Cinema Purgatorio: Ahora en cartelera

by Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill (Illustrator)

Cambió la manera de hablar acerca de los superhéroes con Miracleman y Watchmen, revolucionó la relación entre historieta popular y de autor en su país y en Estados Unidos, generó nuevas inspiraciones para los héroes de la literatura con The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, reescribió la épica del mundo de H. P. Lovecraft con Neonomicon y Providence... y ahora Alan Moore vuelve a intentarlo con Cinema Purgatorio, volumen que reúne las historias publicadas en la serie homónima... ¡e ilustradas por Kevin O'Neill!

Una alucinante metáfora de la decadencia de la industria del entretenimiento por parte de la pareja que creó The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Manga, Graphic Novels Comics, Horror, History

156 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Alan Moore is an English writer most famous for his influential work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He has also written a novel, Voice of the Fire, and performs "workings" (one-off performance art/spoken word pieces) with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.

As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.

Reviews

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 1 out of 5]

The short take: One of the most disappointing Alan Moore reads I have ever had. Not staying in my collection.

The long take: This is Alan Moore's next-to-purportedly-last work in comics and is illustrated by his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen partner Kevin O'Neill. O'Neill has fantastic chops at pastiche, something he used to good effect in LOEG along with a fair bit of character work and dramatic settings to ground that series. But here, the combination of Moore's prose and O'Neill's art is relatively ungrounded, leading to a text-heavy and image-heavy book that lacks emotional resonance and any overarching theme besides "movie people bad".

The volume consists of short chapters, each somewhat reminiscent of a 1950's EC comics tale. There's a one to two page introduction as we follow our narrator (shown and written in the first person) into the Cinema Purgatorio. There's roughly eight pages of the movie we are watching followed by a one page denouement.

The framing material is probably my favorite stuff in the book. We quickly realize that the staff is quite off, the images of coming attractions are jokes ("No Sex Please --- We're Triffids!"), and the theatre has some disturbing offerings. (There's a good running joke about the fan magazine - "Screen Regrets" - that our narrator buys.) And, of course, there may be dying people in the theatre proper. As we move from chapter to chapter, we learn a little more about the narrator, and there is eventually a plot concerning that character along with a (fairly predictable) twist.

But the movie material is all over the map. Some of the pieces are commentaries about movie conventions delivered with a horrific bent --- for example, the send up of "It's a Wonderful Life" that explores the seemingly immortality of screen actors based on the sacrifices of stunt people. But most of the pieces (and more of them as the volume continues) are detailed explorations of movie history. An early chapter details the sad life of Willis O'Brien as told by his creation, King Kong, in various jungle scenes. (I liked that one.) Later episodes dial up the textual and visual information (e.g., showing the Warner brothers as the Marx Brothers, comparing split screen technology to various personas of Howard Hughes), but tend towards obfuscation as Moore and O'Neill pack in so much in eight pages that the whole package becomes hard to digest.

And the lesson of most of these pieces is how violent and bleak their subjects are. As a result, I found it a slog to read through with little to no payoff. If you are a gigantic movie fan, you may recognize enough of the details to appreciate the construction, but much of my time I spent with my eyes glazing over due to too much stuff.

[Alex Sarll]

Alan Moore's typically peculiar anthology series concludes, with no word as yet whether it will be collected en masse or story-by-story. But then Avatar seem to have got very slack about collections in general of late, as witness the current limbo status of Uber (Hell, even the singles on that are currently MIA). The title story, by Moore and his old mucker Kevin O'Neill, would certainly feel a bit much read straight through, consisting as it does of retellings of all Hollywood's grubbiest secrets, framed by dreamlike scenes in an increasingly grubby picturehouse, whose twist barely counts as a twist given the title. Still, taken individually, there were some nicely nasty little pieces. The other strips...well, it may sound tautologous, but the other strips in this Avatar comic all had Avatar artists, which means there's little to say on that side of the equation. Code Pru was a rare Garth Ennis comic that I didn't bother getting when it came out in singles, but was fine in an anthology, a comedy-drama about a paramedic on the monster beat (suicidal vampires who've tried staking themselves, that sort of thing). Kieron Gillen's Modded was essentially Pokemon by way of Mad Max, while also being a coded history of British videogames; he doesn't get to show off his madcap side enough, so I enjoyed this even before the final instalment took the self-referential nonsense to the next level. Max Brooks' A More Perfect Union redoes the American Civil War with an invasion of giant insects; like all alternate histories based around said war, I suspect it works better for Americans, who know how the events originally went down, but again, in an anthology it was fine. And even Christos Gage's The Vast wasn't bad, but its fairly standard kaiju set-up lacked anything clearly to distinguish it, and felt too much like overlap with all the other monster stories (which is to say, all of them except the title strip).  An interesting experiment, all told, but not what anybody here will be remembered for.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undoubtedly and entirely an Alan Moore story.

