V for Vendetta - a bit of a review

I started reading this book by accident back in the 80's. I picked up a few issues of a magazine called "Warrior" back then. I could not believe how good the ideas and the artwork and the writing were. Stories like Marvelman, Warpsmith, and the wonderful Bojeffries Saga were among the jewels in that particular crown, alongside an oddly realistic but surreal storyline called "V for Vendetta"...

 I only got a few issues, more or less by accident because that was how comics arrived in Ireland for most of my life - by accident. But the raw talent and intelligence that underpinned those stories was blindingly obvious in the few samples I got the chance to read.

 Coming up to more recent history, I finally got around to reading the full text of V for Vendetta in the late 90's. If you haven't read it and your only knowledge of the book is from the Guy Fawkes masks that have become totemic of the Occupy movement, then I can only suggest you go out and buy the book yourself.

Very strongly influenced by the great dystopian novels of the past, particularly Orwell's 1984, V for Vendetta manages to carve out it's own particularly bleak vision of a Britain that picks up in the darkest days of Thatcherism and marry them to a viciously successful version of the BNP to create a nightmarish fascist state with a distinctly British taste.

 Alan Moore was the author of this book, and his writing was beautifully matched by the artwork of David Lloyd. I read the first few instalments in black and white, and was powerfully struck by the graphic style. Lloyd eschewed conventional comic book techniques and opted instead for an almost photographic realism, evocative of some of the work of Jim Steranko, but distinctively different at the same time.

 Lloyd's work had a kitchen-sink grittiness, a sense of the shabby reality of life under the heel of an oppressive but culturally withered autocracy that spoke directly through the eye to the heart. I have read the full book in colour, but as with classic movies of a certain vintage, my heart belongs to the stark beauty of the original black and white artwork.

 I'm not going to expand on the plot. Anyone who is familiar with Alan Moore's ability to chart a devious and ingeniously labyrinthine narrative while punching home his own particularly dark musings on the inner workings of the human psyche will know what to expect - or, more accurately, will know that whatever you expect, you will still be wrong-footed.

 But if you are prepared to deal with the awfulness of the logical outcome of the thinking behind so many modern government policies all over the world, then get your hands on a copy of V for Vendetta. It does hold out a small spark of hope that in the face of overwhelming authoritarianism, something positive can arise from the pit.