Writers: Various
Artists: Various
Publisher: DC ABC/Titan Books (ISBN 1-84023-)
This is the first trade collection to come from Alan Moore’s ABC line of books to contain the dilution of writing talent on those books, a trend which seems to be on the increase what with Tom Strong now being written by anyone with a vague plotline involving TS it seems. This, coupled with the book being a collection of three other one-off specials, means that it suffers a little from skipping between too many bases at once. Just when you think you’re getting a meaty Alan Moore story, it ends and you’re off into a lesser work, which – whilst it may shine compared to other books out there – in comparison to the master they can feel like they lack something.
The ABC 64-Page Giant opens the book, and it’s perhaps the strongest material here. It touches base with all the major books and characters in the ABC universe, highlights being Alan Moore’s one-pagers involving kid genius Jack B. Quick, and his Top Ten short, as well as Rick Veitch’s scattered Greyshirt pieces (the stuff involving fashion doesn’t really work, but the Charles Atlas-esque Greyshirt story running across the fashion pages is excellent). Non-Alan Moore stories include a disappointing Tom Strong story kicking the book off (maybe more of a letdown due to the simplistic art compared to the gorgeousness of Chris Sprouse we’re used to, than the story) and a frankly boring Little Nemo in Slumberland pastiche for Promethea by Steve Moore again – it’s a clever piece of work, sure, but the point could’ve been got across in one page, not the nine devoted to it here.
The Many Worlds of Tesla Strong is by Peter Hogan (plot assist – i.e. suggestion by Alan Moore) and a host of artists, and is little more than an excuse to visit numerous different Tesla’s a la Moore’s excellent Tom Strong #10, where we had a few enter Tom Strong’s reality. Here, Tesla flies off and visits their realities for a page or three at a time, and it’s nice to see the different variants although it does pale slightly by the end. An enjoyable romp, nonetheless.
The book is rounded off with The ABC Sketchbook, nothing to do with Moore just a bunch of sketches and finished drawings by his many collaborators. These are always a mixed bag, after all there’s only so many times you can see an artist developing a character before it becomes rather boring, and the best bits are the plot snippets yet to happen, or the roads not travelled, or the comments such as Chris Sprouse’s denigrating part of his work on Tom Strong #10 due to time constraints. Hilary Barta’s Splash Brannigan pieces are all very well done, each of them is almost a mini-strip in their own right, and there are some penciled pages by Kevin Nowlan of an unpublished (at that time) Jack B. Quick strip, which – if it never saw print – needs finishing and printing now…a tantalising glimpse.
So it’s a mixed bag overall, one certainly for ABC fans although not – as you might have expected – 200 pages of Alan Moore goodness, there’s still a lot to enjoy.
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