The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier by Alan Moore Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier
Book Review: Quite Good
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a quite good book. Not as good as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume One, but good nonetheless. I love all the references to 1950's British culture especially all the little hidden thigs like the Giles cartoons granny at the start waving her umbrella at the cars.Book Review: A Compendium Of Goodies
Summary: 4 Stars
Don't approach The Black Dossier as LOEG3. It's not. It's more of a primer for the new series Century, a history of the League up to the 1950s, and a broad overview of the alternative history in which it's set, and the characters that inhabit that world. It's filled with treats for the attentive fan, but for the casual reader it will come across as infuriatingly, willfully obtuse. It makes great demands on you. To make the most of it, you will need to have the kind of encyclopedic knowledge of comics and pulp fiction that Moore and O'Neill have. Or, try Jess Nevin's annotations at http://www.shsu.edu/~lib_jjn/dossier.html. Very useful. I recommend reading the book once through, then again with his notes. I guarantee you'll pick up twice as much background detail.
To summarise; enormous fun and a beautiful object. But very much an incidental volume to the series.
Book Review: Maybe it's just me...
Summary: 3 Stars
Having devoured the first and second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books, I looked forward to this one hungrily for a year. Perhaps I looked forward to it too much; the antique pop culture references used to be gleeful, and generally supported the humour and characterisation; now, they've become long stretches of impenetrable text and they just get in the way. We scarcely glimpse Mina and Alan as we leap from Lovecraft to Beat, from Wodehouse to Fanny Hill.
The young Alan, especially, suffers from this. Except for one good line in the James Bond scene, he's really not given anything to do that reveals his Alan-ness; what is life like for him? What makes him more than a blonde square-jawed action hero? We don't know, and I was looking forward to finding out.
Actually, I enjoyed the Fanny Hill with the Beardsley-inspired art, the Wodehouse-Lovecraft pastiche was a laugh (although done before), and I loved the Pornsec Tijuana bible. I don't condemn Moore for the inside jokes - it's the author's right to do that, even if it does limit the audience - but as someone who was in on it, I didn't find it served the story.
It reminded me of the long stretches of Promethea where we trudged through the whole Tarot deck. The art was absolutely transcendent, and sometimes the wonderful characters survived the paragraphs of occult exposition, but often as not it felt forced and dry.
Maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe someone else can read the whole Beat pastiche without their eyes glazing over. Maybe if I hadn't come to it wanting to know more about Mina and Alan, I would have enjoyed it more. I still think Moore's brilliant, and not everything he does has to be to my taste.
Book Review: Once again - extraordinary!
Summary: 5 Stars
Once again, the Nottingham Bard fails to disappoint. Even with the story no longer concentrating on the original line up and bringing a slightly more contemporary feel to the book this latest addition falls nicely in with the previous volumes.
Slightly different in style to the previous books with the main plot being more intercut with excerpts from the titular Black Dossier (on varying paper stocks and sizes for added effect) it provides an engrossing and layered experience.
The inclusions of classic British characters including Billy Bunter and the backdrop of 1984 (48) are often inspired and completely at odds with childhood memories.
A slight shame, therefore, that it's unavailable in the author's homeland ~ undoubtedly for copyright reasons too many to list~ and we are forced to import!
Bring your head - you'll need it on the trip!
Book Review: Great
Summary: 5 Stars
Great for any fan of League who doesn't mind a little reading. The parts of the Black Dossier being interspersed throughout the book were a great idea, and they provide the history of every generation of the league (and some information on France and Germany's leagues as well). The comic portion delivers too. If you hate actual reading, this may not be for you at this price, but if you don't mind...pick this up.