Post by rberman on Jan 1, 2019 18:16:51 GMT -5
When you see an Alan Moore collection that you’ve never heard of, and it’s only $14.95, do you get it? Of course you do! This turns out to be a compendium of whimsical shorts about a family of monsters who rent a row house in Moore’s home of Northampton and get into tangles with the locals. Dad is a mesmerist, Granddad in the greenhouse is a Lovecraftian horror, the daughter is an ugly duckling bride of Frankenstein whose libido far exceeds her knowledge of human anatomy, the Slavic bachelor uncles are a vampire and werewolf, and so on.
In American versions of this set-up such as The Munsters and The Addams family, especially in the TV versions released during the Civil Rights Movement, the point was that when different-looking families move into your neighborhood, they’re actually quite normal and friendly and just want the same things as the rest of us, and any resulting conflicts will probably stem from your own biases. But Moore is coming from a different place (literally and figuratively), and his monster family really are accidental dangers to the rent assessor, Santa’s reindeer, the locals at the pub, and anyone else who crosses their paths. They can’t help it, and sometimes they can’t help being on the receiving end either.
Top Shelf’s 2014 republication of this 80s work by Moore and cartoonist Steve Parkhouse comes with an all-new story catching up on the last 30 years of the Bojeffries clan. Famous actors (Damon, Clooney, Streep, etc.) who have made a film about the Bojeffries are supposed to appear on the British voyeur reality television series Big Brother, but the actual Bojeffries get cast as themselves by mistake. It’s all silly fun that reminds us of Alan Moore’s versatility, equally happy in horror or action or drama or a farce like this.
In American versions of this set-up such as The Munsters and The Addams family, especially in the TV versions released during the Civil Rights Movement, the point was that when different-looking families move into your neighborhood, they’re actually quite normal and friendly and just want the same things as the rest of us, and any resulting conflicts will probably stem from your own biases. But Moore is coming from a different place (literally and figuratively), and his monster family really are accidental dangers to the rent assessor, Santa’s reindeer, the locals at the pub, and anyone else who crosses their paths. They can’t help it, and sometimes they can’t help being on the receiving end either.
Top Shelf’s 2014 republication of this 80s work by Moore and cartoonist Steve Parkhouse comes with an all-new story catching up on the last 30 years of the Bojeffries clan. Famous actors (Damon, Clooney, Streep, etc.) who have made a film about the Bojeffries are supposed to appear on the British voyeur reality television series Big Brother, but the actual Bojeffries get cast as themselves by mistake. It’s all silly fun that reminds us of Alan Moore’s versatility, equally happy in horror or action or drama or a farce like this.
