Alan Moore's 1963Alan Moore's 1963
Publisher: Image
Original Format: Monthly six issue mini-series
First Appearance: 1963#1 (Image, April 1993)
Appearance checklist (not including reprints):
1963#1-6, Shadowhawk#14, Big Bang Comics#35, Tales of the Uncanny Preview
Edition;
The Fury also appears on the cover of Noble Causes: Family
Secrets#3, but not the interior;
Fury and Tomorrow Syndicate's Planet appear in a cameo as
comic characters a boy is thinking about in A Touch of Silver#3
Publication Dates: April-October 1993
Summary: In a world stuck in the sensibilities of
the 1960s, disparate heroes struggle to defend their planet from threats
both local and from outside their own reality.
Starring:
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Comments: Created by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and Rick Veitch.
A homage to Silver Age comics, especially those of early Marvel under Stan
Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, the issues of 1963 came complete with
footnotes within the stories referencing back to non-existent issues of
the comic series they purported to be part of, and fake adverts making fun
of the actual adverts that used to appear in 1960s titles.
Image Comics had been launched in 1992 by a group of hit artists, best known then for their Marvel work, striking out on their own because of a stated feeling that their talents were undervalued by their former employers. Image's initial titles were both illustrated and written by the founders, and many critics disparaged what they considered titles that had attractive artwork but poor plots. Getting stronger writers on board was crucial to establish Image as a truly credible competitor to the industry's big names, and one of the established scribes who was courted was Alan Moore. Jim Valentino was the founder who finally convinced Moore to come on board, a major coup, but as one of Moore's 1963 co-creators, Steve Bissette, revealed in a later interview, what the 1963 creators didn't know at the time was that the founders were extremely competitive, and this would ultimately contribute to 1963's abrupt and untimely ending. Initially 1963 was intended to run longer than the six issue debut mini-series and the handful of guest appearances of the characters that took place in other titles. Indeed, the final issue of the original min-series promised the cliffhanger ending would be followed up in the "Double Image Eighty-Page Giant Special," but sadly this never came to pass. As yet unaware of the founder rivalry, the 1963 creators were approached by another Image founder, Jim Lee, and agreed to let him handle publishing the Special. However, while Moore was part way through writing the follow-up, Lee announced he was taking a year long sabbatical from comics, and by the time he returned to work a backlog of projects had built up, plus one Image founder, Rob Liefeld, had left the company, meaning guest appearances by characters of his would have to be cut. Moore had begun to lose interest too, and the final nail in the coffin came when Moore fell out with Bissette for reasons even Bissette remains unclear about. With the characters at that point jointly owned by Moore and either Bissette, Veitch or Valentino (depending on which artist Moore co-created the given character with), any continuation or even reprints became problematic (though Alex Ross did do a cover for an unpublished collection, which can be seen at the top of this page).
In 1998 a legal agreement was reached between Moore and Bissette, with Moore giving up any rights to the characters they'd created together - notably the Fury, N-Man, Hypernaut, ky Solo, and all supporting casts and concepts tied to same. However, Bissette agreed in return that he could not reprint any story he'd co-created with Moore. In terms of the other characters, Valentino shares rights with Moore for Johnny Beyond, and all other characters are co-owned by Moore and Veitch. Despite this rights separation, Moore has not returned to the characters, seemingly unwilling to stir up bad memories.
In 2010 Bissette intended to relaunch his 1963 characters as the "Nauts Comics Universe," having worked with several new co-creators including Jean-Marc Lofficer to develop new storylines and characters to add to the existing ones. The plan was to release Tales of the Uncanny – N-Man & Friends: A Naut Comics History Vol. 1 that year, published by the very small independent About Comics, a company previously most notable for collecting The Liberty Project into a trade paperback. As a way of publicising this forthcoming volume, a 16 page preview (cover to the left) was given out at Manhattan's MoCCA (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) Festival on April 10-11 2010, but sadly the actual full comic was never released. (And if, by chance, you are one of the lucky few who managed to get a hold of this extremely rare preview, I'd love to see scans of the interior or even purchase the book in the unlikely event you are will to sell it).
First Posted: Circa 14/03/2010
Last updated: 14/11/2022
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