The Complete D.R. and Quinch

This is a collection of some of Alan Moore's earliest work, which appeared in serialized form in the British 2000 A.D. comics in the late 70s. It has been described as one of Moore's 'lesser works' but it is actually pretty good. The format is episodic, since only a few pages of the comic ran in each issue, but after a couple of fairly ordinary stories that focus on setting the madcap tone of the comic, and establishing the psychotic characters of D.R. and Quinch, there are some pretty funny stories that follow. There's a fair degree of black humour and some loose satire (D.R. and Quinch Go to Hollywood is particularly biting) but generally this collection is more about fun than taking on any kind of weighty themes. It doesn't strive show more for the depth that was present in [The Ballad of Halo Jones], Alan Moore's other early comic serial for 2000 A.D. Worth reading, though not a must-read except for 2000 A.D. and Alan Moore completists. show less

This isn't exactly embarrassingly bad or morally abhorrent, but it's such lightweight fare for Moore, it barely has any teeth or brains to it. Published around the same time as the very likeable and interesting Halo Jones, it doesn't come close in terms of sheer writing quality.

It should be noted that Moore's work here was heavily "inspired" by Ted Mann and Tod Carroll's "O.C. and Stiggs" pieces in National Lampoon (particularly the longform The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, which took over the magazine's October 1982 issue). "D.R. and Quinch" handles the material better than Robert Altman's (!!) O.C. and Stiggs movie adaptation, but the original NatLamp source material outclasses it all.

Alan Moore writes crazy teenagers. Decent-ish.