2000AD, and Warrior: 1980–1984

From 1980 through to 1984, Moore maintained his status as a freelance writer, and was offered a spate of work by a variety of comic book companies in Britain, namely Marvel UK, and the publishers of 2000AD and Warrior. He later remarked that "I remember that what was generally happening was that everybody wanted to give me work, for fear that I would just be given other work by their rivals. So everybody was offering me things."^[6](p57) It was an era when comic books were increasing in popularity in Britain, and according to Lance Parkin, "the British comics scene was cohering as never before, and it was clear that the audience was sticking with the title as they grew up. Comics were no longer just for very small boys: teenagers – even A-level and university students – were reading them now."^[7](p20)

During this three year period, 2000AD would accept and publish over fifty of Moore's one-off stories for their Future Shocks and Time Twisters science fiction series.^[15] The editors at the magazine were impressed by Moore's work and decided to offer him a more permanent strip, starting with a story that they wanted to be vaguely based upon the hit film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The result, Skizz, which was illustrated by Jim Baikie, told the story of the titular alien who crashes to Earth and is cared for by a woman named Roxy, and Moore later noted that in his opinion, this work "owes far too much to Alan Bleasdale."^[16](p94) Another series he produced for 2000AD was D.R. and Quinch, which was illustrated by Alan Davis. The story, which Moore described as "continuing the tradition of Dennis the Menace, but giving him a thermonuclear capacity",^[16](p99) revolved around two delinquent aliens, and was a science-fiction take on National Lampoon's characters O.C. and Stiggs. However, the work widely considered to be the highlight of his 2000AD career,^{[16](pp100–110)} and that he himself described as "the one that worked best for me"^[6](p58) was The Ballad of Halo Jones, the first series in the magazine to be based around a female character, which Moore did deliberately.^{[16](pp99–102)} Co-created with artist Ian Gibson, the series was set in the 50th century. It finished before all the episodes were written.