Black Dossier (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

My rating:

add to my books

Black Dossier (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

by Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill (Illustrator)

3.45 · rating details · 2,270 ratings · 229 reviews

In 1958, two mysterious figures steal the Black Dossier, a compendium of information and articles relating to the league's most renowned incarnation. The theft launches a tense chase as the thieves fight to stay one step ahead of government agents.

Paperback, 200 pages

Published November 4th 2008 by WildStorm (first published November 2007)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,407)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Aug 13, 2009

Brooke rated it

· review of another edition

From glancing over the other reviews for this book, I'm sure that someone is going to say that I am dense and dull for not enjoying it. That's okay, I suspect that it's true.

I adored the first two volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. They were my first introduction to Alan Moore during the very early days of my comic fandom, and I was delighted with how they were darkly funny and smart and full of literary references.

The Black Dossier, however, tries too har...more

like 4 likes

· see review

Nov 29, 2007

Corey rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: hardcore fans of Alan Moore or classic literature

I have never been made to feel stupid by a book, except maybe a few math textbooks, but this book came very, very close. I got the very real impression that I should read it again in a few years when I've accrued more knowledge and experience, and maybe even read more books. It's still a spectacular book, but it can get a little self-indulgent at times (you can tell Moore wasn't writing this for anyone but himself) but it almost always errs on the side of entertainment. From a "lost" S...more

like 3 likes

· see review

Feb 05, 2008

Sarah rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novels, reviewed

There's two major strikes against The Black Dossier, and neither of them has anything to do with the contents of the book. The first, of course, is that we've been waiting years for this - five years, for many, just to see any new LoEG work; two years since the Dossier itself was announced. Expectations therefore peaked at a high, and that never bodes well for something as unusual and experimental as this.

The second is that this really should have been the final volume of LoEG. But m...moreThere's two major strikes against The Black Dossier, and neither of them has anything to do with the contents of the book. The first, of course, is that we've been waiting years for this - five years, for many, just to see any new LoEG work; two years since the Dossier itself was announced. Expectations therefore peaked at a high, and that never bodes well for something as unusual and experimental as this.

The second is that this really should have been the final volume of LoEG. But more on that in a minute.

Basically, the book has a very thin plot, something any decent reader will notice after just a cursory flip through the pages. It's the almanac section from Volume II writ large - documents, postcards, letters, "extracts" and other errata chronicling the centuries-spanning LoEG's history, built to engage you more as a puzzle than a narrative, with the occasional bone thrown out in the comics framing story. Fortunately, the Almanac was probably my favorite part of Volume II, so I enjoyed the game - although I was aware that, in simply telling us so much about his creation, Moore is basically robbing us of the potential for those stories in the future. We will never see the battle of Mina Murray's League against their French counterparts, nor the failed replacement League of the post-WWII years, nor the formation of Prospero's Men. It's all here - in prose form. Moore is both flexing the comics medium to its full potential and withholding its more traditional use. Fascinating, but ever so slightly disappointing.

That's why this really should have been the last story of the LoEG to be published (as I expect it still will be, 'chronologically'). With the foreknowledge that Volume III arrives from Top Shelf in a year, this is less a goodbye to the League and more just a goodbye to the League...at DC Comics. Fair enough, but there are some real meditations here on the changing nature of literary heroes - and, later, on fiction itself - which are going to be completely overlooked because a lot of readers, having been surprised and intimidated by the Black Dossier, will simply put it aside and wait for Volume III without ever giving it a second glance.