I didn't have a fun time reading this, but I wouldn't say I disliked this comic either. It drags on and it's dark and upsetting and pretty dense. But it's also a discussion of violence, prejudice, and greed - how it's depicted in media and in real life.

You'll get the most out of this if you're an old-school cinema buff. But don't read it if you have a weak stomach 😬

[Simon Wigzell · Rating 2 out of 5]

One star above the lowest possible score, and that’s all due to the artwork; looking at O’Neill’s drawings is always a joy. Moore’s script though is Moore at his worst, with everything being a metaphor for something and excruciatingly boring to read.

My main problem with so many of Moore’s comics is that he is a marvelous and gifted writer of melodrama, few writers if any can compete with him when it comes to heartfelt written and emotional soap opera, but he is nowhere near as interesting when he goes for intellect over emotion. When he added sprinkles of smartness and intricate plot weaving into the scripts, such as in “V for Vendetta” or the last parts of “Halo Jones” the results were fantastic: Genre writing at its best.

But unfortunately as an ideas and philosophical writer, he falls flat with not that well thought out ideas of what literature is, societal criticism, and so forth. Here he’s taking on the corruption of Hollywood, with a leaden result going through all the standard bad things happening there: the red scare, the sexualisation of actresses, the greediness of the industry, the individuals getting away with everything and anything (apparently a hedonistic lifestyle is okay only if lived by a magician…). 100% serious, 100% failure in interesting me.

[Andy Paciorek · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am hit and miss with Moore generally and this one is an odd one. I can understand it leaving some readers cold hence some low reviews. I however think it is one of his most interesting works. It isn't perfection by any means but there is a strange something about it. It got under my skin and keeps creeping into my mind. It unsettled me and that's a good thing. I like it when I find media that can affect me that way. There is a dark dreamlike pace to the narrative and it inspired me to do further reading about Tinseltown's sleaze and melancholia. I have a soft spot for Kev O'Neill's art since reading Nemesis the Warlock as a child. Certainly this book won't be for everyone, one man's poison is another man's meat; but I am really pleased I gave it a go.

[David Cordero · Rating 5 out of 5]

You are stuck in Cinema Purgatorio, with nothing but your regrets reeling back in front of you, and your past sins your only companions. No exit.

[Timothy Dymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Alan Moore's and Kevin O’Neill’s final collaboration in comics - and an extremely polarising one it is too considering the low stars and trenchant criticism from other Goodreads reviewers.

I have to give it four stars for both the writing and the artwork - but I warn you that a lot of people are going to find 'Cinema Purgatorio: This is Sinerama’ an ugly, distasteful reading experience - and they would be right to do so! I know ‘it’s good, but don’t read’ is one of the most unhelpful reviews you can possibly write. Basically Moore’s writing and O’Neill’s artistic skills are on full display here, but so are the demons of their ‘issues’ with the comics industry in which they have built their careers. They play these out through a series of vignette/rants against the film industry - particularly its ‘classic’ era. However readers will see the extensive overlap between films and comics as you see 'King Kong’ speak in the character of its frustrated creator Will O’Brien; Superman as George Reeves the actor who played him on TV in the 1950s (an alcoholic who died of a gunshot wound); and a cartoon duo ‘Otz the Cat and Pat the Dog’ - featuring them in their declining years.

The linking story is from the point of view of a woman who keeps visiting an eternal screening session of multiple films. She doesn’t like the very much, but keeps being drawn back - which probably accurately mirrors the experience of many 'Cinema Purgatorio’ readers. It’s hard to reveal exactly why she keeps coming back without major spoilers - but suffice to say that you won’t feel better about humanity when you find out.

[catnipthief · Rating 3 out of 5]

