Anyone who knows of the strange ensemble virtual band The Gorillaz knows that they are anything but ordinary. Firstly, they don’t actually exist – each member of the band is an avatar for personalities created by a Brit pop star and a comic book creator. Damon Albert of the band Blur, and Jamie Hewlett, co-creator of Tank Girl have worked on numerous projects together – award winning songs for The Gorillaz, videos for these songs, virtual holographic stage performances and even a ‘circus opera’ based on the hero’s epic journey called Monkey: Journey to the West. They’re also involved in the pre-production of a film with insane genius iconoclast director Terry Gillaim. Could their work be any quirkier? Once they meet Alan Moore, it just might. Alan Moore is best known for Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and (as The Guardian puts it) ‘flawed superheroes, melancholy swamp things and a nymphomaniac Alice in Wonderland’ in the odd little (porno!)graphic novel The Lost Girls. While Moore may be a highly acclaimed writer, he is, at best, a very unique individual, and at worst, a complete anarchistic nutter. So the news that he is to write for The Gorillaz’ creators next project is leaving many people guessing as to what he will come up with next. A virtual monkey circus? A collection of virtual superheroes with nihilistic but musical tendencies? Or just another plain old opera? Why yes, that’d be about right.
Mustard Magazine quotes Moore as saying ‘[Damon and Albert] came down to Northampton last week because we're planning for me to do the libretto on their next opera’. Now that’s news to Moore fans, and to The Gorillas fans too – the two have never been mentioned as working together before. The very thought of this project has been enough to send fans into a tizzy – even though nothing much is known about it. Keep in mind that the circus opera Monkey was a giant hit in 2007 and even lead to the lead character being featured in a series of sports for the Beijing Olympic television coverage. Add Alan Moore to an already successful quirky little duo and the result will probably be bizarre and hugely entertaining, not to mention successful.
Meanwhile Moore is busy working on Dodgem Logic, a new bi-monthly journal attempting to ‘resurrect the spirit of 1960s underground papers, but without the look or the ambience or some of the oversights’. The magazine includes articles by various writers Moore admires, his wife and even teenage mothers and pensioners, as well as art from people whose minds even Moore fears. He describes this art as ‘bewildering and upsetting but absolutely lovely’. And of course, he’s got The Gorillaz on board to curate a few pages.