Rorschach: I heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Life seems harsh, and cruel. Says he feels all alone in threatening world. Doctor says: “Treatment is simple. The great clown – Pagliacci – is in town. Go see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. “But doctor…” he says “I am Pagliacci.” Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.

Have you read Watchmen? If not, you should. If you have, you should read it again. You miss a lot in the first read. If you like Jeffrey Dean Morgan, watch the movie. If you don’t, skip it. He’s the highlight.

Alan Moore is, and I say this with the utmost affection, freaking crazy. His stories are wild, his characters are sick and his worlds are absolutely terrifying. One of my favorite scenes in Watchmen features a Rorschach painting, a murderous pedophile and a vicious dog with it’s head bashed in. I wonder what that says about me.

I wanted to know Moore (do you get it? It’s a— okay, never mind). Anyway, he’s a fascinating guy. Born in 1953 in Northampton to working class parents, Moore attended poorly-funded schools in a generally poverty-stricken area. He did well in school, eventually being able to place out and go to a better school where he felt isolated and inferior for his background. This isolation got him into hobbies, one of which was comics.

I am always struck by Moore’s fearlessness, and his ability to write things that really capitalize on readers fears or insecurities. His stuff works because it is scary, because it’s real, especially in the case of V for Vendetta. It’s easy to brush off this very of dystopic England, to say that something like that could never happen, but it could. Moore believes that it could, and convinces his fans that it could happen by really digging deep into the human condition. It is clear that in both Watchmen and V for Vendetta, greed drives people. A desperate need for money, power or status drives men to do horrific things to one another.