Though I didn't warm to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen at first, by the time it had come out in hardcover and spawned a second volume, I was just as much in love with the series as everyone else seems to be. That is due in no small part to the hard work that Jess Nevins put into his annotations for the book. Through Nevins's work, you could see beyond the story and into the love and hard work that went into the League, and it allowed the more casual readers to enjoy the book right along with everyone else, getting the references and being in on the joke even if you didn't have a background in Victorian-era literature. That Nevins's annotations would be collected into a book is one of those obvious in retrospect bits of genius, and MonkeyBrain Books has turned an invaluable online resource into an even more invaluable print resource. There are no two ways about it; if you really want to enjoy the League to its fullest extent, you should buy this book.
To be honest, this book probably would have felt pretty much complete if it were just a translation of Nevins's annotations onto the printed page. But the folks behind the book weren't satisfied with just making Nevins's analysis of the story available to a larger print-reading audience, they instead decided to spice things up with some extra material. That extra material includes an introduction by Alan Moore, an interview with Alan Moore by Nevins, commentary throughout by series artist Kevin O'Neill and some interesting text pieces examining other aspects of the series by Nevins. Every single piece of text lives up to the exacting standards set by Nevins's exhaustive annotations.
The introduction by Moore gets things started on just the right note, pointing out that the level of detail in both League and the annotations thereof is obsessive on an almost frightening level. His admiration for Nevins's work is clear, and his appreciation that someone else shared his love of the work and the research just as clear, and the introduction is worth a few chuckles. Nevins's foreword, spelling out the history of the League and the annotations, is more straightforward but no less interesting, and it's also worth noting that Nevins doesn't take all the credit here, with a page or two of acknowledgements for all the online folk who contributed or corrected the annotations originally.
While something this big, created online, would almost have to have an element of group effort, though, the backbone of the work is the work of one man. One man with an amazing and frightening capacity for detail and access to vast storehouses of knowledge. Moore puts forth several times that Nevins might be some sort of cyborg permanently wired to a library, and having never met the man in person and having seen this book, I'm not entirely sure he's wrong. At any rate, beyond the interesting factoids to be found in these annotations, Nevins also spells out a few of the surrounding details of the League in a couple of essays in the back, with a rundown of several characters, a brief examination of crossovers in literature (certainly germane to the League) and a treatise on Asian stereotypes of the Victorian age and how they can be seen in League. Each of these is just as clearly the product of a well-educated writer with a love of the unique genre that Moore has pretty much invented in League, and each is fascinating reading that will deepen the League experience for everyone involved.
Though this is the "Unofficial" League companion, such a label is difficult to take truly seriously given the way the whole piece is put together. O'Neill's conversational tone in the annotations, delighting in friendly pointers that show where Nevins was reading a bit too much into things or just as much when Nevins caught a detail that the artist surely thought no one would, clearly conveys his blessing on the work. And if Moore's introduction isn't enough of a sign of his appreciation of these annotations, the enlightening and entertaining conversation between him and Nevins in the back certainly shows his full support of the project.
There's some good news to be found in these pages for League fans as well, as Moore all-but-announces the next League series and the continuation of the property despite his impending retirement from mainstream comics. The notions of timelines and Leagues across time are tantalizing, and with any luck, Nevins will be there to guide us through those next chapters as well. Certainly a follow-up book to this one covering the second League story (once it's finished and collected) would be more than welcome to this reader at least.
