''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier'' is an original
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
in the
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
series ''
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'' (''LoEG'') is a comic book series (inspired by the 1960 British film ''The League of Gentlemen'') co-created by writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O'Neill which began in 1999. The series spans four volum ...
'', written by
Alan Moore
Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including ''Watchmen'', ''V for Vendetta'', ''The Ballad of Halo Jones'', ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman:'' ''The Killing Joke'', and ''From Hell' ...
and illustrated by
Kevin O'Neill. It was the last volume of the series to be published by
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
. Although the third book to be published, it was not intended to be the third volume in the series. Moore has stated that it was intended to be "a sort of ingenious sourcebook", and not a regular volume.
''Black Dossier'' was released on November 14, 2007.
Background and format
Originally referred to as ''The Dark Dossier'' during early announcements of its existence, ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier'' differs from the other regular volumes, as it is a self-contained
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
designed to be a "sourcebook" for the series. While the first two volumes included prose stories as backup features, the majority of ''Black Dossier'' consists of non-comic pieces, taking the form of prose stories, letters, maps, guidebooks, magazines and even a lost Shakespeare folio. Also included is a '
Tijuana Bible
Tijuana bibles (also known as eight-pagers, Tillie-and-Mac books, Jiggs-and-Maggie books, jo-jo books, bluesies, blue-bibles, gray-backs, and two-by-fours) were palm-sized pornographic comic books produced in the United States from the 1920s to ...
' insert and a
3-D section complete with custom glasses. However, these prose pieces and inserts are framed by a comic story, in which
Mina Harker
Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker (née Murray) is a fictional character and the main female character in Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel ''Dracula''.
In the novel
She begins the story as Miss Mina Murray, a young schoolmistress who is engaged t ...
and
Allan Quatermain
Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel ''King Solomon's Mines'', its one sequel ''Allan Quatermain'' (1887), twelve prequel novels and four prequel short stories, totalling eighteen works. An English professional ...
obtain the Black Dossier itself and are then pursued by government forces.
All illustrations are done by Kevin O'Neill, the artist on the first two volumes. Alan Moore also recorded a
vinyl record
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts nea ...
of him singing an original song that would be released with the book, but DC did not include it.
After many changed shipping dates, the Absolute Edition was released with no vinyl record, no script/sketch companion book (something that had shipped with Absolute "League" volumes 1 & 2), and a price point of $99 – $24 higher than the two previous Absolute "League" volumes.
Bill Oakley
William Lloyd Oakley (born February 27, 1966) is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series ''The Simpsons''. Oakley and Josh Weinstein became best friends and writing partners at St. Albans Sc ...
died halfway through designing the book, so the last half was designed by
Todd Klein
Todd Klein (born January 28, 1951) is an American comic book letterer, logo designer, and occasional writer, primarily for DC Comics.
Biography
Early career
Todd Klein broke into comics in the summer of 1977, hired by DC Comics as a staff prod ...
. The book is dedicated to Oakley's memory.
The vinyl record was eventually produced in the UK.
Development
According to Moore the ''Black Dossier'' was created because Moore was uncomfortable with the idea of O'Neill being unemployed during the planned hiatus between Volumes II and III of ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen''. Wanting to do a source book for ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'' Moore began writing the ''Black Dossier'', expanding the original idea to including numerous different prose sections of different styles from a ''
Fanny Hill
''Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure''—popularly known as ''Fanny Hill''—is an erotic novel by English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London,Wagner, "Introduction", ...
'' "sequel" to a beatnik style story and a comic narrative that frames the Dossier sections.
Moore and O'Neill also took the main characters Mina Murray and Allan 60 years in the future out of fear that the Victorian era was already waning in interest. Because many of the characters used in the ''Black Dossier'' are not in the public domain, Moore became more creative in alluding to the characters identities but never directly revealing who they were, thus avoiding legal issues with the owners of those characters. For example, the character of "Jimmy" is a thinly veiled reference to James Bond; hints to this include owning Campion Bond's cigarette case and lighter, his preference for Vodka Martinis, having a scar from the novels, as well as owning James Bond trademark Walther PPK with 007 engraved on it. The names of other characters are shortened or otherwise changed to mask their origins: Mrs. Peel from the ''
Avengers
Avenger, Avengers, The Avenger, or The Avengers may refer to:
Arts and entertainment In the Marvel Comics universe
* Avengers (comics), a team of superheroes
**Avengers (Marvel Cinematic Universe), a central team of protagonist superheroes of ...
'' uses her maiden name throughout the graphic novel (here spelled "Night" instead of "Knight"), and
Billy Bunter
William George Bunter is a fictional schoolboy created by Charles Hamilton using the pen name Frank Richards. He features in stories set at Greyfriars School, a fictional English public school in Kent, originally published in the boys' weekly ...
is only referred to by his first name.
