Newsarama: Let's talk about the symbolism that you explore in the stories. As you've explained, each of the girls' adventures can be seen as metaphors for entering the vast, strange world of human sexuality. Throughout the entire book though - you don't leave a stone unturned. Every image, character, incident in those three familiar stories has a sexual meaning. Is a cigar never a cigar for you?

Alan Moore: Is a cigar never just a cigar? Well, of course it is. It is in terms of most of my other writing, when I'm not writing a book that is specifically about the sexual imagination. Then, of course, things can symbolize a whole range of different things and activities.

In the terms of Lost Girls though, that was kind of the brief that we'd imposed upon ourselves. That we were going to try and decode these original stories into a form where they could be seen as fantasy-enhanced memories, or embellished memories of things that had actually happened. So, we kind of approached each of the stories in turn, and they did seem to suggest - when looked at in that way - sexual narratives. I'm sure that if we'd looked at them with a political eye, we could probably have worked out three compelling political narratives about those women's' political development, but we didn't think that really sounded like that much fun. Whereas the idea of the sexual development did have its appeal.

I cited the example of the flying in Peter Pan, but you've also got the fact that each of the children is taken from one comfortable, reassuring world to a much more strange and threatening world. There were also strange undercurrents that came form the works themselves. For example, traditionally, in any stage performance of Peter Pan, Captain hook is played by the same actor that plays Mr. Darling, Wendy's father. There's some kind of strange kind of psycho-sexual reasoning there, surely. Captain Hook, even in the original Peter Pan is something of a sexually threatening character.

And particularly, of all three books, J.M. Barrie's is the one that has the most consciously adult tone. There's some very strange things in J.M. Barrie's text of Peter Pan - there's a description of one of the lost boys of having fallen asleep across a forest path where he obstructs the way home of some drunken faeries who are returning from an orgy - and this is Barrie's own term - and they have to climb over him. There are other sort of creepy little passages in there like how, "Children are the strangest things, they can meet their dead father in the woods, and play a game with him, and never tell anyone what has happened." That's a chilly little bit, there.

NRAMA: That's something that you'll wake up in the middle of the night remembering…

AM: And it's right there in the middle of Peter Pan. I'm not saying that any of these writers have any sexual intentions in their work, but it is possible to deconstruct the work and to make a sexual reading of it that is very appropriate, and also, it's appropriate in that….those three characters, because they are so well known to all of us, from our childhoods, they become kind of universal. IN a way, by talking about those three specific characters, you can kind of be talking about everybody.

Not that everybody had such a bizarre range of sexual experiences as Alice, Dorothy or Wendy, of course.

But we've all probably had experiences that were, perhaps, as strange to us, and our reactions may not have been all that dissimilar to some of Wendy or Dorothy or Alice's reactions. The thoughts that went through our heads might have been in that kind fo ballpark. So it is a way that we can use those characters to talk about everybody's sexual imagination. They are perfect symbols of the imagination form three of the most famous fantasies ever.

The sexual imagination is an important part of the imagination. I don't see why they shouldn't represent that as well.

NRAMA: Something that people are going to target and respond to when this book comes out is the depiction of children, specifically, the children engaged in sexual activity, which brings up the issue of fiction versus reality…you even have a character address it as such, saying, "Fiction and fact: only madmen and magistrates cannot discriminate between them." You're already figuring this will be a hot button issue with this work?

AM: That's right - we do have a character mention that, but when you say that there are depictions of children in sexual acts, the key word is "depictions." I believe you have a magazine over there called Barely Legal, in which the obvious appeal is that these girls look underage, they are all young-looking models who are older than 18. That must relax people's consciousness a bit, and they can forget about Traci Lords, and all of that, and the fact that this all can sometimes go wrong.

Now, with Lost Girls, we are talking about - clearly - about people who famously do not exist and who have never existed. As for any of the characters in the book, they are all expressions of the sexual imagination, not in any way connected to any kind of sexual reality, as we point out - there is a distinct line between fantasy and reality, and it is only psychopaths and occasionally the law that seems to be unable to distinguish between those two.