I definitely enjoyed The Black Dossier. It wasn't quite what I expected when it was first announced two years ago, but by the time descriptions started to leak online, I suspected something less about one narrative story and more about the act of storytelling. That's pretty much what I got. It's not a total home run - I'll have trouble recommending it to friends, and Moore's casual sexualizing of characters still (and always has) makes me vaguely uncomfortable - but it's overall good stuff, and I'll be holding on to my copy for sure.(less)

like 3 likes

· see review

Feb 27, 2008

Darren rated it

· review of another edition

"The Black Dossier" is not nearly as fun as the earlier editions of "The League." As it begins to dawn on you that a considerable stretch of the book is dominated by text-only pages, you may begin to worry that Moore has become yet another Dave Sim - who, as the years passed on his 6000 page "Cerebus" saga, began to sprinkle in ever-more turgid parodies of great authors, longwinded self-serving rants against feminism and Marxism, and over a hundred pages of theory o...more"The Black Dossier" is not nearly as fun as the earlier editions of "The League." As it begins to dawn on you that a considerable stretch of the book is dominated by text-only pages, you may begin to worry that Moore has become yet another Dave Sim - who, as the years passed on his 6000 page "Cerebus" saga, began to sprinkle in ever-more turgid parodies of great authors, longwinded self-serving rants against feminism and Marxism, and over a hundred pages of theory on the Torah, written in small type, in the voice of a stammering drunken Aardvark, narrated to a fictionalized Woody Allen. With the exception of a beautiful homage to Oscar Wilde, Sim's prose is as uniformly awful as his graphic storytelling is transcendent.

But Moore's "Black Dossier" has several things going for it that Sim didn't. Moore is not a paranoid ideologue who believes women's existence contributes to a breakdown of humanity on every social, political, economic, and cultural level. Moore is less interested in religion than in fiction. Moore has a profound sense of humor.

Although there is a plot to "The Black Dossier," the better part of the book is essentially an appendix to the first two volumes, exploring the world which used to appear steampunk and now stands revealed as the predominant work of metafiction of the early 21st century. How much you enjoy "Black Dossier" may depend on which you liked more - "The Lord of the Rings" or "The Silmarillion." A chapter imitates the style of PG Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" stories with the substance of HP Lovecraft - importantly, the chapter is funny even if you have no idea who either of those men are. The same holds true for the imitation of primitive erotica, in which sex goddess Fanny Hill fuckscrews her way through several fantasy worlds, and "Faerie's Fortune Founded," a lost fragment of a fictional Shakespeare play, which is as readable as any of Shakespeare's plays - that is, for some people it will be amazing, and for some people it will be unreadable. (The same may be true for "The Crazy Wide Forever" by Sal Paradyse, imitation-Kerouac with no punctuation and random strings of words. It is possible that, if you like Kerouac, you will like this - to me, it is Moore's one real failure in the book, a waxwork homage that sacrifices entertainment for verisimilitude, like Gus Van Sant's "Psycho.")

I don't quite think "Black Dossier" is as complete a work as "Watchmen" or "From Hell" - both of those series took elaborate flights of fancy and tangent, but both also never lost track of the say-it-again-STORY. The narrative in "Black Dossier" is a chase with the bare minimum of tension, with plenty of time for sightseeing along the way (it is telling that the people who are being chased have plenty of time to read the titular Dossier, taking time out from their own book to read another one). It ends with an elaborate scene set in the Blazing World - one of the first imaginary worlds created for literature, making it Moore's alpha and omega, a paradise for fictional creations of all sorts (in the background, you will see copyright-baiting variations on Charlie Brown and Captain Marvel, and you will also see fairies fucking in midair). This scene is essentially an elaborate party to rival Trimalchio; it requires 3-D glasses; it lacks any real sense of climax. Prospero, from Shakespeare's "The Tempest," leads us away with a soliloquy about nothing less than the existence of fiction. Just as Raging Bull ends with de Niro doing la Motta doing Brando doing Terry Malloy, so "Black Dossier" ends with Moore doing Prospero doing Shakespeare doing Prospero. Round and round.

