This post was started back in 2022, during lockdown when we had more time on our hands, and it sat unfinished for various reasons until now.
I’ve become a bit obsessed by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz‘s unfinished Big Numbers of late – the projected twelve issue comic stalled at issue 2 when Sienkiewicz left the project due to the workload he’d imposed on himself. Young understudy Al Columbia was asked to continue for issue 4 and, depending on which version of events you believe, he either didn’t finish it, had a nervous breakdown or destroyed the work he did do. One of the only things to officially emerge was the print above, published by Mad Love/Tundra before his scheduled debut on the book.
Issue 3 did actually get finished and surfaced some years back in the form of a photocopy of the lettered pages that was found on eBay and then uploaded to the web. The line work is devoid of most of the texture you’d associate with Sienkiewicz’s work but ten unlettered pages were also printed in a fanzine, presumably taken from the original art. Over the years original pages have surfaced on places like Comic Art Fans where you can see the painterly tones he was going for far better – see above and below.
As with so many things on the web, a lot of the images are low quality and small in size but now we can rectify this. I’ve recently been playing with Topaz’s Gigapixel AI app which gives incredible results when upscaling digital images. Using this on low res scans gives the work a whole new clarity and fuzzy details come into focus like never before. I’ve managed to put together a readable cbz edition of issue 3, including the 40 pg photocopy version, 17 painted or toned pages, only minus the back cover and end papers. Back cover artwork exists for issues 4 and 6 and the cover for issue 6 was sold at Heritage Auctions some years back. I doubt we’ll ever see the finished book sadly as Moore isn’t interested.
The nearest we may come is in the form of a website by James Harvey. This appeared in June 2020, outlining each of the 12 issues, each character and what happened to them in each issue, based on original plot notes and interview transcriptions with Alan Moore. A projected TV series that never happened also fills in some of the gaps as an extract of a 280 page interview transcript that the producers had with Moore is published in the side bar. It’s a mind-boggling collection and gives a glimpse at what could have been, put aside an afternoon to go through it. Also check out James’ own comic work as he’s an excellent artist, recently completing Pete Townsend‘s legendary Lifehouse project in comic form with David Hine.
