"Oct 28th, 1993.
"Sometimes I wonder where all the new festivals came from.
"They seem to have sprung up spontaneously, from ground-level, neither imposed nor even suggested from above.
"February the 4th, for example, is Rebirth Day. All crimes and debts and offenses are forgiven; the new year starts with a clean slate, in memory of the day in 1982 when Michael Moran became Miracleman, his rebirth presaging the world's.
"Last February, for example, I forgave Jack for having an affair with some little slut he'd met on his trip to Osaka...
"For my part, I admitted that it was me who scratched one of his dumb Dixie Cups singles.
"Hell hath no fury like a vintage vinyl collector, but he's never said anything more about it."
p. 87, The Golden Age, 1993.
Words: Neil Gaiman
Miracleman was a character ostensibly created by Alan Moore, tenuously based on the golden-era British comic book hero originally known as Marvelman (Miracleman in the US for obvious legal reasons, i.e. Marvel Comics) who began writing adventures for him in the 1980s (graphic novels, if you're pretentious). After three devastating books completing the story arc, Moore handed over the reigns, the question being where do you go from here? The answer being that you give it to Neil Gaiman -
if you want a super hero fantasy that draws on classic mythology, the Nietzschean ideal of the superman, New Age spiritual awakening, fear of the Atomic Bomb and the male comic book writer's longing for the female super-being in all her costumed grace. 'The Golden Age' was the result, the first of a planned trilogy to encompass 'The Silver Age' and 'The Dark Age,' but only the first was ever completed. The plot - such as it is - concerns other characters in MM's world, with the man himself putting in only the occasional appearance, with different threads concerning the juvenile super-offspring of Miracle Man, a female spy lost in a dark and horrible city from which there is apparently no escape, and (bizarrely) Andy Warhol's resurrection by aliens in the catacombs beneath MM's fortress base that now takes up most of London.
If you ever get the chance to get a hold of a copy, I recommend you read it because it is one of the most astonishing and profound things in British comics OF ALL TIME.
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| Warhol by Buckingham, from the comic. If you enjoy this picture please go and buy a copy. If it's even in print by the time you read this. The text reads: "I wish there was money down here. Without money, how do you know how well you're doing? It could all be taken away from you at any moment." |
