When Alan Moore came to AKA

Many, many years ago there existed a comic shop in Glasgow called AKA Books and Comics and in it’s own wee way it helped shaped how comics are today. Part of how we did that was by having signing sessions where creators would come up from down outh, sign comics, sketch and drink which in turn meant they’d mingle with people starting out their careers. It wasn’t a coincidence Glasgow produced such a wealth of talent for the industry over the years.

Anyone, one of the biggest sessions AKA had was the Watchmen signing in 1987 with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Now this was a time when the trade paperback was still a new thing, and til then both Marvel (who started out experimenting with them in the mid 80’s) and DC (who had one or two out prior to Watchmen) finding how to use them and what material would fit the format. Watchmen would clearly work as a trade, so one was released and it sold ridicoulously well to the extent it remains one of DC’s top selling trades decades later.

The tour was arranged by Titan Books, a subsidury or Titan Distributors and the deal was we could only sell the Titan edition of the book which at the time sported this cover.

However AKA also traded with the then fledgling Neptune Distribution so we were able to get the Warners edition which had this cover.

So this meant we had to cleanse the shop of these editions unless one of the Titan handlers for Moore and Gibbons clocked it, but we still sold it for a number of reasons. The main one was we sold out of the boxes of Titan editions (easily 100 copies plus), plus any remaining issues of the monthly comic, so we pulled out all the Warner editions and sold them. Not that they noticed as the signing was insanely busy with Moore and Gibbons literally signing thousands of comics, but Dave Gibbons did notice the Warner versions creeping in and was perfectly happy to see it. Moore at this point was undergoing his divorce from the comics scene so he wasn’t from all accounts at his best on this tour, but in Glasgow I found him his usual self, mainly I suppose it’s far away from the main hub to avoid the shit which was going on at that time.

And this was a big tour with a punishing schedule as the poster testifies to.

They did however have a night free before the short trip to Edinburgh the next day, so as was always the case after a signing at AKA, we all went for a curry and lots and lots to drink. After one of these events there’s always the fannying around phase where everyone’s getting ready, which is where this picture found by Colin Smith comes from.

Pictured here is a youthful Alan Moore and Scottish comics mainstay John McShane wearing the jacket which will never die. Taken by Steve Montgomery I have vague memories of it. The Fangoria’s on the wall was mine if I remember as I cleared out some doubles, but it is nice to see a wee bit of AKA in the prime days.

After this curry and beer were consumed. It was also the last signing Moore did in Scotland, so there’s some sadness from myself that there’s so little documentation of these days or what there has been is now lost to time. Today there’d be videos and pics galore, but at least we have this wee bit of history to remind those of us who were there of a quite amazing and formative time in comics.