A DC press release confirmed it would not be released outside the United States "due to international copyright concerns and related issues". This was not an issue with previous volumes, as the Victorian setting meant that the majority of characters that were used were from works no longer under copyright. However, the book is available in the United Kingdom as well as in Canada.
Plot
Unlike earlier volumes, the comic book portions of ''Black Dossier'' are not set in the Victorian era; rather, they are set in 1958, after the fall of the
Big Brother government from ''
Nineteen Eighty Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...
'' (the explanation for this discrepancy is that Orwell's book was originally set in 1948, but the dates were changed by the publisher). The frame story sees
Mina Harker
Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker (née Murray) is a fictional character and the main female character in Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel ''Dracula''.
In the novel
She begins the story as Miss Mina Murray, a young schoolmistress who is engaged t ...
and
Allan Quatermain
Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel ''King Solomon's Mines'', its one sequel ''Allan Quatermain'' (1887), twelve prequel novels and four prequel short stories, totalling eighteen works. An English professional ...
- now immortal after bathing in the fire of youth from ''
She: A History of Adventure'' - on their quest to recover the ''Black Dossier'', which contains the secret history of the now-disbanded League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
The book starts with Mina Murray (going by the name Odette O'quim) at a bar in London, where MI5 Agent
James "Jimmy" Bond (grandson of
Campion Bond
This is a collection of the characters from ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'', a comic book series created by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, and its spin-off ''Nemo''.
Overview
Character's name
*Original source/author
*Appearances or me ...
) attempts to seduce her, taking her to the decaying remains of the "
Ministry of Love
The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty are the four ministries of the government of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell.
The use of contradictory ...
", once one of
Big Brother's government departments. Jimmy attempts to rape Mina but is subdued by a brick hidden in Mina's handbag. Allan quickly arrives and the two retrieve the Dossier.
Harry Lime, the new
M, teams Jimmy up with
Emma Night and her uncle, an aged
Hugo Drummond, to hunt down Mina and Allan, who are believed to be heading North.
Mina and Allan take a detour to
Greyfriars School
Greyfriars School is a fictional English public school used as a setting in the long-running series of stories by the writer Charles Hamilton, who wrote under the pen-name of Frank Richards. Although the stories are focused on the Remove (or lo ...
in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
which houses
The Thirty-Nine Steps and was attended by Harold Wharton, a.k.a. Big Brother. The caretaker,
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
, reveals that many British spies were groomed at the school and that Bob Cherry is Harry Lime. Mina and Allan agree to visit a spaceport on their detour - space-travel technology has flourished since the
Martian invasion of
''Volume II''. At the spaceport, Jimmy, Emma and Hugo find Allan and Mina, who escape via a robot-piloted rocket that references Gerry Anderson's
Fireball XL5
''Fireball XL5'' is a 1960s British children's science-fiction puppet television series about the missions of ''Fireball XL5'', a vessel of the World Space Patrol that polices the cosmos in the year 2062. Commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac, ''XL5' ...
.
The two escape the crashing rocket by parachute and land in the Scottish countryside to find a ruined castle they were heading for.
Galley-Wag rescues them from Jimmy and escorts them into the castle. Hugo follows them inside, where Mina reveals that they are the same Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain who fought off
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and criminal mastermind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a formidable enemy for the author's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. He was created primarily as a device by which Doyle could ...
and the
Martians
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s as the Moon was evidently lifeless. At the time, the pred ...
. They also reveal that Jimmy's career is mostly fabricated, that he is a double agent for the United States and that he killed John Night, Emma's father and Hugo's brother. Hugo lets them leave and tries to kill Jimmy for his actions, but he is shot by Bond at point-blank range.
