Alan Moore takes cult horror comic Crossed into the future

Alan Moore is writing a new comics series set in the world of Garth Ennis’s Crossed, in which an epidemic infects humanity with the desire to carry out the worst crimes of which it is capable.

Ennis’s multi-volume adult horror comic from Avatar Press sees the infected, inflicted with a cross-like mark on their faces, “gleefully [break] into unthinkable acts of violence”, as the uninfected struggle to survive in small groups. Moore has just been announced as the sole author of a new six-issue Crossed series, set in the universe but moving the action 100 years into the future.

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The author, who last week finished the first draft of his million-plus word novel Jerusalem, admitted that the world of Crossed was “extremely horrible”. “I think people think of Crossed as a horror story, and I can see why,” said Moore in an announcement published by Avatar’s subsidiary, the comics news site Bleeding Cool. “But actually I’ve always had my problems with genre, and I am coming to the conclusion that genre has really only ever been a convenience.

“Now, looking at Crossed, I was actually thinking that this, for my purposes, is a horror story, but it’s also a science fiction story. I was thinking that Crossed is actually a science fiction story that has got a really, really high horror quotient. So that was the way that I started approaching it. I was treated Crossed as a ‘What if?’ story, which is the premise of most science fiction.”

Quick Guide

The five Alan Moore comics you must read

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V for Vendetta (1982 - 1989)

This dystopian graphic novel continues to be relevant even 30 years after it ended. With its warnings against fascism, white supremacy and the horrors of a police state, V for Vendetta follows one woman and a revolutionary anarchist on a campaign to challenge and change the world. 

Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow (1986)

Moore's quintessential Superman story. Though it has not aged as well as some of his work, this comic is still one of the best Man of Steel stories ever written, and one of the most memorable comics in DC's canon.

A Small Killing (1991)

This introspective, stream-of-consciousness comic follows a successful ad man who begins to have a midlife crisis after realising the moral failings of his life and work.

Tom Strong (1999 - 2006)

A love letter to the silver age of comics that nods to Buck Rogers and other classics of pulp fiction. Tom Strong embodies all of the ideals Moore holds for what a superhero should be.

The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (1999-2019)

One of Moore's best known comic series, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is the ultimate in crossover works, drawing on characters from all across the literary world who are on a mission to save it. 

Avatar said that Moore was moved to take on the new monthly comic “through a series of increasingly piquant conversations with his friend Garth Ennis about the implications of the Crossed series for humanity’s future”. The author has created 100 years of “missing” history for his six-part story arc, which will be drawn by Gabriel Andrade, as well as creating “an entirely new world”, said the publisher.

Ennis said Moore’s decision was like finding out that “Jimi Hendrix wants to play in my band. He wants to sing my songs. I don’t usually worry about vindication, but Alan is probably the one person whose opinion would be enough to change my mind about what I do,” said Ennis. “He’s the most talented individual the medium’s ever seen or ever will; that he’s writing Crossed means everything to me.”

Avatar revealed that Crossed+100, which is out from December, would centre on an enclave of survivors, many of whom have never seen an infected individual, and in particular on female archivist Future Taylor. Intrigued by the science fiction of the past, Taylor and her reclamation team stumble across a group of Crossed, and set out to find out why the infected seem to be increasing.

Moore, the mind behind the comics classics V for Vendetta and Watchmen, revealed last week that Jerusalem, his novel set in a small area of Northampton, was nearing completion. His daughter, Leah Moore, has said that the book will be released by Knockabout, the press which also copublishes all of Moore’s The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic books.