I suppose that, conceivably, if anybody was worried about the well-being of any of these made-up individuals who appear in Lost Girls, if it will make them feel better, I could get Melinda to draw some little made up birth certificates that will say that they were all midgets, young-looking and are over 21.

NRAMA: All models depicted herein are over 21, with their ages on file at the house of Alan Moore, Northampton, England…

AM: Something like that. The thing is, of all of the three characters, the youngest, Dorothy, is something around 96 this year. Alice is probably pushing 150, or something like that.

I think they're probably old enough to look after themselves. And I think that it is important to establish that there is no connection between the sexual imagination and sexual reality.

Just as, when I was doing From Hell, no one said I was trying to promote the idea of eviscerating prostitutes. Nobody even mentioned that I'd done a book that was largely centered around the horrific evisceration of women. There isn't a connection between the depiction in art of something, and the actual thing that is being depicted. Certainly, there is no straightforward literal connection.

It's also worth pointing out, that in countries that actually have a liberal approach to pornography, like say for instance, Holland, or Denmark or Spain, where pornography is easily available, and where nobody even notices it - it's available in family bookstores, and no one even thinks twice about it. In those countries, yes, you have got pornography all over the place. What you haven't got all over the place is children being raped and strangled and thrown in the canal, which is regrettably the case in this country. And judging from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, you probably have more than your fair share over there in America as well.

You certainly could interpret those kinds of statistics to suggest that pornography is perhaps providing a vital pressure valve, and that in countries where they have no problem with the sexual imagination, they perhaps have to deal less with the grievous consequences of horrific sexual realities.

If that was the choice - pornography or child abuse, rather than spurious connections made between them…I have to wonder how people would react. It looks to me that is pretty much the case at least in terms of all the figures that I've seen.

When we started this book, AIDS was just starting to become the kind of epidemic that it is today, and people were talking about the need in the future, and I believe this is still quite an urgent need across the undeveloped and developed world, for safe sex. Pornography is quite safe. As far as expressions of sexuality go, pornography is quite safe in that regard. And, in the countries where it is prevalent, there seems to be a lot less of a build up of unhealthy sexual activity, perhaps because pornography is there as an outlet, and it's there as a forum in which these ideas can be discussed, rather than being left to fester, and to turn into things that are socially and personally harmful.

That was our reasoning upon that, and the thing was, we couldn't really leave out any aspects of the sexual imagination, because one of the things that Lost Girls is, as much as being a pornographic story, or an erotic story, is a history to a certain extent, or pornography and erotica, and is an exploration of those things, That's why we have the White Book [in the story] as a kind of tribute to all of the great talents that have existed in erotica in the past, but who largely, because of the social pressures of their times, have had to go anonymous or ignored. Which, when you're talking about artists of the caliber of some of the ones we've represented, is a little short of criminal.

And so, if we wanted to talk honestly about pornography, we had to include all of it. We had to be comprehensive. We couldn't brush anything that was currently socially uncomfortable under the carpet, because that would not have been being true to the idea behind the work. The work was an exploration of erotica, of pornography, and more importantly, of the human sexual imagination. That is obviously which wanders all over the place, and which can never be legislated against.

NRAMA: The discussion you're having with me and you've had with other interviewers aside, how much do you concern yourself with how the work will be accepted when its released? Obviously, this book more so than any of your other work will garner the strongest reaction to date…

AM: We've always anticipated a certain degree of extreme response to this. But that wasn't why we did the book. And I think it's worth remembering that, if this book had come out seven years ago, when Bill Clinton was still in office, it would have probably been taken as an entirely different work, even if it had been exactly the same in every detail. There is a lot of be said for how context makes a book seem more controversial, and I think that it's fairly undeniable that America is in the middle, or hopefully coming to the end, please God, of one of its sporadic, alarming conservative swings. This has been one of the worst ones that I can remember, so that is going to obviously provide a certain controversial context for a work like Lost Girls.