Azt hiszem, ez lehetett 2023 egyik legkülönlegesebb vakvásárlása.
Alan Moore-t, bízom benne, nem kell bemutatnom senkinek. Ha mégis be kellene, akkor nagyon röviden, ez a mára már élő legendának számító csodabogár olyan, a tágabb értelemben vett irodalmat is megbolygató képregények írójaként lehet ismerős, mint a Watchmen, a Különleges Úriemberek Szövetsége, vagy akár a V, mint Vérbosszú.
(A szó valószínűleg klinikai értelmében is) őrült anarchista, okkultista, nihilista(?), aki a fent említetteken túl is jópár, minimum megkerülhetetlen képregénnyel ajándékozta meg az emberiséget.
A Watchmen annak idején az egyik kultikus belépődarabom volt a képregények világába, olyan mesterművek mellett, mint mondjuk a másik őrültzseni/vadbarom, Frank Miller által elkövetett Sin City. Szóval magasra tettem a lécet magamnak már régen, és most, évekkel később, hogy megint csukafejest ugrottam a képregények világába, nagyon kevesen vannak, akik megközelítik azt a zabolázhatatlan, őrjöngő zsenialitást, amit ezek ketten képviselnek. De főleg Alan Moore.
De, ahogy ez az ilyen habzó szájú zsenikkel lenni szokott, mindig eljön az a pont, amikor egyszercsak egy minimum polarizáló, hattyúdalforma művel búcsút intenek a műfajnak, amit saját kezűleg szabtak olyanná, amilyenné. Igen, feltehetőleg a Cinema Purgatorio az utolsó képregény, amit Alan Moore-nak köszönhetünk.
A rövidke, 18 füzetnyi, 2016 és 2019 közt lezavart sorozat pedig minden, csak nem olvasóbarát.
Először vizsgáljuk meg a külcsínt, az ugyanis a könnyebbik vége a dolognak. Kevin O'Neill korábban a Különleges Úriemberek Szövetségén dolgozott együtt Moore-ral, és bár a stílus más, pont ugyanolyan csodaszép, mint az. Részletgazdag, egyszerre zsúfolt és letisztult fekete-fehér kamaradarab, imádom az egészet. Ha csak ennyi lenne ez a képregény, akkor ötösfölé, de hát nem csak ennyi.
Tulajdonképp a lehető leghaszontalanabb, legszarabb „tanács”, amit adhatok, hogy „elképesztő, de ne olvasd el”, de valahol talán mégis ez az egyik legjobb útravaló, ugyanis a Cinema Purgatorio, hát, az idegrendszeredet több szinten is nagyon próbára tevő olvasmány.
Először azt gondoltam, hogy ez valami furcsa, koporsószagú szerelmeslevél lesz a Régmúlt Idők Mozijához, és beletelt néhány „vetítésbe”, mire elkezdtem kapisgálni, hogy itt valami sokkal ördögibb dolog kezd gomolyogni. Vetítést mondok, mert végülis erről van szó. A történetbe egyes szám első személyben, egy kissé tanácstalan hölgy szemein keresztül lépünk be, aki úgy tűnik, képtelen elhagyni a mozitermet, amiben Hollywood aranykoráról/aranykorából származó, klasszikus filmek elképesztően bizarr „változatai” mennek, amik sokkal inkább szólnak a kulisszák és a csillogás mögött lappangó, sötét és visszataszító titkokról. Öngyilkosságnak álcázott gyilkosságokról(?), „tragikusan fiatalon elhunyt” ikonokról, szexuálisan megalázott és kihasznált színésznőkről és casting-kanapékról, az ’50-es évek amerikai komcsiparájában falsul megbélyegzett „kommunisták” és heteróként bujkáló homoszexuális színészek, stábtagok felé irányuló boszorkányüldözésről, a Hollywoodban még a hétköznapinál is visszataszítóbb módon megjelenő szegregációról, vagy akár a korszak Harvey Weinstein-jeinek csöndben a keze alá dolgozó mafiaorvosokról, akik a nyilvánosság szimata nélkül szakítottak meg nem kívánt terhességeket… Érdekes és hátborzongató ez az egész, ugye?
Hiszen mindig is éreztük, mindannyian, hogy Hollywood valójában egy jóval sátánibb hely, mint ahogy szeretjük hinni. De hogy a szemkápráztatónál is szemkápráztatóbb celluloid-csodák zavartalanul jöjjenek csak tovább, ahogy a csövön kifér, inkább csak legyintünk a filmek mögött megbúvó fájdalomra és nyomorra. Meg erre a sok-sok gonoszságra.
Megjelennek itt a korszak híresen megosztó művészei, meg az azok körül sertepertélő figurák. Howard Hughes, George Reeves, a Fekete Dália-gyilkosságok érintettjei, Tod Browning, satöbbisatöbbi…
Az egyik nagy probléma máris itt van, hogy ha nem vagy teljesen elvadult mozirajongó, nagyon kevés, itt megjelenő művészről tudhatsz eleget, és ha nem vagy a témában eleve érdekelt, ez marhakönnyen eltántoríthat a továbbhaladástól. Már csak azért is, mert sok itteni sztori, sztori helyett inkább egy zsúfolt wikipédia-oldalnak érződik, a ránk lapátolt információ pedig tényleg tengernyi. Életemben nem gondoltam volna, hogy egyszer egy egész hétig fogok olvasni egy relatíve rövid képregényt, de egyszerűen képtelenség volt egyszerre sokat legyűrni belőle. Az kétségtelen, hogy Alan Moore elképesztő munkát végzett, látszik a szeretet, a végtelen erőfeszítés, van egy-két egészen brilliáns rész is (pl. a már említett Fekete Dália-gyilkosságok rímbe szedett, akár el is énekelhető musical-változata az egyik áldozat torkából), de közben az is érződik, hogy ez egy részben önmagának írt jutalomjáték, illetve a saját, képregényiparral szembeni ellenérzéseinek dühös metaforája is, és hát nehéz arra az olvasóra megorrolni, akit ez egyszerűen nem érdekel, legyen akár a világ elsőszámú Moore-rajongója.
Illetve a végcsattanó, hogy egész őszinte legyek, talán túlságosan is kiszámítható, és ami még nagyobb gond, Moore mércéjével mérve majdhogynem banális.
Viszont biztos vagyok benne, hogy minél nagyobb klasszikus filmrajongó vagy, annál többet fog neked adni ez a képregény, én nem vagyok ennyire megszállott, de azért végigküzdöttem, mert minden megközelíthetetlensége ellenére ez egy mesterien megírt valami, ami igenis sarkallt arra, hogy utánanézzek a Hollywood-i aranykor viselt dolgainak.
De még egyszer mondom, teljes embert és elképesztő nyitottságot és koncentrációt igénylő műről van szó, és ha életedben nem olvastál Moore-tól semmit, akkor sírva kérlek, NE ezzel kezdj, hanem inkább a bevezetőben felhozott címek valamelyikével.

