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Heroes And Monsters: The Unofficial Companion To The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 1 by Jess Nevins
01/02/2007 . Source: Eamonn Murphy 
Pub: Titan Books. 239 page enlarged paperback. Price: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 1-84576-316-5. Buy Heroes And Monsters: The Unofficial Companion To The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen in the USA - or Buy Heroes And Monsters: The Unofficial Companion To The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen in the UK  check out website: www.titanbooks.com
This is what you get: An introduction by Alan Moore in which he explains how he began to include all sorts of fictional worlds into the League stories, mixing them together to create a complicated fictional counterpart to the real world.
A foreword by the author explaining how he started off annotating the series on a website. Also some notes about Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill.
Annotations to 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'. 132 pages of these. To utilise them properly you need to have the graphic novel and the companion open at the same time and read the panels and notes one by one. This is not a good way to enjoy the story but for a second reading is informative. The notes are almost insanely detailed. Page 7, panel 2 shows a cigarette case with a harlequin design and the notes tell us the history of harlequins. Panel 5 notes tell us the history of John Bull because of a logo on a match box. This is trivia but other notes give details of the characters, major and minor.
Archetypes is a 22 page essay describing how the cast of LOEG represent archetypal characters from Victorian literature and giving the characters origins. Allan Quartermain is the archetype of muscular Christian hero. Mina Murray is archetypal new woman who appeared in the 1880s, assertive and independent.
'On Crossovers' is a 12 page essay. Nevins cites Jason and the Argonauts as the first crossover tale, bringing heroes who had their own legends together for one great adventure. Later, Balzac, the French writer, created a consistent imaginary world with characters from one novel appearing in others. Stan Lee did the same thing with the Marvel Universe.
'Yellow Peril', a 20 page essay, tells us there are two kinds of danger so labelled. Fist is the individual Asian genius, second the peril en masse, a faceless horde of decadent, sexually deviant barbarians who threaten western civilisation. Nevins focuses on the individual Peril of which Fu Manchu is the ultimate incarnation.
Lastly, there is an interview with Alan Moore. This is 32 pages for, like any good craftsmen, the bearded one likes chatting about his work. Love or hate him you can't ignore the influence of this crazy genius on modern comics. I found it interesting that he has firm roots in literature and is very pleased that League sometimes directs comic readers to the 'old masters' of adventure fiction who worked with prose alone, as well as to cult writers like Flann O'Brien.
Is this worth buying? For 1,299 pennies you get 132 pages of detailed annotations and 93 pages of interesting supplementary material which will give you a long list of books to read to increase your knowledge of Victorian pulp literature and your appreciation of the League. I enjoyed the essays but, for me, ploughing laboriously through the annotations is not fun. However one might just dip into them if something in a panel aroused one's curiosity. Not a book for everyone but dedicated fans will love it.
Eamonn Murphy
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