As with any of the books that I've done, but particularly, as you say, with Lost Girls, you always wonder how the work will be received, but at the end of the day, you have to stand by yourself and your own processes. You have to trust that what you have put into the work is pure. And again, I know that may sound strange coming from somebody talking about a work of pornography, but believe me, we have tried to make Lost Girls very pure - a purity of ideas, and a purity of their expression which we have not compromised on in any way.

At the end of the day, if this book does end up corrupting anybody, it will probably only be very, very, very rich people. I really cannot see any of the audiences that people may be worried about lashing out on a volume that's an extravagance like this. Also, nobody has to read it. There's an imbalance in the way that conservative and liberal approaches to things are addressed. It's probably worth pointing this out, but like in the, say, pro-abortion, anti-abortion lobby - the pro abortion people are not actually arguing for the right to go around and give abortions whether the people want them or not, whereas the anti-abortion lobby are saying that they want the right to decide what happens to other people, and how other people live their lives.

The same thing could be said of the argument regarding pornography. Nobody is suggesting that we should have loudspeaker vans going up and down streets reading out passages of Lost Girls and describing the images in church going neighborhoods. People have a choice as to whether they read it or don't. So really, it's not like we're forcing anything upon anybody, it's really the reverse. Any anti-pornography voices are perhaps attempting to force their view of what people should be allowed to read upon others. That strikes me as unfair.

When I'm talking about pornography, I'm talking about Lost Girls and a few other things. I'm not making any defense for photographic pornography or filmed pornography - that is a totally separate area, and is something that involves human beings. And it's something that's never really appealed to me, because there is far too much human, emotional, sad baggage with every image. You're aware that this is aware that is not what the person originally dreamed of doing for a living, and therefore, there's something a bit mournful about an awful lot of pornography, certainly the kind that you see upon most newsagents top shelves these days.

So, when I'm talking about pornography, I'm taking about the very specific term in which we're using that word in relation to Lost Girls, and it does mean drawings or writings about wantons, so it's not talking about Polaroids or movies of wantons, just drawings and writings, which is purely a fruit of the imagination, and has nothing to do with any one that is alive, or any physical being. It is purely to do with the human sexual imagination.

I feel that each of us has a right to express ourselves in that area. People can read it or not, as they see fit, and they can judge it for themselves. We have tried our best, over sixteen years, too make sure that judgment will have to acknowledge that this material is often very, very beautiful and very, very moving, and that there was a serious intent behind the work.

One of the things that I'm thinking will prove to be possibly more controversial than the pro-sexuality nature of the book is the book's equally strong anti-war stance, which against, in the current context is perhaps every bit as unpopular as a pro-sexuality stance. That is basically what Lost Girls is about - that's why it builds up to this crescendo of the First World War, with all these ominous prefigurings of The Rite of Spring and the death of the Archduke. It is all leading up to the last few pages where you've got the destruction of everything beautiful and sensual and imaginative in European culture - something that Europe will probably never recover from. It's all dashed off of the map like a handful of dust all for the advent of this senseless, bestial, First World War. All of the symbols of elegance and intimacy and sexuality, and art and imagination are just crushed under the rolling juggernaut of the Great War.

That is the primary message of Lost Girls, and I should imagine that, in the current climate is every bit as likely to prove controversial. Although, I should imagine that people who are offended by the political aspect of Lost Girls will still probably express that offense in terms of outrage over the sexuality expressed in the book.

So, we'll just have to see. I don't really see why there should be any uproar - tit's going to be clearly labeled for adults only, it's going to be in a shrink wrap, and it is well l out of the price range of the casual browser. The only people who are going to be reading Lost Girls are people who are going to want to read it.

I don't think the fact that it simply exists should be any cause for alarm for anybody.

Of course, there is always The Rite of Spring factor to consider, and the idea that we have done this all before.

Check back Monday for our conversation with artist Melinda Gebbie about illustrating Lost Girls.

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