3 out of 5

There’s a pretty nice split of “I loved it”s and “I was bored by it”s in relation to Alan Moore’s 1963.  You’ll likely know after the first issue whether or not the fairly exacting replication of a particular era of comics (down to the ads, the newsprint paper, the letter page with alliterative answers) works for you, just as I knew that it wasn’t doing much for me.  The Golden Age comics pastiche is not new to comics, nor is it / was it new to Alan – and it’s something he’d return to after this title – but I’d say there is a reason that 1963 isn’t often mentioned alongside other such examples: it just doesn’t do much with it.

Published via Image’s Shadowline imprint under the guise of faux-60s publisher 1963, Alan Moore recasts himself (in in-character editorials and responses to readers) as ‘The Affable Al,’ a writer who takes credit for his artists’ work, ‘worked’ his way up the corporate leader thanks to nepotism, and happily gets rid of anyone in his way.  He’s also the guy scripting these six, mostly standalone issues of heroes from the 1963 universe, who are each takeoffs of, say, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, etc., as arted by either Rich Veitch or Steve Bissette.

Now, at other times, this mimicry is used for commentary, exposing the gloom and doom behind four-color pop culture (i.e. Watchment), and sometimes its given a full makeover for modern times, but with classic sensibilities, a la Moore’s Tom Strong.  1963 has the above hinted-at Stan Lee smear, and a clear opinion of the unrewarded labor behind the scenes of our classics, but this is pretty much on the surface: Moore says ‘Excalibur’ and makes some obvious cracks about women and not paying people much.  Otherwise, each issue of 1963 is written exactly as though it’s just one issue of a series.  Loose (loose) story elements connect, for what was intended to be a concluding 80-page issue that would’ve dragged our ’63ers into the present with Spawn and the like, but otherwise the tongue-in-cheek editor’s notes to “see issue X” whenever a previous event is mentioned are as on-brand as everything else in the books.  Meaning there’s nothing really clever here, you’ve truly just picked up six random books off the spinner.  Veitch and Bissette, similarly, aren’t doing direct riffs off of Kirby or Ditko.  Yes, notes from inspirations exist, but the duo (inked, colored and lettered by others) settle on variants of their own styles for their titles.

The sixth issue finally pulls in some intrigue, as we’re left with a cliffhanger that would’ve led into that annual, but it’s too little too late; you’ve had five issues of exacting impersonation as a lead-in.

Much like a lot of Moore’s Image work, there’s a sense that he was writing for, as he saw it, his audience.  Guessed as not being interested in something more conceptually ambitious, Moore limits 1963 to aping the style of the titular era, resulting in something that looks fun from afar – and is definitely committed to, both in sound and look – but doesn’t go beyond that surface.