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| Source: TIME Magazine 12/12/11 |
Maryland Juice caught an interesting blip of subversive art news in last week's newsstand copy of
TIME. The magazine featured the following quote from Alan Moore, author of the iconic, subversive comic book
V for Vendetta. He noted the recent appearance of his character "V" in protest imagery (
see image at right):
It feels like a character I created 30 years ago has somehow escaped the realm of fiction.
This was preceded by
an article on Wired quoting Moore and asking readers the following question:
Some activists 'folded like bitches' last century, according to Alan Moore. Will this century be different?
For those who are unaware, Mr. Moore is British and his
V for Vendetta comics were created during the authoritarian era of Margaret Thatcher. As the U.K. newspaper
The Telegraph wrote during the release of a 2006
V for Vendetta film:
He began writing V for Vendetta in 1981 to express his alarm at Britain's hard turn towards the Right under Thatcher.
Notably, the film adaptation of the graphic novel was released 25 years later, during the rise of another authoritarian era: the reign of Dick Cheney in the post-9/11 U.S.
Like Moore, I too have noted that the iconic V mask is now being worn by #occupy protestors and used heavily in communications from the global hacktivists who participate in #anonymous. It is worth noting that Moore himself drew inspiration for the V character from
the lore of Guy Fawkes, a man who participated in an attempt to blow up the U.K. Parliament in 1605.
The Wired article explained some of Moore's ideological underpinnings:
