League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier

This is the first comics article I’ve written in a while, mostly because there hasn’t been all that much to write about.  Marvel’s taken a break from killing off their characters for a Skrull invasion, and DC’s Infinitely-Counting-Down-To-Another-Crisis makes me pine for the days of the Space Canine Patrol Agency.  What’s got me excited is the new volume in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, The Black Dossier.  Released as a hardcover graphic novel, TBD follows the further adventures of Mina Murray and Alan Quartermain as they’re pursued by spies through late-50’s England.  For those of you who don’t know, the League series takes the notion that ALL stories are true, and coexist in this same world in their own respective time periods; so the Big Brother government has just collapsed amidst the rise of the British Secret Service.  Nods to the Prisoner, the Avengers (no, not the ones in spandex), the James Bond series and the Third Man abound; and that’s just the basic premise.  Spliced into the main story is the dossier itself:  a collection of stories of the League throughout the history of fiction.  Where else can you get an unreleased Shakespearian folio, a chapter from a Kerouac novel, postcards, diary excerpts, etc., all relating to the overall story and all written in the authors’ respective styles?  As if that weren’t enough, there’s even a 3-D section complete with glasses.  Oh God, I can’t wait for the next two books!!!Congratulations to Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill on the ballsiest achievement in comics all year!