[Miguel Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will be hard to review at this point, in the last hour of 2022. I can see many people found it hard to like, which is absolutely understandable. It is devoid of much charm. For a reason I don’t entirely understand yet, I loved it.

[Vlad Forsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

The unnamed narrator wakes up in an old-fashioned cinema, with weird characters, and no recollection of why and how she got there. On the screen, she sees stories about Old Hollywood—from the silent movie era up until the '60s—each having to do with sin, murder or everlasting regret. Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill.

Sometimes it felt as if Alan Moore REALLY wanted to write all these stories about the lesser known characters of the Golden Age of Hollywood; people and events that aren't well known or are surrounded by myths. Some of these stories are presented in a biographical style (Pat Sullivan, the Warner Brothers, George Reeves, Tod Browning, Howard Hughes etc) but they don't feel very factual, I wonder if Moore took some of those myths/gossip at face value just for the sake of making a good comic book story.

My favorite ones though are the ones where movie-making tropes (anachronisms, split-screens, stunt doubles, film burning in the projector etc) are presented as these supernatural things intertwining with "actual" reality, in a sort of meta-commentary.

Going back to my idea that Alan Moore wanted to write about Old Hollywood—it fels as if he wanted to write all those stories, but couldn't figure out how to "glue" them together, so he came up with this surreal framing device of the mysterious cinema and the helpless narrator. A story that builds up to an unsatisfying end, but it has the same theme of everlasting regret as the episodic stories.

Kevin O'Neill's is lovely, as usual, even in black and white.

[Keen Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

“You’re joking. Is that it? That was rubbish. That made no sense at all. Oh, well. It was over quickly, at least you can say…”

Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill are responsible for one of the greatest comics of the modern era in the shape of “Watchmen” so it is very hard to believe that both men are responsible for this latest collaboration.

There is some clever use of intertexuality and plenty of nods to the golden era of Hollywood as well as digs and take downs of the various BS and mythology around a lot of that too, but ultimately this seemed too scattergun and indulgent for my tastes. I understand what they were trying to achieve with some of it, but it wasn’t done in a particularly coherent or enjoyable way and so there was a real sense of anti-climax about this and too often this was just an ugly mess.

[Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish I could think of something positive to say about this book (it's Alan-Freakin'-Moore, after all), but I can't. I don't understand the point of it, unless it's just to tear down the magic of movies and show you how terrible everyone who's ever been a part of it is. It's relentlessly dark, overly gruesome, and completely nihilistic. There's not even any signature Moore deconstruction to give you a chance to reflect on the intellectualism of the genre; it's just one terrible, true story after another.

This is supposedly the last comic that Alan Moore ever wrote, and if that's the case, then good riddance. If this was where his career was going, I wouldn't have been along for the ride anyway.

[Holly Cruise]

Alan Moore would like you to know that Hollywood has a dark dark history. Alan Moore would like you to know that he has seen *a lot* of films and can craft these into morality tales which range from the darkly hilarious to the utterly grotesquely horrifying (perhaps he has also read some Junji Ito?). Alan Moore would like you to enjoy Kevin O'Neill's intricate but never fussy art, a gorgeous merger of 2001AD scrunge and clean line realistic. And if you are me, Alan Moore would like to leave you with a whole host of open tabs on your internet browser, full of Wikipedia pages of Old Hollywood's worst. Pleasingly grim.