Mina and Allan successfully return to the mysterious, utopian universe of
The Blazing World
''The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World'', better known as ''The Blazing World'', is a 1666 work of prose fiction by the English writer Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle. Feminist critic Dale Spender calls it a f ...
, where they are reunited with their mutual lover
Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...
and have safely hidden the dossier.
''The Black Dossier''
As Murray and Quatermain read the dossier, the contents of the dossier interrupt the narrative in different sections. Stories include:
* "On the Descent of the Gods" an account of the Gods of the League universe, as written by
Oliver Haddo
''The Magician'' is a novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham, originally published in 1908. In this tale, the magician Oliver Haddo, a caricature of Aleister Crowley, attempts to create life. Crowley wrote a critique of this book under the ...
;
* a twenty-five page ''Life of Orlando'' comic strip which tells the entire life of
Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...
from his birth in the City of
Thebes in 1260 B.C., up to the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
told in the style the 1950s British comic ''Trump''.;
* a faux
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
play detailing the foundation of the League by
Prospero
Prospero ( ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''.
Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him (with his three-year-old daughter, Miranda) to sea ...
from ''
The Tempest'';
* an imaginary sequel to
John Cleland
John Cleland (c. 1709, baptised – 23 January 1789) was an English novelist best known for his fictional '' Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure'', whose eroticism led to his arrest. James Boswell called him "a sly, old malcont ...
's ''
Fanny Hill
''Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure''—popularly known as ''Fanny Hill''—is an erotic novel by English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London,Wagner, "Introduction", ...
'' with full-page illustrations akin to those that
Marquis Von Bayros illustrated for the book;
* a
Bertie Wooster
Bertram Wilberforce Wooster is a fictional character in the comedic Jeeves stories created by British author P. G. Wodehouse. An amiable English gentleman and one of the "idle rich", Bertie appears alongside his valet, Jeeves, whose intelligenc ...
and
Jeeves
Jeeves (born Reginald Jeeves, nicknamed Reggie) is a fictional character in a series of comedic short stories and novels by English author P. G. Wodehouse. Jeeves is the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie W ...
prose story involving one of
Great Old Ones
American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) created a number of fictional deities throughout the course of his literary career. These entities are usually depicted as immensely powerful and utterly indifferent to humans who can barely begin to c ...
from the stories of
H.P. Lovecraft;
* and "The Crazy Wide Forever," a short story written in the style of
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian a ...
.
Other features include:
* a picture map of the Blazing World and its location,
* a cut-away of Nemo's Nautilus Mark II submarine,
* a series of postcards Mina and Allan sent between the years 1899 and 1913,
* and profiles of the second twentieth century leagues and the group's French and German counterparts.
Reception
''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine's
Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman (born June 26, 1969) is an American novelist and journalist who wrote ''The Magicians Trilogy'': '' The Magicians'' (2009), '' The Magician King'' (2011), and '' The Magician's Land'' (2014). He was the book critic and lead technolog ...
named it one of the Top 10 Graphic Novels of 2007, ranking it at #2, and praising it as "effing genius". Jesse Schedeen of
IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
gave ''Black Dossier'' a 9.5 rating praising the complex detail of Kevin O'Neill's artwork and the literary quality of Moore's writing, whilst criticising the quality of the paper, printing style of the hardcover version and some aspects of the storytelling.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier (HC) Review
''IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
''
Awards
* 2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
: Won the "Favourite Original Graphic Novel" Eagle Award
References
Sources
*
External links
About ''Black Dossier''
by Jess Nevins
Jess Nevins (born 1966) is an American author. Nevins is the author of the ''Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana'' and other works on Victoriana and pulp fiction. He is employed as a reference librarian at Lone Star College-Tomball.
Comic book ...
The DC Comics Message Board for ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen''
''Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
''
Interviews
Alan Moore: Inside "The Black Dossier"
Comic Book Resources
''Comic Book Resources'', also known by the initialism CBR, is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book–related news and discussion.
History
Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1995 as a development of the Kingdom Co ...
, November 14, 2007
Kevin O'Neill Talks "The Black Dossier"
Comic Book Resources
''Comic Book Resources'', also known by the initialism CBR, is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book–related news and discussion.
History
Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1995 as a development of the Kingdom Co ...
, November 20, 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, The
2007 comics debuts
Comics by Alan Moore
Fiction set in 1958