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Title: The Complete Ballad of Halo Jones (Halo Jones) by Alan Moore, Ian Gibson ISBN: 1-84023-342-7 Publisher: Titan Books Pub. Date: October, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Ms. Jones' Comportmant
Comment: Dataday, day-today. This is Swifty Frisco giving you welcome.
At this moment in time I am surrounded by screaming children. At this point in time, only the thought of Halo Jones books One, Two and Three are enough to keep me sane. The Ballad of Halo Jones (to give it it's full title) was not the first comic I ever read. It wasn't even the first in 2000AD, where it was first published, as it appeared after Judge Dredd, Slaine and Ace Trucking Company in the magazine that I first saw it in. In this particular episode (of Book Three), following the death of her best friend, Halo quits the army, is unable to get a job, buys a gun to strip and put back together and starts sizing up children through her sights. The episode ends with Halo rejoining the army with the realisation that she has nowhere else to go. This is the first comic that ever really made me think, and this particular episode has stuck with me for almost twenty years. For me, this was the moment when comics grew up.
Of course I could wax lyrical about little known writer Alan Moore, co-creator of Halo, about whom very little has been written. However, I think that the real star of the piece is Ian Gibson, who is probably one of the most underrated comic artists of all time. The art continues to improve, finally reaching the wonderful black and white, heavily inked line art of book three. Moore's abilities as a writer also widen and mature through the three books. The three books are filled with wonderful images and ideas (the future-speak and the idea of a matriachal society are just two great ones). The way that Moore's writing and Gibson's art grows over the three books and entwines together results in this book being one of the best writer/artist combinations, I, at least, have ever seen. This is definately the best thing to ever appear in the pages of 2000AD. And thats saying a lot. Now all we need is to try and persuade Moore to write the further six remaining books.
This is Swifty Frisco signing off.
Rating: 4
Summary: Moore at his (near) best!
Comment: The "Ballad of Halo Jones" is one of Alan Moore's earliest works, and orignally appeared in serial-form in Britain's 2000AD magazine during the early 1980s.
Ballad is set in the far future, and chronicles the eponymous heroine from the age of 18 to 35. The great strength of this series is the strong and diverse characterization of the mostly female cast. Frankly, I think that sympathetic female characterization has been a problem with Moore (look at his masterpiece, Watchmen, where all of the female characters are neurotic at best), but in this early work, Moore does an outstanding job. The storyline is also very strong and poignant with a beautiful ending.
Overall, Ballad isn't quite Moore at his best (Watchmen and From Hell), but it's ranks with his "2nd tier" work like Miracleman; and it's head and shoulders over more recent fare like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
One negative: this trade from Titan reprints the full storyline in the original black and white, and format-size, which is much larger than the standard comic book format. During the late 1980s in the US, this series was reprinted in color and in standard size. I wish that this format had been retained...frankly, this is a big book on the bookshelf.
Rating: 5
Summary: Amazing and important graphic novel
Comment: The Ballad of Halo Jones is one of the more extraordinary things ever to have been published by the British comic 2000AD; it exemplifies much of what was good about that publication (subversiveness, risk-taking, an openness to new ideas) whilst at the same time marking a significant break with its usual biases and...um...proclivities. To whit: this is a story about women, told as the epic "ballad" of one emphatically ordinary woman: a story in which women go into space, go to war, fall in love (sometimes with each other, as one superbly subtle and tender scene reveals), get disappointed, get betrayed, get older...if the vividness and depth of Moore's Mina Harker (in _The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen_) impressed you, remember that he's been writing humanly believable, *real* female characters for a long time. Halo Jones is one of his best.
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Title: The Complete D.R. & Quinch by Alan Moore, Alan Davis ISBN: 1840233451 Publisher: Titan Books Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Promethea (Book 1) by Alan Moore, Mick Gray, J. H. Williams III ISBN: 1563896672 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Top Ten (Book 1) by Alan Moore ISBN: 1563896680 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Supreme: The Story of the Year by Alan Moore, Joe Bennett, Rick Veitch, Alan Ross ISBN: 0971024952 Publisher: Checker Book Publishing Group Pub. Date: 15 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Tom Strong - Book One by Alan Moore ISBN: 1563896648 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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