The speech reads like a conclusion - to the series, to Moore's career, to the comic book medium, to human imagination. Intriguingly, this is not the end of the series - Moore has promised a genuine third volume next year, so expect it for Christmas 2012. Still, this is certainly the end of Moore's thesis for the "League" project. What started out as a funny riff on the team comic book has become the ur-story of all fiction. In this, Moore's book stands next to Don Rosa's "The life and Times of Scrooge McDuck," which absorbed hundreds of stories written by Carl Barks about Scrooge McDuck and linked them into a common history, resulting in a work that was both grander (in sweep) and more detailed (in artistic style and comic substance) than Barks was ever allowed. Oddly, this is not the first time a comic book creator has used Prospero as a metaphorical stand-in for all fictional creations - Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman" ended with an issue devoted to Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
(less)

like 4 likes

· see review

Feb 01, 2008

Karl Kindt rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

As I type this, I am only halfway through this third installment of Alan Moore's LoEG, and I am stunned, amazed, impressed, and entertained, even more than the previously wonderful installaments. He manages to weave Emma Peel (of THE AVENGERS TV show), Mina (from DRACULA), King Arthur, Gulliver, Odysseus, James Bond (known as Jimmy to protect Moore from law-suits, no doubt), and dozens of others into one coherent and entertaining tale. Like WATCHMEN, this is a story that can only be told through...more

· see review

Nov 16, 2007

Tommy rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: alan-moore, comics

okay, I'm only about 20 pages in, but just flipping through this thing, drooling over the beautiful art, seeing that Alan Moore is aping the styles of Kerouac and Shakespeare, I already want to give it five stars! Jeez, 3-D glasses and a Tijuana Bible! I have the same feeling right now as I did when I bought KISS ALIVE II as a kid and found the temporary tattoos inside.

Later---> Yep, another five stars for Alan Moore. I must admit, I missed even more of the references then I usual...more

like 1 like

· see review

Dec 19, 2007

Joseph rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: graphic-novel, fiction

When the release of this book was delayed, I got a little nervous. Alan Moore has done some amazing things, but he seems to be rather easily waylaid by his own obsessions. As good as the first two volumes of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were, I could easily imagine him losing his way when it came time to write this book, especially considering its ambitious scope.

I'm more than pleased with the outcome, however. Admittedly, the frame story involving Mina and Allan recovering t...more

like 1 like

· see review

Dec 30, 2007

Mark rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: comics

Ambitious, beautifully produced and thoughtfully written and assembled. But as with a lot of Moore's recent books, it seems to require buying in wholesale to his vision of the medium. Not a terrible thing in itself, but I liked watching Moore stretch the boundaries of the larger mainstream world of comic books. Now, without a lot to limit him, and without the decades of other writers and artists before him that he's able to build on/explode the characters he tackles, it all seems too insular, ma...more

like 1 like

· see review

Mar 28, 2009

Angel rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: fans of Moore and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Shelves: graphic_novels_and_comics

Compared to the previous League works, this was at times way overdone. While a lot of readers seem to lavish Moore with praise, in a way, this was reminiscent of the creative extension assignment I used to give my high school students when we read 1984 in class; that often had mixed results. It reminded me due to the various pastiches, collages, and various formats Moore employed, and all that had mixed results for my reading experience. Very well developed, yet at times it is clear Moore is goi...more

· see review

Mar 22, 2009

Robert Jazo rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: horror, comics, modern-fantasy, sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The first two volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen had a pretty simple concept: Transplant the concept of a Superhero team to 19th century Britain using a literary pastiche of characters from that era. They were good comics, but not what I would call groundbreaking.
The Black Dossier is a completely different animal. The framing story is moves the League timeline ahead to late 1950s, sometime after the fall of Big Brother's England. Two mysterious figures steal the "Blac...more

· see review

Nov 27, 2008

Leonardo rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Lovers of 19th-century fantasy/sci-fi/adventures books... and walking reference libraries

Shelves: comics-and-graphic-novels, 20th-century, england, cities

By now, I've come to realize I'll never be able to read as much as Alan Moore has read in his life... though I dare to say that he is a massive inspiration to anyone who loves the worlds of imagination that literature has created throughout the ages. This thirds installment in the world of the League (which the dreadful movie got all wrong and didn't get any close to matching) is both a summary of the heroes' past adventures, and a very well researched and thoughtful "what if all those char...more

· see review

Aug 28, 2011

Nicolas Ward rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, graphicnovel

