The Ballad of Halo Jones : Full Colour Omnibus Edition

This was my first encounter with Alan Moore and I really liked it. I liked being plunged directly into a new world and learning about it as the story unfolded. I enjoyed the social commentary on materialism, media inanity, wars off stage conducted for bad reasons, and the demonisation of the unemployed. The comic first appeared in the ultra materialist Thatcher years, but it feels very relevant still. The characters were all believable, and there was a good mix of action, tension and pathos.

Halo is an intriguing character. I liked her because she was normal, average, unremarkable in so far as she was aimless in her boredom, innocent of the worst aspects of other people, liked shopping and clothes but wasn't that bothered about shopping show more and clothes, and was gauche around men, unfazed or oblivious to celebrity. I liked her because she realised that her life on The Hoop wasn't enough and she took control of her life in order to change it. I liked her because she was true to herself, even when she didn't know she had anything to be true to and was stumbling through life. I liked her because she startdd to wake up to what was going on around her and because, even when it seemed that she'd lost everything, she didn't give up. She still saw that she had a future. She never had a game plan. Her only ambition was to live, and to live to the best of her ability. I like her most of all for that. It's what we all should do, whatever circumstance we find ourselves in.

It was really obvious that Moore and Gibson had put a lot of work into creating the world that Halo inhabits. The story builds gradually, and drops in hints of what has gone before without laying it all out on a plate. With each new plot development, too, just enough is said to allow links to be formed and anticipation for the next chapter to build. It's such a shame that legal wrangling with the publishers meant that Moore and Gibson stopped after three books, rather than completing the nine they originally intended. show less

This trade volume collects the entire run of "The Ballad of Halo Jones" from the English comics weekly 2000 AD. This mid-1980s material was some of Alan Moore's early work, and it shows him tackling class oppression, military imperialism, personal trauma, and cultural anomie, all in the context of a 50th-century dystopia-cum-space opera. Protagonist Halo is an underclass nobody whose discontent carries her across the galaxy. The real moral heft to these stories keeps them from being careless and speedy reads. At the end, the major plot elements have all been resolved, but Jones is on her way out to some new experiences, having survived nearly everyone with whom she has been involved during the three major parts of the story: her origins show more in the floating "Hoop" off the New York coast, her adventure off-planet as staff on a space liner, and her military service in the Tarantulan War. Moore clearly left room for more story, although he never filled that room.

Ian Gibson's art is effective in the black-and-white panels, and the pages reproduce well enough at the full-page magazine size used for this volume. show less

No full review since I doubt I'd do justice to how good it is. A phenomenal comic packed full of interesting SF ideas, humour and superb characters

A shame it ended after 3 stories, but even as it is, this should be on every comic book and science fiction lovers recommended reading list.

Halo Jones is an ordinary girl living in The Hoop. The Hoop is where the poor are put so that anyone with money doesn't have to look at them. It is no solution to poverty and unemployment, it is just a place to be. Nothing is really known of Halo's parents and it is assumed she was born on The Hoop and that they died when she was very young. She lives in the house of Brinna (considered to be a wealthy woman), Ludy a musician, Rodice another girl similar to her and Toby an animatronic dog who belongs to Brinna. Halo has always dreamt of leaving The Hoop and when Ludy becomes one of the Drummers and Brinna is murdered she siezes her chance to board a space ship as a hostess and travel to other planets.

She has became something of a legend show more in the future. She was supposed to be a war criminal who aided in the slaughter of millions and that she met many of the famous people of her time. The reality is somewhat different, she was more in the wrong place at the wrong time (or the right place depending on your viewpoint). Her real story sees her losing many of her friends and fighting in a strange war at super slow speed due to a different gravity on the planet Moab.

I really enjoyed this graphic novel. The heroine Halo was most interesting as she was so ordinary. She "could have been anyone" (her most famous quote). It had many elements of more male based comics like spaceships, guns, war etc, but she was strong in her own right and didn't succumb to many of the female stereotypes like taking her clothes off and fainting a lot which was something Moore and Gibson felt important. The ending saw some earlier storylines tied up nicely and there may even someday be a fourth book (this collection is made up of the three books previsuly published) to continue her story which I would definitely read. I also liked that dolphins ended up taking over the earth, being more intelligent and sensitive, very Douglas Adams. show less

I had always assumed Halo Jones was a bit cheesy, but I ended up liking it quite a bit. Lots of fun experiments by Moore, and a crazy variety of stories. The art is so very 80s, but once you adjust to that, it's nice.

This graphic novel, originally appearing in Brit mag 2000 AD in 1984 is a great read and fantastic to look at. The pictures are all black and white, as were almost comics in the UK at the time, and very detailed. The artist, Ian Gibson, has worked on Judge Dredd and Robo-Hunter, among other things, since then. Alan Moore, prolific writer of Top Ten, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, The Watchmen, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and more, was at the top of his form with Halo Jones.

Halo Jones herself is a kind of unintentional, everywoman hero, who can't help being talented, pretty, adventurous, and in some of the right places at the right times -- and in some of the wrong ones too. She's a sympathetic character in the 50th show more century, who needs to escape the slum she lives in "Hoopside" and go find life. And she does. show less

That was ace, really fun and interesting.
The art was a bit difficult to start with, dark and dense, but it either improved or I got used to it and then it was brill all the way through.