It's no exaggeration to say that The Author Has Been Tweeting: A Graphic Poem, copies of which began shipping this very morning, represents the beginning of something I've wanted to do for something like a quarter of a century. I don't mean the subject matter, obviously: who could have predicted, back then, how the person who inspired its (entirely fictional, and there's a disclaimer on the back to that effect) main character would turn out? No, I mean the form: the idea of doing a poem as a comic. I think this is a brilliant idea, and I'm surprised people don't do it more, because it just seems to me that the two forms - sequential art and poetry - go together so well, and complement each other in fascinating ways. A poem moves from verse to verse on the way to its conclusion: a comic does much the same thing, moving panel by panel. So many great passages in comics feel like a kind of poetry anyway: why not try doing that deliberately? As I say: a great idea.
But not an original one. Because, like most great ideas in comics, it comes from (or at least I got the idea from) Mr Alan Moore.
When I said 'something like a quarter of a century' in the first paragraph I was allowing for the possibility that I might not necessarily have picked up a copy of Caliber Press' Alan Moore's Songbook when it first came out, in 1998; but, you know, I could very well have done. I was an inveterate haunter of my local branch of Forbidden Planet in those days, regularly popping in to spend some of my student loan money on the new issues of Preacher, The Invisibles or anything else that caught my eye. And, at some point, this collection of work written by Moore for Caliber's series of Negative Burn anthologies must have fishhooked my ocular socket, because I bought it, I devoured it and, years later, it's still one of my favourite entries in Moore's canon. Note that I don't say the best: it obviously isn't that, it's a caprice compared to, say, Promethea, a mere bagatelle when set beside From Hell (which also, incidentally, combines comics and poetry - Gull, the absolute madman, is always slipping into iambics to deliver his various speeches, especially on his epic coach ride through London with Netley; as indeed does V in his eponymous series), but, well - how can you not love a comic which features a jaded Godzilla, fantastically drawn by Art Adams, declaring that he's tired of 'Trampling Tokyo'?
Moore's Songbook - and yeah, sure, he called them songs and he even actually sung some of the fuckers but a song that you read on the page, if it's good, if it hangs together and is deep enough, is still a poem, just ask Leonard Cohen - was proof of concept, and for years I dreamed of working with an artist to set some of my own work, not to music, but to images in the same way as various artists, commissioned by Caliber, had done for Moore. But it remained a dream, a project for a rainy day or that moment all artists dream of when someone with access to several suitcases full of large-denomination bills asks you 'so. What would you really like to do?' until last year, when I started drawing and learned, to my surprise, that not only did I not suck at it, but that if I worked at it I could get pretty good.
And now here I am with The Author Has Been Tweeting, my first graphic poetry zine (there will be more), which you can buy from my store on ko-fi right now! Putting this together has been a fascinating process and I'll probably talk more about it in future entries - in particular, as someone who regularly creates videos to go with her poems, I want to talk about the cinematic qualities of comics as a poetry medium - but for now it's just turned five on Friday evening and I feel like having a celebratory beer. So, until the next time, Gojira, Gojira, GO!
