COMIC BOOK REVIEW ALAN MOORE OLD GANGSTERS NEVER DIE 1983

Originally created for a Bahaus rock album, this self-contained one-off comic strip feature is a genuine masterpiece given a wider audience by being featured in The Mammoth Book Of Best Crime Comics, where the black and white art work oozes noir in every panel.

Illustrated by Lloyd Thatcher, Moore’s story is told by a lounge singer and self-confessed gangster reflecting on how he would like to die and not die. Being gunned down in a cinema John Dillenger style is not to his taste. He wants to die in a blaze of gory glory, in action,. He reflects on the many gangsters lining the bottom of the river in concrete boots and feels as if he might enjoy their company. He appreciates a drive by shooting demise.

The sing song style of the presentation is because Moore uses lines he originally wrote for performance by Bauhaus, with the gangster seeing a good death as paramount to immortality and the creation of a legend.

The un-named figure slips away from the stage to leave the viewer and reader haunted by his words and his departure. A singer ending his performance or a ghost, leaving the visible world?> A dead, but not dead gangster?

Strong work that definitely merits an audience beyond the music fans it was initially presented for.

Arthur Chappell

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