Smash Pages Q&A: Leah Moore on ‘The Doors: Morrison Hotel’

The versatile writer discusses her latest project: an anthology for Z2 Comics based on the 1970s album by The Doors.

Leah Moore has written and co-written a long list of comics including Conspiracy of Ravens, Sway and Swords of Sorrow; characters like Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes and Dracula; and publications including 2000 AD and Heavy Metal.

Moore’s newest project is The Doors: Morrison Hotel, which looks at the 1970 album by The Doors. It’s more than simply comics adaptations of the album’s tracks; the book attempts to capture a sense of the band  at this moment and the state of the country and the culture unfolding around them as they worked.

The book also manages to show what Moore does so well and makes look so easy. Each chapter of the book is drawn by a different artist – which includes Colleen Doran, Ryan Kelly, Michael Avon Oeming, Marguerite Sauvage, John K. Snyder III and Jill Thompson – which shows not just Moore’s skill at collaborating with and writing for artists, but her masterful touch at balancing tones and approaches and styles, so that the book never feels like an anthology of disparate stories, but a book seeking to capture the music, its creation and the world around it in a striking way.

Moore was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book and how she works.

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Baron + Carbonetti open the door on the mystery of Jim Morrison’s death

The new graphic novel from the ‘Paul Is Dead’ team will arrive in June.

Image Comics has announced that the creators of Paul Is Dead, which featured the Beatles, will turn their attention to another 1960s icon for their next graphic novel — Jim Lives: the Mystery of the Lead Singer of The Doors and the 27 Club.

Paolo Baron and Ernesto Carbonetti will reunite for the graphic novel, which is about a father looking for his son — a correspondent for a popular American newspaper — who vanished after sending one last message: “jim morrison isn’t dead, he’s hiding out here in italy, i saw him with my own eyes.”

I wrote Jim Lives by continuously listening to The Doors vinyl records while I was in the small village where I set the story,” said Baron. “At one point I really saw him. I mean Jim.”

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