One of the advantages of travelling the world is that you get to know the world broadly. And one of the advantages of staying in one place is that you get to know the world deeply.
Alan MooreRead
Everything you've ever read of mine is first-draft. This is one of the peculiarities of the comics field. By the time you're working on chapter three of your masterwork, chapter one is already in print. You can't go back and suddenly decide to make this character a woman, or have this one fall out of a window.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the unique nature of creating comics, where early drafts are published before later chapters are completed.
Alan Moore emphasizes the challenges of working in the comic book industry, where once a chapter is published, changes cannot be retroactively made to characters or plot points. This highlights the constraints of storytelling in serialized formats and the importance of planning and commitment to one's creative decisions from the outset.
Themes
ComicsCreativityStorytellingFirst DraftWriting
In practice
Example use cases
Mentioning this quote at a comic book convention to illustrate the unique challenges faced by comic creators.
More from Alan Moore
All quotes →The only reality we can ever truly know is that of our perceptions, our own consciousness, while that consciousness, and thus our entire reality, is made of nothing but signs and symbols. Nothing but language. Even God requires language before conceiving the Universe. See Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word.
Alan MooreRead
My main point about films is that I don't like the adaptation process, and I particularly don't like the modern way of comic book-film adaptations, where, essentially, the central characters are just franchises that can be worked endlessly to no apparent point.
Alan MooreRead
The magician to some degree is trying to drive him or herself mad in a controlled setting, within controlled laws.
Alan MooreRead
When I was working upon the ABC books, I wanted to show different ways that mainstream comics could viably have gone, that they didn't have to follow 'Watchmen' and the other 1980s books down this relentlessly dark route. It was never my intention to start a trend for darkness. I'm not a particularly dark individual.
Alan MooreRead
Love your rage, not your cage.
Alan MooreRead
Similar quotes
Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Sometimes ideas are coming so fast that I have to stop doing one song to get another. But I don't forget the first one. If it works, it will always be there. It's like the truth: it will find you and lift you up. And if it ain't right, it will dissolve like sand on the beach.
PrinceRead
The principle of Creative Limitations calls for freedom within a circle of obstacles and restricted boundaries. Talent is like a muscle: without something to push against, it atrophies. So we deliberately put obstacles in our path - barriers that will inspire us. We disciple ourselves as to what to do, while we're boundless as to how to do it.
Robert MckeeRead
There are some projects where you have to just start doing it, and, after a while, the show starts telling you what it wants to be. You put your spirit in and, after a while, something bigger takes over, and it turns out to be much more fun and creative than what it was at the beginning.
Brian Stokes MitchellRead
But neither money nor machines can create. They shuttle tokens of energy, but they do not transform. A civilization based on them puts people out of touch with their creative powers.
Lewis HydeRead
Creativity is a natural extension of our enthusiasm.
Earl NightingaleRead