[Sivapriya Subramaniam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry, Alan Moore. I love everything you write but this wasn't for me.

[Jean-Pierre Vidrine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The individual vignettes here are great. Satirical stories exposing the dark secrets behind some of Hollywood's most beloved films and institutions. Moore cleverly makes them both comical and shocking.
Kevin O'Neill's art is as provocative as it ever is, sometimes weaving in styles different from his norm to fit the tale. Being black and white sets the proper mood for the stories while also drawing the reader in closer, practically forcing one to focus on little details in the scene.
Throughout the book, there is a connecting story, a mystery barely hinted at with little tidbits spilled, from the narrator. Once the whole secret is revealed, it's plenty shocking and does have a thought-provoking message connecting it to the other vignettes. Exactly how well it connects is something I'm still not certain about.
It's a worthy read that I may have to revisit to fully appreciate.

[Luis González · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es todo un mundo de cine, pero visto en una perspectiva aterradora, un mundo del cual nadie puede salir, y donde los pecados son limpiados con culpa y resentimientos. También narra historias del cine tan decadentes como la persecución de actores comunistas en los 50's, las vidas trágicas de Willis O'Brien, Tod Browning, George Reeves, Howard Hughes o Elizabeth Short, entre otros. Un relato que se narra rollo a rollo, en una serie de 18 películas que causan conmoción y hasta disgusto. Terror, ciencia ficción, fantasía, misterio: todos los géneros unidos en blanco y negro para contarnos una metáfora tan simple: el cine, según Moore, está en decadencia constante. Igual que el alma humana.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book around the time it first came out. It was about then I was reading Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows' Providence, and Moore's own Jerusalem -- a novel that I still need to finish reading.

I'm glad that I didn't try to read Cinema Purgatorio, or its standalone collaborator issues, back when I first encountered them. The fact is, I didn't have as much knowledge of film and film history -- or the interest even -- back in the day. Alan Moore is very good at giving the reader a worm's eye view of humanity, at basically giving us some comprehensive world-building and narrative structure while making his cynicism clear on human nature -- while also illustrating the three-dimensions of that nature. It was good to see Kevin O'Neill's work as well again -- especially as this was his last collaboration with Moore, which is also poignant now that O'Neill himself passed away. His work that I have seen more in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with more really works well with the black and white silver screen aesthetic they were going for.

On first glance, all of the anthological stories we see on the metaphorical screen, and literal panels, are unconnected beyond showing the dark side of Hollywood from the late 10s, and 20s to the early or so 60s. But you know what this theatre is a metaphor for, and I love how you see each story overlapping in the background. The little dry bits of humour on the advertisements were nice touches as well. And I like the second-person perspective of the character we are all watching this nightmare cinematic kaleidoscope through, and how her actions are even worse than I thought they would be. I thought we were going to have a Whatever Happened to Baby Jane moment or scenario, but given how each of these stories are about real people -- actors, directors, innovators, criminals and the like -- this did get a lot more real.

To be honest, there are a lot of references I know I've missed. This is what Joe Linton, Robert Derie and Alexx Kay did in their own analyses of Providence, and Jerusalem -- making annotations to put all of these references into context. Maybe after I have read the anthological contributions of others into the series, I will check out annotations directly.

I think that Alan Moore, as he doesn't have as much editorial oversight anymore due to his return to independence and his eventual and subsequent retirement from the comics medium, does tend to become more self-referential, and sometimes that makes his stories a little more unclear. Certainly, when he makes references to older or obscure sources, and doesn't elaborate, it can be a difficult read and it is demanding on the reader to do their own research. For me, it is enjoyable to look at and learn things I wouldn't ordinarily find on my own. I also think that those people who complain about Moore's complexity in a story, and layers, and his cynical perspective have not really been paying attention to his stories and writing over the years. Cinema Purgatorio is not supposed to be a pleasant or uplifting place. It is a space where you see the shadow world and history of a creative industry. You see Moore do this, of course, with a bit more analogue with the comics industry in his "What We Can Know About Thunderman" novella, and with his own columns on artistic figures in such in the latter part of his Gentlemen series, but Cinema Purgatoria uses, and alludes to, actual figures.

I have had my own issues with Moore's work before, such as believing that League should have ended with The Black Dossier as I feel the cynicism and dissolution, as well as the references, were becoming more encompassing and obscured a lot of the story. But Cinema Purgatorio is a gate into looking at the silver screen, and one's own mind as a personal movie screening -- as David Gilmour in his Film Club often came back to as a metaphor -- that worked for me. And it made me aware of more history and creative development as well. I enjoyed this bitterness of black coffee, and it still gets its five stars on the Comics Walk of Infamy.

