7 Best Alan Moore Indie Comics, Ranked

Alan Moore is one of the undisputed greats of the comic industry. He’s since retired, working on his art projects (something he’s been doing for decades) and his novels (they’re amazing), and moved away from the industry, but he’s left readers with decades of stories. While he’s best known for his work at DC Comics, Moore spent a long time on the indies after leaving the publisher, creating some groundbreaking stories for many different publishers. In fact, he’s always done indie work in the United States and the United Kingdom, and his work has continued to net new readers with a variety of tales.

The man who wrote Watchmen is a treasure house of story, and his indie work shows just how far-ranging his imagination is. He’s told every kind of story under the sun, showing that comics were more than corporate art; they’re just art. These are Moore’s seven best indie comics, books that expanded on the legend of Northampton’s sorcerer supreme.

7) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was Alan Moore’s brainchild for 30 years, and he ended it with a bang. This six issue series paid off all of the drifting plot threads of Moore’s massive shared universe, as an old foe returns, using the League’s secret to start a war that will shake imagination itself. Moore and the late great Kevin O’Neill are on fire in this one, giving readers everything they could want from the final story with the League. It’s also a skewering of the current pop culture paradigm, as the forces of corporate entertainment take over the universe of fiction. It’s the perfect ending for one of the greatest indie franchises ever.

6) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century

Moore and O’Neill are back already, for another run with the League. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century was a three issue series. Each issue was set in a different year — 1910, 1969, and 2009 — as the group deals with a plan for world domination by Oliver Haddo and his Moonchild. This one was Moore’s trip through 20th century British fiction, from The Threepenny Opera to Harry Potter. Some fans like to think this book is the curmudgeonly writer saying modern fiction is bad compared to what came before, but the argument is at least made well by this awesome story.

5) WildC.A.T.s

Okay, so this one is weird, because currently, WildC.A.T.s isn’t an indie book. Wildstorm Productions was sold to DC Comics, so Moore’s work on the book is in a weird place (although it’s been out of print for a while, DC did publish an edition of his work on the book in the ’00s). In the mid ’90s, the Image guys were giving Moore work and he took over this book that had been all style, little substance and made it into an awesome superhero team comic. Moore wrote issues #21 through #34, working with artists like Travis Charest, Jim Lee, Kevin Nowlan, and several fill-in artists. He created an all-new team and told the story of the original team going to Khera, the planet their oldest members came from, ending it all in the most surprising way possible. This is Moore making ’90s cheese smart and it’s fantastic.

4) Supreme

Alan Moore didn’t just work with Jim Lee’s Wildstorm Productions, but also Rob Liefeld’s Extreme Studios. He was given the helm of Supreme, a book starring Liefeld’s wannabe Superman, and the British scribe gave readers some of the best Superman stories that DC will never tell. This book is what would have happened if Moore would have written a run on the Man of Steel in the pre-Crisis days and it’s fantastic. It’s not in print anymore and nearly impossible to find, but if you can get your hands on it, it’s well worth it.

3) The Ballad of Halo Jones

Moore did a lot of work in the UK comic industry and it is there he made one of his greatest creations. The Ballad of Halo Jones is Moore doing brilliant sci-fi and it was first published in 2000 A.D., the British anthology comic where he became a star. The book followed the titular heroine through her adventures in the 50th century. Moore creates an amazing future society, something that he proved adroit at over the decades, in this three volume story. He and artist Ian Gibson created a future unlike you’ve ever seen, and this is a book you’ll never forget after you it down.

2) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Nemo Trilogy

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Nemo Trilogy is the finest moment of the property’s existence. This set of three hardcovers — Heart of Ice, The Roses of Berlin, and River of Ghosts — told the story of Janni Nemo, the daughter of Captain Nemo, through the trials and tribulations of her life. This book is only tangentially related to the main plot of the League, mostly expanding on some events and telling the story of the Nemo family after the Prince Dakkar died. It’s a gorgeous meditation on life, love, family, and legacy, using ideas from the pulp tales of the early to mid 20th century to tell its sumptuous tale. It also has some O’Neill’s best art on the series, the perfect cherry on top.

1) From Hell

From Hell is one of the greatest horror comics of all time, Moore’s meditation on the bloody beginnings of the 20th century. Moore and Eddie Campbell used the idea of the royal surgeon Sir Richard Gull as Jack the Ripper, telling a story of Masonic intrigue in Victoria’s England, following the victims of the Ripper and the man who investigated the crime. This book is amazing. I prefer it in black and white, as it captures the Victorian penny dreadful feel of the story, but Campbell has been coloring the book lately, and it looks amazing. This is a classic, and is one of Moore’s best works in general.

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