My platonic/intellectual love affair with Alan Moore began on my first visit to Buzz’s LES apartment. Scanning his bookshelf - as I am wont to do, as I will do with your shelves when I visit your home - I noticed a number of personal favorites. Knowing already that Buzz was a man whose tastes I trusted, I then noted that he had a nice run of Alan Moore’s graphic novels squeezed in next to a MST3K book. Recalling that another tastemaking friend of mine was also a Mooreophilliac, I figured I had to go for it.
And when I mentioned Alan Moore’s upcoming novel to Buzz recently - Jerusalem, a second epic set entirely in Northampton - it was no surprise that he promptly pulled out a classical reference Moore himself must have had in mind:
JERUSALEM (from Milton)
by William Blake
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.
