Sponsored.  That's probably true for millions of people — Alan has written several of the most acclaimed comics and graphic novels ever made!  But for 25 years, I've had the unbelievable privilege to work professionally with him and his titanic collaborators, as Top Shelf has distributed or published works like From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Lost Girls, Voice of the Fire, The Mirror of Love, Unearthing, The Bojeffries Saga, Dodgem Logic, The Birth Caul, Snakes & Ladders, The Highbury Working, Angel Passage, and more.

I'll never forget one particular trip to Northampton to visit Alan and his partner Melinda Gebbie as we prepared to publish Lost Girls, their monumental work of comics erotica about 19th-century fantasies and 20th-century realities, gender, loss of innocence, and the healing power of storytelling.  They'd launched the series in the 1990s, but after the first few chapters, the project had gone dark.  Now, after years of quiet progress, I found myself sitting in Alan's living room in front of a huge stack of Melinda's gorgeous, unlettered original art, sipping tea as Alan began to turn the 300 pages and narrate to me the entire story from start to finish.  It was a masterful performance… for an audience of one!

Of course, Alan's words and ideas have continued to cast their spell on so many readers around the world. Since that day, I've been proud to see Top Shelf's editions of From Hell, Lost Girls, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen all become New York Times bestsellers.  Finally, with the conclusion of League Volume IV, Alan announced his retirement from comics.

But there was always one project lurking in the background, the magnum opus that was going to explain everything: magic, creativity, occult history, human consciousness, the universe itself, and why Alan devoted himself to an ancient snake-god.  In this book, Alan and his magical mentor, Steve Moore (no relation), would open the doors of their minds, map out the place where all ideas come from, and invite the world to join them there.  When this "grimoire" was first mentioned to me by Alan and Steve, I had no idea what form it was going to take… but I knew: whatever it was, it needed to be published.

Nearly two decades after that first conversation, The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic is finally real.  Alan and Steve dreamed it up in their minds, they teamed up with a half-dozen brilliant artists both old and new, and imagination became reality — which, as you'll learn in the book, is exactly what magic is.

The Bumper Book of Magic tackles its topic from many different angles and formats, from essays to comics to diagrams to illustrated allegorical fiction and more.  Like the best of Alan’s work, it's astonishingly smart but remarkably accessible and down-to-earth.  After all, as the authors explain, their goal is "to convey the sheer fun, colour, beauty and excitement of the magical experience… to you, our reader."

Today, at long last, the Bumper Book is ready to fall into your hands.

What magic will you make with it?

Chris Staros
Editor-in-chief, Top Shelf Productions

Click on Gallery below for full-sized images.