Why In Pictopia Has No Author

Update - December 16, 2023: Now including my groveling final plea to Alan prior to his final response!

This is the last communication I received from the author of “In Pictopia,” a story I illustrated with the help of Mike Kazaleh and Pete Poplaski, beautifully colored by Eric Vincent, in 1986 (as I was making the transition from Megaton Man to Border Worlds and then obscurity). The story originally appeared in Anything Goes #2, published by Fantagraphics Books in December, 1986 (a benefit book for their now-legendary legal hassles), and later collected in Fantagraphics’ Best Comics of the Decade, Volume I (June 1986). In 2021, Fantagraphics Underground issued what I consider the definitive edition of the story, but without the author’s name.

When the author granted permission to reprint the story but with the condition that his name not appear on the outside of the book or in any publicity for it, I agreed (although legally there was no such requirement to honor such an inane request) under the assumption that the author could be reasoned with and eventually persuaded to change his mind; this turned out to be a false hope. The rest of the story of my 35-year curatorship over this now-disowned piece of cartooning history is chronicled in my text piece in the FU edition.

I sent one final plea to Alan's intermediary on July 21, 2020 and received a reply on August 5, 2020. This exchange is presented here for historical purposes only; discuss amongst yourselves.

Hello Joe,

Hope you and yours are safe and healthy in these dark times.

I wanted to give you and Mr. Alan Moore an update on the “In Pictopia” reprint. We were able to locate Eric Vincent’s original colored blue lines of the story (courtesy of Anthony Smith, Eric’s collaborator on Alien Fire) and thus will be able to offer twenty-first century readers something like the original comics story, only remastered and in a slightly larger-than-comics album format, so hopefully better.

The same source also seems to have a copy of Alan’s original typescript. Since “In Pictopia” is a thirteen-page comics story (making for a pretty slender album), we would also like to include a facsimile of the complete script, and therefore request his permission to do so. I haven’t seen my copy of the script since 1986 and haven’t yet seen a scan of the one in Anthony Smith’s possession, but I’m sure this will give readers the opportunity to see for themselves how poorly I interpreted Mr. Moore’s ideas, and my other outright depredations, not the least of which was to alter the title from “In Fictopia” to “In Pictopia.”

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that this project was not at my instigation. I have always only seen myself as the “curator” of “In Pictopia” (certainly not even a co-equal partner) trying to enable various publishers who have wanted to include the story in anthologies of Mr. Moore’s work in recent years. I and the other artists have always appreciated Alan’s generosity in disbursing his share of the proceeds, but money has never been my main motivation, and it is certainly doubtful in these times in comics publishing—and this was true even before the pandemic—that this publication will turn anyone a huge profit.

The last two reprints of the story, by Two Morrows and Critical Comics, I felt were a betrayal of both myself and Alan because of the poor reproduction. Each promised me they would run the original art in black and white; in the former case, they had a fan recolor it digitally without my permission or approval, and in the latter, they poorly scanned a printed comic (badly) without touch up, each with horrible results.

What has always appealed to me about Fantagraphics offering to publish this present edition is that (a) they published the story originally, thus have a historical connection to the piece; (b) they did a great job with the original printing and when it was collected into The Best Comics of the Decade; and (c) they are known for doing a good job in general. And I already know the lengths they have gone to secure original source materials, and that they will do a conscientious and credible job with this.

I don’t know what Mr. Moore’s issues are with Fantagraphics, but I have to say I am puzzled and disappointed that he has requested to remove his name from a collaboration of which I have always been exceedingly proud, and have ever only tried to see reprinted faithfully. Here, at last, we have a publisher that will offer readers a chance to read and see the story as never before.

The instruction previously forwarded to me, “that Alan wants to be credited as ‘A Content Provider’ or not credited at all,” are both frustrating and ambiguous, and have prompted no end of discussion as to what we may or may not do in trying to offer a presentable edition of “In Pictopia.”

Alan must realize that removing his name from “In Pictopia” will only have the effect of making me appear as the scoundrel in the piece, grouping me with the likes of all those other horrible American comic book publishers, creators, and Hollywood that Alan loathes, and his fans will likely take the cue. No one will be able to divorce the name Alan Moore from “In Pictopia” and fans will wonder what is up.

