Alan Moore: The Pocket Essential

by Lance Parkin

Parkin, Lance

Genres: Biography, Comics, Nonfiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Lance Parkin is an author who has written professional Doctor Who fiction since the 1990s. He is one of the few authors to write for both the 1963 and 2005 version of the programme — though much of his fiction has actually been based on the 1996 iteration. Indeed, he was notably the first author to write original prose for the Eighth Doctor in The Dying Days. He was also the author chosen to deliver the nominal 35th anniversary story, The Infinity Doctors, and the final volume in the Eighth Doctor Adventures range, The Gallifrey Chronicles. More recently, he has written for the Tenth Doctor in The Eyeless.

He is further notable for his work with Big Finish Productions, where he is arguably most known for writing the Sixth Doctor adventure, Davros.

Outside of Doctor Who, he has written things like Warlords of Utopia and (with Mark Jones) Dark Matter, a guide to the author Philip Pullman.

Reviews

[Anton · Rating 2 out of 5]

An informative book that provides a useful, if general, overview of Moore's career up to the mid-aughts or so. Moore's output is prodigious, and this slim volume has helped me get a grip on it--particularly his early years in British comics--by providing concise publishing histories of virtually all his titles through most of the 2000s. Based on the strength of what Parkin here and there has to say about the comics themselves, I was left wanting more of his exegesis at times.

[Fugo Feedback]

No tengo ni idea de qué tiene este libro pero se ve que lo puse como to-read en la época en la que agregaba absolutamente todo lo que tuviera el nombre de Moore.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This second edition published in 2009 is a good guide to the works of Alan Moore up to that point. It's not a biography so much as story about Alan's life in comics. It includes some interesting behind the scenes information, particularly about his reaction to the comics and movie industry, but doesn't touch much on personal influences outside of comics. I was going to give this three stars, but the bibliography which takes up the last third or so of the book merits an extra star.