[Wombo Combo · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a weird book. If Alan Moore didn't write it, it never would've been published, but once you write Watchmen, you're allowed to do whatever you want. Moore has been taking that to the extreme lately, doing oddly specific things for an incredibly limited audience.

This is a collection about a filmgoer who is stuck in this sort of dreamy/nightmarish theater. Strange films play. Oftentimes, they're about the lives of specific people from the golden age of Hollywood, often with the message that things were as good as you may have hoped and Hollywood has always been trash. Other films are just fun little things, often subversions of various tropes in film. The problem with this book is that the "films" about specific people take up probably the majority of the book and just read like biographies as opposed to actually entertaining stories. I might have enjoyed this more if I had a knowledge of actors from 100 years ago, but I don't even know anything about actors now (nor do I want to). It gets old, reading about various people who were in movies, but had messed up home lives and end up dead. I get that this is a book dedicated to Hollywood and kind of mocking the entire thing with how screwed up it is, but man, this could've been done in a way that is more interesting for the reader.

Moore does try to do some interesting things, such as writing "musicals." You can actually sing the dialogue in these and have it flow, like it's a real song, so I'm impressed by the amount of effort that went into it. But still, that doesn't mean it's fun.

There is a framing story in this. You get one or two pages before and after each film to learn about the person who's watching the movies. I was really interested in this, but it gets stale, because there are (I think) 16 films, and just about every intro is the character going "how did I get to the theater yet again?! oh time, time to watch a movie." and then each end scene is "wow, that movie I just saw was weird. time to watch another." I don't know, it gets old.

I think a lot of love and effort went into this, but I just don't care for it because I simply don't think it's very good and I don't have the frame of reference to appreciate it (and I'd wager most people don't either.)

I will say, Kevin O'Neil's art is great. It is clean and easy to read. It's very expressive and well done, so kudos to him for doing solid work.

When you read an Alan Moore book, you know that you're going to get something dense, but like Providence (which I loved), this is a book for a very, very specific audience.

Maybe the concept is good, but perhaps it would have been better to make a comic about the comic book industry as opposed to a comic about the 30's film industry?

[Adam Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cinema Purgatorio by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill is a comic book anthology series beginning in 2016 and concluding in 2019; it was one of Moore's final works before his retirement in 2019.

The story takes place in the eponymous Cinema Purgatorio, a dilapidated old movie theatre with an unusual set of staff members and an equally distinctive clientele. The nameless protagonist isn't sure how she ended up visiting but always seems to find herself back at the cinema, waiting for a show - even if she isn't in the mood. At first, it looks more like a recurring dream than anything tangible, but things start to get suspicious when the protagonist finds herself waking up there.

The films include everything from silent movies, comedies, animations, exploitation, B-movie monster flicks, superhero serials, mysteries, children's adventures, westerns, and even biopics. However, all of them are morbid in one way or another, often discussing the horrors of early Hollywood or even more disturbing subjects. Equally confusing is the fact that nobody seems to notice anything amiss. More worryingly, nobody appears in the mood to explain why or even how the protagonist keeps coming back for more...

Naturally, Alan Moore is not at all subtle with his criticism of early Hollywood, with several films being devoted to the ongoing awfulness of business practices, directors and executives. No matter how hypocritical Moore's beliefs are, you must admit he has a point. There is something sinister about the cinema industry, and Moore clever brought unique ideas to the table with homages and pastiches to the early cinema era. 

I'm so happy that Moore and O'Neill collaborated again (perhaps one last time, who knows) because I love this duo! They have brilliant ideas and brilliant illustrations worth sharing with the world. 

[Björn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Einsog svo margt sem Moore hefur fengist við uppá síðkastið þá er þessi bók nokkurskonar heimildaritgerð, þar sem við erum leidd í gegnum einhvern sannleika sem er honum svo hugleikinn.

Í þetta skiptið fæst hann við alvöru fólk, margt á frekar litlum bletti, sem er góð tilbreyting. Eymdin og volæðið sem gegnsýrir allt er, mig langar að segja hressandi en við skulum ekki segja hressandi, það allavega grípur mann og bindur sögurnar saman. Bransinn sem Moore lýsir virðist bölvaður og hann finnur frekar marga sniðuga og óvænta fleti á þessu handónýta mannlega ástandi í Hollywood og víðar.

Sagan sem hann vindur ofan af í umgjörðinni, í sjálfu kvikmyndahúsinu, er ekki alveg nógu bitastæð til að heita nokkuð, og þessir helvítis söngtextar sem hann hefur svo gaman af því að skrifa guð minn almáttugur.