Issuing “Don Simpson’s (and Mike Kazaleh’s and Pete Poplaski’s and Eric Vincent’s) ‘In Pictopia’” will only prompt scorn and ridicule on social media, heaped upon us by fans who will be just as confused as we are as to Alan’s reasoning, but will do doubt jump to the worst, most horrible conclusions and conspiracy theories their little minds will devise. Personally, I am likely to be “canceled” and whatever else they do to social pariahs these days, and I don’t have a thick skin.

I hardly consider such would be just rewards for our collective efforts on the story’s behalf.

I would therefore humbly request that Alan rethink his previous preference to be uncredited for “In Pictopia” and to grant us permission to keep his name intact with the story he wrote. Can we? Huh? Huh? Pretty please?

I look forward to your affirmative response.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,
Donald E. Simpson

Hello Donald,
I passed on your message, please find Alan’s reply below.
Thanks,
Joe

Dear Don –

While this is a letter that I wish I could avoid writing, I feel that I should state my feelings plainly in order that there be no misunderstandings.

Simply put, my career in comics was not an enjoyable one, nor one that I can look back on with any fondness, sense of genuine accomplishment, or indeed anything except for a wearying depression at having wasted so much of my life in an industry that is, to me, an embarrassment. I’m aware that this is most likely to be seen as further evidence that there is something wrong with me psychologically, rather than that there might be something wrong with comics, but, nevertheless, this is the position that I have ended up in. Other than a very few works by friends or loved ones, I haven’t read or enjoyed any comics in the last couple of decades. Having disowned more than ninety per cent of my comic work, I no longer possess copies of that work, and have no wish to talk about or even think about that over-long period of my life. This is simply because, perhaps selfishly, I have found my life to be much happier and more enjoyable the further I get from the comic field. I really and sincerely, for my own peace of mind, wish to be disassociated from comics and my comics career.

I haven’t wanted anything to do with Gary Groth and Fantagraphics since the 1990s. This was when they first published an interview with Steve Bissette – who, at the time, was seeing a therapist about his pathological lying, or at least that’s what he told me – in which he listed all of my apparent tyrannies on the 1963 project, presumably to publicise his then-current dinosaur comic. This was the end of my relationship with Bissette, and the reason why I asked for my name to be removed from any further editions of the 1963 title. Gary Groth followed this interview, I’m told, with an editorial stating that it was my personal greed that had ruined comics. When, inevitably, I was contacted by The Comics Journal some months later to ask whether I wanted to do another circulation-boosting interview with the fanzine, I politely declined, explaining that I felt our points of view had diverged to such a point that I saw no value in any further interviews. This prompted a phone call from Groth where he explained that his editorial had been written with “a tone of regret.” As I informed him then, to say that he regretted that my greed had ruined comics was, if anything, more condescending than his original attention-grabbing statement. I repeated, I think politely, that I thought it best if I had nothing further to do with him or his publishing concern. This, apparently, resulted in retaliatory negative reviews of my subsequent work, which tended to confirm my opinions and to further alienate me from what I was starting to see as a juvenile industry with more than its fair share of unprincipled opportunists.

When you asked if Fantagraphics could publish an edition of In Pictopia, I didn’t want to deny you the chance to republish what was a very good strip with excellent artwork, and thus suggested that you publish it without my name, and that you and the other people who worked on it should share any monies between yourselves. You first sent a message suggesting that I use a pseudonym from a piece of unpublished work that I’d forgotten about, and so I sent another message hoping to clarify my position. This time you replied asking why I hadn’t said that in the first place – I thought I had – and stating that you were going to drop the project. If that was your decision, then I figured that was fair enough, and that this was the end of the matter. I next received a message from Gary Groth saying that he would respect my wishes regarding the removal of my name, and, in what I suppose was his regretful tone, asking me to remember “our time in the foxholes together.” I am unable to remember any such time. All I recall is a certain amount of work done without expectation of payment, and then a flurry of snide and underhand backstabbing.

So, while I’m sorry to upset or disappoint someone who I remembered as a friend and a very talented collaborator, I’m afraid that I’m unwilling to change my position on this. I really don’t want anything further to do with comics or with my work in that field. I certainly don’t want my script reprinting. If this project cannot go ahead without my name attached, then I really think it best if you follow your first impulse and drop the project altogether. It’s entirely up to you, but whatever your decision, I’d be grateful if I didn’t have to hear any more about it. This is nothing personal, and is entirely a result of my gradually worsening relationship with the comics business.

With apologies, and my very best to you and yours,
Alan Moore

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