Dez and David liked the idea and so they moved on trying to figure out what the main character was going to look like and how the main story was going to be shaped According to Alan, “Since both Dave and I wanted to do something that would be uniquely British rather than emulate the vast amount of American material on the market, the setting was obviously going to be England. In their struggle to come up with a good story line that would have the type of exoticism and familiarity identified as characteristic of the near past, Alan suggested that they could achieve the same results in a setting of a near future.

Needless to say, the pulp comic strip set in the thirties was soon left behind. Alan Moore and David Lloyd, detail of text, V for Vendetta, Book 1, panel 1, page 14 in the 2005 edition.

Little did they know on those first months of long telephone conversations that they were embarking on a very different type of creative journey, one that was going to result on a work that still defies categorization. And so the partnership to create a comic strip with a thirties mystery theme began. (Moore 1983/2005, 269) David suggested Alan Moore as the writer, since they had already collaborated on several backup strips for Doctor Who Monthly and they worked well together. David accepted, but remarked that although he could work out the visuals, he would prefer for somebody else to come up with the characters and plot. He also commissioned artist David Lloyd to come up with a new thirties mystery strip. He had several ideas for his new comics magazine among which was to revive Marvelman, later retitled Miracleman, with Alan Moore as the writer. One of the first things that Dez did was to surround himself with artists and writers that he had worked with in the past and that he considered to to be the best in the business in Britain. He then started and edited the above mentioned comics anthology, which ended up with 17 Eagle Awards. Whispers of a new comic magazine called Warrior started to appear around 1980, right after Dez Skinn, a British comic and magazine editor, left Marvel UK for his own company, Quality Communications. Currently, the last page is being displayed at the Comics Gallery in the Cartoon Museum. This graphic novel is also featured in the exhibition The Great British Graphic Novel (20th April – 24th July, 2016). Written by Alan Moore and drawn by David Lloyd, with additional colours done by Steve Whitaker and Siobhan Dodds, it was originally serialised between 19 in Warrior, then reprinted in the USA by DC/ Vertigo who picked it up in 1988 and published the series to completion.

The Comic Creators Project at the Cartoon Museum in London has original artwork from one of the most iconic graphic novels of the 20th century: V of Vendetta.

Dc comics v for vendetta