This is more a multimedia work than a true graphic novel, so while I enjoyed it for both style and substance, it is difficult to read. Suffice it to say I didn't make it through the 6 pages of beatnik text that was one giant sentence. The Tijuana bible and the story of Fanny Hill means it's quite a bit more nudity than previous LXG installments. I did like how it alternated between the story of recovering the Dossier and the found documents contained therein, complete with the characters shown r...more

· see review

Feb 22, 2010

Raj rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, graphic-novel

In the early 1950s Britain is just throwing off the shackles of the totalitarian Ingsoc Big Brother government and two shadowy figures steal a dossier from Miniluv (formerly the MI5 headquarters at Vauxhall House). The dossier turns out to be regarding the "Murray Group", star of the previous two League books (and the book itself consists of them reading the dossier), filling in background on the world and stories that we didn't see, as well as other incarnations of the League before a...more

· see review

Dec 30, 2009

Jake Mix rated it

· review of another edition

The Black Dossier provides connective tissue between volume 2 of the series and recently started 1910. It's clear that Moore doesn't consider it a core novel, since he really lets loose, toying with all sorts of strange narrative devices, primarily the found documents in the Black Dossier (itself reproduced in the book). The found documents let Moore drop in and out of different genre traditions, from a Cthulhu/comedy-of-manners hybrid to a Tijuana bible. This is fun when you're up for it and ca...more

· see review

Nov 24, 2009

Terry rated it

· review of another edition

As it develops, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series reads like Alan Moore’s attempt to construct a Unified Theory of British Literature. It’s now 1958 and Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain, Jr. have stolen the Black Dossier, a history of the League in all its previous incarnations. Opposing them are Jimmy Bond, Emma Knight (Peel) and “Bulldog”Drummond.

It’s a chase across post-Big Brother London, but the plot is just a contrivance to allow Mina and Allan (and the reader) acc...more

· see review

Jun 12, 2009

Thomas rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

Tell a f***ing story, dude. Some of the pages are breathtaking, that is the only reason it gets three stars. The 3D section looks incredible, though I had to take lots of drugs and force myself to read each page over and over again to get any freakin' idea what's supposed to be going on. I guess I'm just not as smart as Mr. Moore, a fact I feel is the central theme of this book.

The story, what little there is, is off-the-shelf, and would be fine as a pulp story if I didn't have to w...more

· see review

Nov 20, 2008

Sean rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: adventure, graphic-novels, non-us, historical, sci-fi

Chock-full of derring-do, sexy times, rocket rides and harsh governmental oppression, The Black Dossier reunites several characters from Moore and O'Neill's seminal League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this time in 1958. The fascist era of Big Brother is winding down, and a secret black dossier on Britain's most famous covert operation is stolen from the former Ministry of Love by a youthful-looking pair of spies. The pair's story in the present intertwines with excerpts from the dossier, which de...more

· see review

Jul 02, 2010

Jonathan rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, graphic-novel

Compared to The League of Extraordinary Gentleman vols 1 and 2, The Black Dossier is a wacky ride. Which is saying a lot. In the beginning of the book (set in post-Big Brother England), our heroes get past one Jimmy Bond to capture a black-bound dossier that contains various documents pertaining to the Murray Group's history. These include the comic-book biography of an immortal gender-bending warrior, the first act of an unpublished Shakespeare prequel to The Tempest, and several chapters from ...more

· see review

Dec 01, 2008

Heather rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: well-read adults only

Recommended to Heather by: Alan Moore wrote it? I'm in.

Shelves: adult-readers

First, a test. About halfway through this book, there's a short story entitled, "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss." Can you name the two authors who are lovingly parodied in this story? Have you already started writing the story in your head? If so, then this book is for you. If not... don't bother. You won't get it, and it will only irritate you to try.

Even more than the previous two volumes, this "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is less a single coherent stor...more

· see review

Apr 20, 2009

Bruce rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: diehard LXG fans only

I have little to add to the extensive coverage this pastiche volume has already received here on Goodreads and on Amazon. This one is a loose parable in which Mina Harker and Allan Quatermain, transported to a post-Orwellian 1950s, are chased by James Bond and Emma Peel to the very gates of The Blazing World, an n-dimensional (3D-rendered in red and green here) space in which all fictional beings live until their reemergence/re-use in the "real" world.

