Dubbed the "Orson Welles of comics" by Steve Rose in the Guardian, Alan Moore is one of a handful of people who transformed the comic book industry in the 1980s, showing that "comic book scripts can have the subtlety of prose fiction, especially when they use their access to the rich potential subject matter of our fascination with heroes," as a contributor to St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers noted. Moore's twelve-part serial "Watchmen," from 1986, "changed the genre forever," according to Sridhar Pappu in Salon.com. In that series Moore transformed the old superhero model into "rapists, racists and flunkies of Richard Nixon . . . [to be] hunted down in the days before World War III," Pappu wrote. This deconstructing of the comic book hero was hailed a "sci-fi detective masterpiece," Rose observed, making Moore "the comic industry's de facto leader." According to Rose, for comic fans Moore is "the undisputed high priest of the medium, whose every word is seized upon like a message from the ether."
Moore has continued to amaze and confound his readers since the mid-1980s, writing series comics as well as graphic novels.