En annars eru þessir stuttu þættir alveg mátulegir og einsog ég segi þá finnur Moore uppá ótal leiðum til að presentera framsöguna sína, margt af þessu er hreinlega mjög gott.

Stíllinn á kvikmyndahúsinu og fólkinu innan þess er frekar óstöðugur en annars eru teikningarnar frábærar og henta sögunum vel. Það er helst að sumstaðar sé verið að troða of miklu inní rammann. Best heppnaðar eru þær þar sem myndmálið speglar kvikmyndahefðina og hryllingurinn læðist aftan að manni í útskotunum, smáatriðunum.

Ég er búinn að sannfæra sjálfan mig um að mér líki þessi bók betur en ég hélt þegar ég byrjaði að skrifa. En hún er samt sem áður framhald af niðursveiflunni hjá Moore og það er einhvernveginn ekki gaman að horfa uppá það. Bókin er góður snúningur uppá hjólfarið sem hann er fastur í en ekkert sem bendir til þess að hann eigi afturkvæmt í veröld með sögum um persónur.

[rndgmoat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Alan Moore has produced some of the greatest works in the comic medium--Watchmen and Lost Girls are both top-tier reads. He has certain obsessions and quirks, with a preference for taking pop culture tropes and then reinventing and reimagining them as part of a darker, more complex world. Sometimes this takes the form of genre reinvention like Watchmen. Other times, it is more straightforwardly post-modern and playful, like in Lost Girls. Often, Moore uses extreme violence and nihilistic themes to add "grit" to the sugar-coated comic book universes his characters inhabit.

This book is an example of Moore, frankly, at his worst. All of his trademark themes are here, but the result feels hollow and (paradoxically for a work with so much detail and creativity) lazy. In essence, this is a series of Mad Magazine style parodies of classic movie genres and films, all knitted together by a Twilight Zone narrative that's hokey and predictable. Some of the parodies are creative but, overall, they are mostly info dumps for long, revisionist, historical passages about classic Hollywood. Classic Hollywood...it was....dark! And full of abuse, misogyny and drunkenness! Who knew! The violence is unceasing and the easy, half-baked nihilism comes fast and furious. Sometimes, there's so much info being dumped its all a little hard to follow. And then the vignette ends, we get a little bit more of the frame, and we are back in another meticulous parody about, IDK, the history of the Warner Brothers? The biography of Tod Browning?

Christ what a disappointment.

[D.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm an absolute sucker for Alan Moore, and more than a bit of a cinephile, so when I stumbled on the existence of this volume I jumped for it. Moore's latest collaboration with Kevin O'Neill does not disappoint in its audacity, irreverence and love for the history of cinema and all its grubby little secrets.
Presented as a series of films being shown to our mostly-anonymous avatar in a mysterious theatre, this is a filthy troll through some of the dingiest drains of film history. We get stories both familiar and unfamiliar, told in the forms of various filmic genres. O'Neill is a perfect choice for these stories, his manic and dirty-looking penwork being particularly well-leant to tales of pain and depravity.
Moore has surprised us again with the breadth and depth of his knowledge, giving us a filthy love-letter to cinema in a way only he could. It's fun and sad and brutal and beautiful, its only failing being that it's too short.
This Avatar softcover collects the entire series and adds a cover gallery including the original covers as well as alternatives. The flyleaves have quotes from Roscoe Arbuckle and Marilyn Monroe, and the back cover appears to be a new image from Mitch Jenkins.

[Darii Lazhnevsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

You start to believe in magic, when a 6-paged chapter makes you think more than a 2-hour movie.

You cannot approach it with a surface-level reading, the books is told entirely in nuance and cinematic and historical allusions, which sometimes can prove really tough to crack. But as soon as you start following at least one of the threads, you realize it could be the most nuanced, deep and honest critiques of american culture through cinema there ever was.

With the advent of internet, critique stopped being an art within itself when it transformed into an youtube comment, often times not too clever and almost vulgar. It’s hard to say something that wasn’t already said, or at least dress it in a way that feels fresh, that’s why the genre of reviews is kind of in decline now. And breathing in a fresh breath into parody and criticism is exactly the task Alan Moore and Kevin O’Niel masterfully succeed in, albeit written 8 years ago. I wish every youtube comment was a 6page comic with multitude of clever allusions and sardonic humor.

Alan Moore has a lot of titles that kinda of flew over-the-radar of public attention, and this is one the most regrettable books to do so. But at the same time, I can understand why: people who would love it are probably not into comics, and a mass-comic reader wont find

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it lacks the scope or the ambition of League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this still shares some of the hallmarks of Moore/O'Neill collaboration - O'Neill's artwork often sits just on the right side of unsettling and uncanny, and the changing art styles to reflect different genres and settings is typical of Moore/O'Neill work.

