[bignumbers] The Meaning of Big Numbers … Some interesting analysis of Big Numbers plot and what it might have meant. ‘If there’s mathematical order in the apparently chaos of these divinely beautiful fractal images, and we buy the theory that there must then be mathematical order and divine beauty to life, too, just an order too grand for us to comprehend (sure enough, the chaotic soup of unconnected human interactions in this story seem to end up giving the good people what they want, and punishing the bad people)… then perhaps letting a numerical system take over our life isn’t so different to our present existence. Perhaps there’s a divine beauty in that that’s beyond our comprehension, too. Perhaps the story is an optimistic one.’

[comics] Alan Moore’s Big Numbers Outline Chart… The script outline for AM’s unfinished comic Big Numbers typed out and handily converted to an HTML page with annotations.

[comics] Bill Sienkiewicz’s Unpublished Cover to Big Numbers #6 …

[comics] Bill Sienkiewicz speaks about Big Numbers #3 … ‘But with Big Numbers one of the demands – prerequisites – I’d placed upon myself was to work almost exclusively from the model as possible. I was going for as great a degree of illustrative photographic verisimilitude as I could muster. Dammit, I was going to adhere to the accurate reference no matter what. It was, in retrospect, a vain attempt to control everything – everything – completely, as things swirled and collided in midair all around. This was my Stanley Kubrick period. Of course, the more I tried to control everything, the more Real Life kicked my ass. Up and down the Route 95 corridor.’ [thanks @slovobooks]

[comics] A Review Of Big Numbers #3 by Alan Moore & Bill Sienkiewicz … ‘The opening chapters of his From Hell and Watchmen are compelling, but no one could guess those works’ ultimate richness from those chapters alone. The same would have been all but undoubtedly true of Big Numbers. The third chapter brings a fuller understanding of what was lost by the failure to complete more than a quarter of the book. The failure is beyond a disappointment; it’s about as close to an artistic tragedy as one can imagine.’

[comics] Pádraig Ó Méalóid (aka Livejournal’s Glycon) reveals the story behind Big Numbers #3 making it’s way to the internet … ‘Anyway, the story I heard was that Al Columbia completed this issue, had it sent off for lettering and then went a little crazy and refused to release the art for publication … In any event, this art did exist long enough for it to be photocopied.’

[comics] Eddie Campbell on Big Numbers: ‘Another thing I remembered, and I don’t think I ever mentioned it to Alan, but I always felt a certain resentment that Billy the Sink got Big Numbers and blew it while i was stuck drawing Jack the bloody Ripper for ten years (I once described it as a penny dreadful that costs thirty five bucks). I stand by my opinion that Big Numbers was the superior idea and would have been Alan’s masterpiece.’

[comics] Big Numbers #3 … the complete issue of Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz’s unpublished Big Numbers #3 has been posted to Flickr …

[comics] Unpublished Al Columbia Art probably for Big Numbers #4 …

[comics] Excerpts from Alan Moore’s script for Big Numbers #3 … ‘PAGE 5, PANEL 1. Okay, now there are twelve panels on this page, with this first tier being a continuous background shot. I should point out before we get too far in that this page requires some technical information and possibly some visual reference that will have to wait until I can contact the guy I know who works in a Computer Shop.’

[comics] Gallery of Pages from Big Numbers #3 — pages from Moore and Sienkiewicz’s unpublished graphic novel …



Related: Alan Moore discusses the plot to Big Numbers. [Part One] [Part Two] … ‘The mall is going to change everything, everything will continue to change, but now CHRISTINE has got a handle on it, she’s been through all of these mad events, she’s had this illusory love affair, she’s seen what’s happened to her sister and dad, her mother, sort of, all of this stuff and it’s been a lesson and she’s got the metaphor to hang it all on this past thing so she goes off to write Big Numbers basically, she goes off to write a book about chaos and small towns. And that’s her story. ‘

[comics] Unseen Artwork from Big Numbers … [via Egon]



‘…with the world political situation as it is at the moment the political radical is put in a difficult position because, hum, how do you rebel against chaos? You know, much as political conspiracy theorists would like to think otherwise, the brutal truth of the thing is nobody’s in control, this is a runaway train. Nobody’s in control, there’s not some big conspiracy in control, whether it’s Jewish bankers or nazis or CIA spooks, the simple truth is that the world is a complex storm of mathematics, basically… Very complicated mathematics that is beyond human comprehension.’ — Alan Moore.