All this is really j...more

· see review

Jan 06, 2009

Allanna rated it

· review of another edition

Meh. Michael summed it up well -- "There's a lot of sex in it."

I was hoping for more back story ... and easier to read formats.

like 1 like

· see review

Feb 01, 2010

Bobby Shane Ellis rated it

· review of another edition

I like Alan Moore, I loved the first "League" book...the second wasn't as good. Now I've finally read this one and although it had some damn good moments, which were very scarce in the second, "The Black Dossier" was overall not that great. I really didn't like the end...the prose and whatnot parts mixed in the first half of the book were pretty much unbearable. I got through it all, read every word...hated the Shakespeare part, read both copies of the play even though the...more

· see review

Apr 17, 2011

Pete rated it

· review of another edition

Alan Moore's reach has exceeded his grasp on this one. Still, parts of this volume deserve at least 4 if not 5 stars - particularly the genuinely cool frame story, which brilliantly places Mina Murray and Allan Quartermain in the thickets of a recently disbanded 1984 style English government. The space port is cool too, and I dig that he envisions a distinction between "government heroes" (spies like James Bond and Emma Peel) who ain't really heroes and the monsters and oddballs that...moreAlan Moore's reach has exceeded his grasp on this one. Still, parts of this volume deserve at least 4 if not 5 stars - particularly the genuinely cool frame story, which brilliantly places Mina Murray and Allan Quartermain in the thickets of a recently disbanded 1984 style English government. The space port is cool too, and I dig that he envisions a distinction between "government heroes" (spies like James Bond and Emma Peel) who ain't really heroes and the monsters and oddballs that those government handlers corral, employ and often wind up tangling with, i.e. the Leagues themselves... This is a part of Moore's political imagination which I find interesting and it's developed much more here than in the previous volumes.

At issue are the copious nested prose elements of "The Black Dossier," which really make it stand out from previous installments. These are at times quite clever - but usually when Moore gets into that kind of thing I find myself "appreciating" but not "enjoying" his work. (To be fair to the man, he envisioned this one as a sourcebook, not a third volume proper, and so lots of background info in such a form is understandable from that standpoint.) The texty bits were the sticky widget for me review-wise though since I have to say the big reason I'm giving this three stars and not four is his DREADFUL attempt to produce an excerpt of a faux Jack Kerouac novel which turned out as utter gobbledygook. Kerouac's narrative style is broad, rolling and poetic, but never straight-up run-on nonsense the way Moore busts it out here. It bugged me.

Ultimately I find his project noble, interesting and rich, if perhaps a bit...pedantic?, and in this outing, a bit short on the pure enjoyment factor, which is the whole reason I sometimes read comics instead of Dostoevsky or Bernhard anyway. What's been so cool about the League books is they're like reading a version of the Justice League designed for English majors but as he gets more ambitious, the whole point of reading it begins to fade. Nevertheless, Prospero's soliloquy at the end was lovely and perfectly encapsulates what it seems Moore is trying to say about the human imagination, its denizens, their relationship to us, etc. It IS interesting. I just wish it was all a bit more fun. What's most frustrating is so often when I read his prose histories of different moments in League history I just think "dammit I like this!, I want to read an actual comic about this!...", like that bitchen episode he describes in the lead up to WWI where the second Murray group battles the French Mystery Men under the Paris opera house, with the German "Twilight Men" hanging in the background, composed of Drs. Caligari, Mabuse and Rotwang, plus the female automaton from Metropolis!, I mean how cool is that!, that should have been the third volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That would have been a blast!(less)

like 1 like

· see review

Feb 20, 2010

Christopher rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: alternate-history, fiction, graphic-novel-comic, banned-challenged

I picked this book up for my Masters of Library & Information Science class where we were asked to read and discuss a banned or challenged book.

I'm lazy, so I'm going to cut-and-paste here:

"Did anybody here go see the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie?