Using classic films and film genres to explore the seedy side of "Golden Age" Hollywood is mostly well executed, though at times falls into the trap that a lot of Moore's later work does, of providing sprawling exposition across multiple panels - particularly here, when dealing with real events, it can have the effect of feeling like you're just reading an illustrated Wikipedia entry. Where the format works best is in sections like the Black Dahlia Murder, presented as a musical, where the genre being explored enforces a particular approach to storytelling, and elevates it above a simple relaying of events.

The actual Cinema Purgatorio setting is well-realised, and reminiscent of the world of Moore's Show Pieces film work, though the actual exploration of the cinema as purgatory is little more than a framing device, so any developments there don't feel as significant as they might if the characters had been more fleshed out.

[Giovanni84 · Rating 2 out of 5]

La protagonista si ritrova in continuazione, senza sapere neanche lei perché, in un cinema piuttosto inquietante, dove vengono proiettati film cupi e grotteschi.
Un'idea brillante, ma questo è decisamente un Alan Moore. Alcuni dei "film" sono geniali, delle folli parodie ricche di inventiva e fascino, a tratti disturbanti. Ma purtroppo nella maggioranza delle storie Moore si lascia prendere dalla sua pedanteria e cade nel biografismo didascalico: vignette su vignette che raccontano in maniera quasi sempre piatta e noiosa le vite dei protagonisti, cioè attori e altri personaggi realmente esistiti di hollywood. "Cinema purgatorio" vuole infatti narrare il lato oscuro di hollywood, perlomeno di quella di qualche decennio fa.
E' un peccato che abbia sprecato così una un'idea dal grande potenziale.
Almeno sotto l'aspetto grafico Kevin O'Neill ha fatto un ottimo lavoro

[Judas International · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re already up on your seedy Hollywood history (i.e. have a copy of Anger’s Hollywood Babylon on your shelf), there’s nothing here you probably haven’t heard recounted a million times. Thelma Todd, George Reeves, Elizabeth Short, Lana Turner & Johnny Stompanato, Howard Hughes… But Moore’s writing gives all the tales such a delicious, delirious perspective that they keep you engaged. And let’s face it, this is almost 100% a Kevin O’Neill vehicle. His talents at rendering cultural pastiche are so impeccable here that it had me retroactively realizing just what a perfect match he was for LOEG. Cinema Purgatorio is a more thoroughly satisfying and accessible read than the last couple volumes of LOEG, and, at its heart, seems to genuinely appreciate, not resent, the things it’s parodying.

[Jota Houses · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es un extraño cómic formado por episodios serializados de varias historias con distintos autores.
La obra principal: Cinema Purgatorio es una divagación plumbea sobre los horrores del Hollywood Clásico a traves de terribles pastiches de películas que tras un par de años de tesis e investigación pudieran seer desentrañados por algun afortunado mortal.
El resto de historias cuando no tienen un dibujo horroroso carecen de guión o me resultan totalmente ortogonales. Salvaría "A most perfect Union" con historia de Max Brooks sobre una batalla alternativa de Gettisburg donde las fuerzas de los EEUU no divididos por la guerra civil se enfrentan a una horda de hormigas gigantes. Una lástima que no de tiempo a terminarla en 18 números.

[Matt Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Moore’s Cinema Purgatorio is dense and complicated as you’d expect, and feels like a Mad magazine spoof of old films has been mixed with the style of his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books. Each chapter is a macabre take on a classic film or genre, twisted to retell an entirely other story that sometimes takes a while to reveal itself. Todd Browning, the black dahlia case, George Reeves, Howard Hughes, Eddie Mannix, Lana Turner and dozens more turn up, the history of Hollywood and its fantasies turned nightmare. The cinema doors are closed and you’re not leaving.

[Oswaldo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gustó.

Digo, hay historias muchísimo mejor que otras y cuando le agarrás el truco a las historias, no hay mucha innovación. Sin embargo, como historia del cine hollywoodense detrás del cine hollywoodense, me encanta que desmorone está falsa ilusión que casi ya nadie comparte sobre la magia del cine.

Me hubiera encantado que llegara hasta la época de Walt Disney o Hitchcock o Epstein o Weinstein, algo contemporáneo que demostrará al ciclo de poder en Hollywood, ése que nunca acaba. Solo toma nuevos rostros.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting, surreal, unsettling, uncomfortable, darkly funny reading/viewing, which are all the reasons I loved this. An anthology of interesting short ‘films’ set in the context of a literal purgatorial cinema that our protagonist is stuck in, exiting just to return to take her seat whenever one film ends. Loved each individual story in this, and the overarching one too that pays off at the end after being seeded throughout. Recommended if the adjectives at the start of this review appeal to you!