The Complete Ballad of Halo Jones (2000 Ad Presents) [Paperback]

Alan Moore (Author), Ian Gibson (Author)

Book Description

Series: 2000 Ad Presents | Publication Date: October 2002

Meet Halo Jones. She wasn't anyone special. She wasn't brave, or clever, or strong. She was just somebody who had to get out ...Escaping the Hoop, Manhattan Island's land of mindless leisure, is just the first step in a cosmic adventure that takes Halo to the far ends of the galaxy, through war and peace, trial, despair and triumph. But as she said: "Anybody could have done it." "Possibly the first feminist heroine in comics" wrote the Observer of Alan Moore's epic tale of one woman's search for her place in a galaxy out of control. Beautifully illustrated by Ian Gibson, this is the ultimate sci-fi opus. Don't dare miss it!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Back in print after far too long away, graphic novels as good as Ballad of Halo Jones don't happen often." -- Waterstone's (UK) Enigma Magazine July 2001

About the Author

Alan Moore is one of the most respected and admired writers in comics today. Among his many projects Moore is perhaps best known for the groundbreaking Watchmen series and Batman: The Killing Joke. He is currently working his own ABC line of comics, including Promethea, Tom Strong, Top Ten and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (all published by Titan).

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Titan Books (UK) (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1840233427
• ISBN-13: 978-1840233421
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 8.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,106,765 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing and important graphic novel, October 2, 2003

By 

Dominic Fox "poetix" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Ballad of Halo Jones (2000 Ad Presents) (Paperback)

The Ballad of Halo Jones is one of the more extraordinary things ever to have been published by the British comic 2000AD; it exemplifies much of what was good about that publication (subversiveness, risk-taking, an openness to new ideas) whilst at the same time marking a significant break with its usual biases and...um...proclivities. To whit: this is a story about women, told as the epic "ballad" of one emphatically ordinary woman: a story in which women go into space, go to war, fall in love (sometimes with each other, as one superbly subtle and tender scene reveals), get disappointed, get betrayed, get older...if the vividness and depth of Moore's Mina Harker (in _The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen_) impressed you, remember that he's been writing humanly believable, *real* female characters for a long time. Halo Jones is one of his best.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just a great ballad, but a wonderful space opera, April 5, 2002

By 

Stephen Dedman (Bayswater, WA Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Ballad of Halo Jones (2000 Ad Presents) (Paperback)

THE BALLAD OF HALO JONES is a wonderful story about an ordinary woman who rises from hazardous poverty in a slum on Earth to genuine - but quiet - heroism in and after an interstellar war. Like Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN series, it's a collection of short stories with an overarching plot, where seemingly minor incidents and characters turn out to be incredibly important later. The moral of the ballad seems to be that there *are* no minor or unimportant people (or even unimportant rats). And if you don't like comics, close your eyes and have someone read "I'll Never Forget Whatsisname" to you. Highly recommended.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moore at his (near) best!, December 22, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Complete Ballad of Halo Jones (2000 Ad Presents) (Paperback)

The "Ballad of Halo Jones" is one of Alan Moore's earliest works, and orignally appeared in serial-form in Britain's 2000AD magazine during the early 1980s.

Ballad is set in the far future, and chronicles the eponymous heroine from the age of 18 to 35. The great strength of this series is the strong and diverse characterization of the mostly female cast. Frankly, I think that sympathetic female characterization has been a problem with Moore (look at his masterpiece, Watchmen, where all of the female characters are neurotic at best), but in this early work, Moore does an outstanding job. The storyline is also very strong and poignant with a beautiful ending.

Overall, Ballad isn't quite Moore at his best (Watchmen and From Hell), but it's ranks with his "2nd tier" work like Miracleman; and it's head and shoulders over more recent fare like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

One negative: this trade from Titan reprints the full storyline in the original black and white, and format-size, which is much larger than the standard comic book format. During the late 1980s in the US, this series was reprinted in color and in standard size. I wish that this format had been retained...frankly, this is a big book on the bookshelf.