The third graphic novel in the series by Alan Moore was formally challenged by a librarian in Jessamine County, Kentucky in 2008. When the library refused to remove the book (it was requested origin...moreI picked this book up for my Masters of Library & Information Science class where we were asked to read and discuss a banned or challenged book.

I'm lazy, so I'm going to cut-and-paste here:

"Did anybody here go see the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie?

The third graphic novel in the series by Alan Moore was formally challenged by a librarian in Jessamine County, Kentucky in 2008. When the library refused to remove the book (it was requested originally by a patron) or at least relocate it from the graphic novel section which was located near the young adult section of the library. When this appeal failed, she checked the book out to herself to keep it off the shelves. When an 11 year-old patron reserved the book, she and another librarian removed the hold. They were fired the next day.

So what's so bad about this book? Isn't the League series just about literary characters from the Victorian period running around like superheroes?

The author, Alan Moore, is known for stretching genres and challenging readers (he also wrote the graphic novels 'Watchmen' and 'V for Vendetta'). In this book, I think he was in large part looking for a censor to incite.

The main story is set in a 1958 England that has suffered under the rule of Big Brother straight out of Orwell's 1984. Other sections are less comic-based and used varied literary styles to continue the story and setting, including a fictional Shalespearean play, pulp novels, a sequel to Fanny Hill (illustrated in the style of one of the original editions) and most damning, a Tijuana Bible depicting graphic sex between repressed proles of the 1984 setting (supposedly published by Big brother to keep the proles happy).

Is it pornography? The Tijuana Bible section says it's published by the fictional government 'Pornsec', so I'm tempted to take it at it's word.

But the Tijuana Bible section (or the Fanny Hill illustrations) shouldn't be taken alone. The levels of satire are deep and complex. The literary references are enough to keep and English Major on wikipedia for hours. Critically, the book has been acclaimed. Thus the book fails the third prong of the Supreme Court's test for obscenity.

Mr. Moore was looking for people like the county librarian Jessamine County to offend. He was also looking to tell a deep and interesting story. He succeeded at both."(less)

· see review

Jan 06, 2009

Tony rated it

· review of another edition

The art is as wonderful as ever, and the whole kaboodle an eclectic mix of comic strip, plain text and other add-ins but...it is the thinnest story to add to an incredible series.

It feels, as it is presented, like a collection of scraps, background mullings and left-overs without any real arc to follow or develop.

Nice to look at but lacks the 'wow' of, certainly, volume 2

like 2 likes

· see review

Nov 07, 2008

Miik rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Moore Fanatics

Recommended to Miik by: My Inner Moore Fanatic

Mr. Moore was a little too pleased at his own cleverness. It was good in an elitist jerk sort of way, but overall the storyline left me cold throughout and fizzled in a spurt of weirdness rarely seen. The rating is for the beautiful imagery and the inventiveness of the back story paper trail, but unless you're a HUGE Moore fan, you'll probably want to avoid it.

like 1 like

· see review

Jan 21, 2009

Dufour rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novels

Alan Moore is always a chore to read, and this is probably the most dense of all his LEAGUE work. I really enjoy the "alterna-verse" history of the League throughout the years. There are huge, HUGE ideas behind all of this, and I don't think they are adequately explored in the small tome you get from this concluding volume of Moore's LEAGUE books. That said, LOVE the idea that EVERYTHING, --EVERYTHING!!!-- fictional is connected in some way, shape or form. Bringing in the myth of the B...more

· see review

Oct 05, 2009

Craig Williams rated it

· review of another edition

As much as I loved the previous two books, I was apprehensive about this one. My least favorite things about the other books were the additional material, such as the Quarterman novellas, fake newspaper ads, etc, which felt a bit excessive. This book is pretty much nothing BUT a collection of those things, framed by a story following Mina and Allan Quartermain, as they elude capture from the authorities after stealing a mysterious "black dossier", which contains information about the...moreAs much as I loved the previous two books, I was apprehensive about this one. My least favorite things about the other books were the additional material, such as the Quarterman novellas, fake newspaper ads, etc, which felt a bit excessive. This book is pretty much nothing BUT a collection of those things, framed by a story following Mina and Allan Quartermain, as they elude capture from the authorities after stealing a mysterious "black dossier", which contains information about the League's history. The book takes place in 1958, and has several clever references to the pop culture of that era, such as one of the characters who were chasing Mina and Allan, named "Jimmy Bond", who is obviously a parody of James Bond.

