I am Kyle's self-indulgence

To accompany each of the first two volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Alan Moore wrote text pieces that further explore the world of the League through other genres, specifically a pulp adventure story and a traveler's almanac of imaginary places. They are not essential to the main story, and the latter in particular is probably read only by the most serious fans, due to the dryness of its tone (I admit I have yet to get all the way through it).

In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier Alan Moore takes these genre experiments and makes them the focus of the book. It begins, like the other League volumes, with a comic book story set in a world in which literary characters live and breathe, and the books we consider fiction are historical fact. This time out it's the 1950s and England's Big Brother regime has recently been overthrown. A blonde female adventurer tricks James Bond (here called "Jimmy" to avoid copyright infringement) to letting her into a forgotten government building where she steals a top-secret dossier that details all the League incarnations throughout history.

Soon after retrieving the dossier the woman and her companion begin reading it, at which point we also get to see everything it contains. It's not an easy read, especially compared to the fast-paced comic story that frames it. Some of the artifacts in it contain tiny type and I often found myself reading for thirty minutes and progressing only two pages. Although the nature of this book will turn off a lot of casual readers (the word self-indulgent has been thrown around by some reviewers) I think that what Alan Moore has done here is quite remarkable.

First of all, everything in the dossier is exquisitely done, from the design of the cover and the credits page (an adapted version of the London Underground map), to an introduction to the dossier in newspeak, to the unique visual appearance of each artifact. All of the artists involved went to great lengths to make this look like an actual document from the League's world, and it is stunning to look at.

As always, Alan Moore's writing here is impressive, if only for the range of styles he commands. There's a picture story from a British boys' magazine, an unfinished play by William Shakespeare, a story that blends a comedy of manners with Cthulu-inspired horror, a sequel to a work of Victorian erotica, and a stream-of-consciousness beat story by "Sal Paradyse", just to name a few (plus an impressive 3-D section at the conclusion of the frame story; 3-D glasses included!)

The last one, the story in the style of Jack Kerouac, is the most difficult to read, with the Shakespearean play coming in second. I've never read Kerouac so I can't vouch for the quality of Moore's imitation, but about the play I will say it would never be mistaken for a legitimate work of Shakespeare--but then, can we really expect anyone to be able to counterfeit the greatest writer in the history of the English language? In spite of falling short of the mark, Moore's imitation is quite impressive.

What really surprised me about The Black Dossier is how all these genre exercises fit together. Taken as a whole, they tell a comprehensive history of the many incarnations of the League, each section adding a piece to the puzzle.

And for those League fans who prefer a more straightforward story, the Black Dossier contains details about what happened to Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain after the events of volume two, and likely bridges the gap to the upcoming volume three.