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British comic strip created by Alan Moore From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maxwell the Magic Cat was a British comic strip written and drawn by Alan Moore under the pseudonym "Jill de Ray". Moore produced the strip for the weekly Northants Post from 1979 to 1986.
| Maxwell the Magic Cat | |
|---|---|
The cover of Alan Moore's Maxwell the Magic Cat vol. 1 (Acme Press, 1986). Artwork by Alan Moore under the pseudonym "Jill de Ray". | |
| Author(s) | Jill de Ray (Alan Moore) |
| Current status/schedule | Concluded weekly strip |
| Launch date | August 25, 1979 |
| End date | October 9, 1986[a] |
| Publisher(s) | Northants Post Acme Press |
| Genre(s) | Humour, politics |
Moore originally pitched the Post an adult-oriented strip called Nutter's Ruin, which they rejected, advising him instead to propose a children's strip. Although Maxwell is on the surface intended for children, Moore inserted metafictional and surrealist elements, adult references, and social/political commentary into the strip throughout its run. In fact, the Jill de Ray pseudonym is a pun on the Medieval child murderer Gilles de Rais,[2] something Moore found to be a "sardonic joke".[citation needed]
Moore has stated that he would have been happy to continue Maxwell's adventures almost indefinitely, but ended the strip after the host newspaper the Northants Post ran a negative editorial on the place of homosexuals in the community.[3] Meanwhile, Moore decided to focus more fully on writing comics rather than both writing and drawing them,[4] stating that "after I'd been doing [it] for a couple of years, I realised that I would never be able to draw well enough and/or quickly enough to actually make any kind of decent living as an artist".[5]: 15
As writer Andrew Edwards observes, "Moore's key theme in the strip is how mankind's own sense of superiority is grossly misguided".[2] The (mostly) five-panel strip features a sardonic talking cat named Maxwell and his human sidekick Norman Nesbit. The human bully Mangler Mullins makes regular appearances as well, as do assorted other cats (and mice).[2]
Influences on the Maxwell strip can be seen in Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts, and British children's strips like Korky the Cat, Bully Beef, and Dennis the Menace.[2] Edwards feels that writer Grant Morrison's run on the American comic book Animal Man was influenced by Moore's work on Maxwell.[2]
Maxwell the Magic Cat was published weekly in the Northants Post (based in Moore's hometown), from August 25, 1979, to October 9, 1986, initially earning Moore £10 a week.[6] The strip started on the children's page of the paper but eventually moved to the entertainment section.[2]
From June 1984 to June 1988 the strip was also reprinted in most issues of the British comics fanzine Speakeasy. Speakeasy was itself published by Acme Press,[7] which in 1986–1987 produced a four-issue comic book collection of the strip.
Fourteen Maxwell strips were reprinted in Splat! #2 (March 1987), published by Tom Mason's Mad Dog Graphics.
In December 2016, Moore returned to Maxwell to write and draw one further episode for the Post's final edition.[1]
The Brazilian publisher Pipoca & Nanquim produced a single-volume translated collection of Maxwell in April 2020. It features a foreword by Eddie Campbell, an afterword by Moore, and a gallery of Maxwell illustrations by such artists as Brian Bolland, David Lloyd, and Kevin O'Neill.[8]
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