The story was okay, and even though I still didn't care for the extra material, at least it was worked in cleverly. At certain intervals throughout the story, Mina and Allan start reading the dossier, and so, therefor, does the reader. At least, this way, it doesn't feel like it interrupts the story too much. The material in the dossier was pretty interesting as well, if not altogether kind of pointless. My biggest pet peeve with this book is it felt like it ultimately went nowhere. Then again, this book serves as more of a prelude for Volume 3, so it shouldn't really be counted as a volume in and of itself. So I guess this can be forgiven. By the way, it must me mentioned, I LOVE Kevin O'Neill's artwork. The man has a knack for filling each panel with a breathless amount of detail. His artwork was one of my favorite things about the past two volumes, and continues to be my favorite now. Amazing.

Oh, I almost forgot - there's a really neat part at the end of the book where the characters go into another dimension, where they have to put on special glasses to be able to see. At this point, the reader also puts on 3D glasses, provided in the book. This was a really cool way to interact with the reader and make one feel part of the story... and the 3D was just really cool as well. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to reading the next book, which will fill in the holes that were hinted at in this one.(less)

· see review

Dec 15, 2008

Jayaprakash Satyamurthy rated it

· review of another edition

What an odd concoction. The gazeteer at the end of Vol. 2 suggested that Moore was tired of the whole Victorian secret history adventures format and possibly wanted to apotheosise the cast and be done with the League. Instead, a sequel, where a randy, rejuvenated Mina and Alan run around some sort of post-Big Brother England reading about their escapades over the past century in a series of clever pastiches (of Shakespeare, Wodehouse and the Beats amongst others) and finally escape to a kind of ...more

· see review

Aug 02, 2011

Ann added it · review of another edition

SPOILER

This literally took me four months to read. Everytime I hit a dense reading section I had to gear up for it, prep myself. I just did not love this book as much as Moore's other works. It felt too constructed . . . As though he were showing off what he could do. Granted, I could never do what he does, but! The story details and clues and layers of the story just felt contrived. Which, when finally solved (in a two-page sequence) was completely unsatisfying. And the Blazing World ...more

· see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 113 114 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (4)

Genres

Sequential Art > Comics

211 users

Sequential Art > Graphic Novels

198 users

Fantasy

33 users

Science Fiction > Steampunk

21 users

Science Fiction

16 users

Comics > Comic Book

15 users

Historical Fiction

11 users

Science Fiction > Alternate History

11 users

Graphic Novels Comics

11 users

Adventure

7 users

See top shelves...

Readers Also Enjoyed

About Alan Moore

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Alan Moore is an English writer most famous for his influential work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He has also written a novel, Voice of the Fire, and performs "workings" (one-off performance ...more

More about Alan Moore...

Books by Alan Moore

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Pin It

Trivia About The League of Ext...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Black Dossier

“Not thou alone, but all humanity doth in its progress fable emulate. Whence came thy rocket-ships and submarine if not from Nautilus, from Cavorite? Your trustiest companions since the cave, we apparitions guided mankind's tread, our planet, unseen counterpart to thine, as permanent, as ven'rable, as true. On dream's foundation matter's mudyards rest. Two sketching hands, each one the other draws: the fantasies thou've fashioned fashion thee.” — 3 people liked it

More quotes…

Groups That Shelved Black Dossier

Oly Reads

143 members

last activity 16 hours, 20 min ago

shelf: read

title link	preview: Black Dossier
avg rating	preview: Black Dossier Goodreads rating: 3.45 (2270 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3109161-black-dossier?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255573810m/3109161.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3109161-black-dossier?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Black Dossier by Alan Moore[/url]

Black Dossier (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Readers Also Enjoyed

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website