60 pages • 2 hours read
V for Vendetta
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Background
Authorial Context: Alan Moore, David Lloyd, Politics, and the Superhero Genre
V for Vendetta was co-created by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. It was initially serialized by Warrior, an independent comic that sought to “negotiate a space for underground and fanzine principles” within the British comic market (Gray, Maggie. “‘A fistful of dead roses...’. Comics as cultural resistance: Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2010). The autonomous and grassroots nature of Warrior allowed Moore and Lloyd extensive time and space to collaborate on the comic’s creation. Moore has written that “it isn’t ‘Alan Moore’s V’ or ‘David Lloyd’s V.’ It’s a joint effort in every sense of the word” (Moore, Alan. “Behind the Painted Smile.” V for Vendetta, DC Comics, 1990, 276). Moore has also worked on graphic novels such as Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Lloyd, a comic illustrator, has worked on projects such as Night Raven, Hulk, Doctor Who, and Wasteland.
Moore and Lloyd, both English, developed and produced V for Vendetta throughout the early 1980s. As such, it is heavily influenced by conservative Thatcherism, whose xenophobic rhetoric, increased surveillance, authoritarianism, and nationalism appealed to British far-right radicals in the 80s (Gray, 36-37). Moore and Lloyd, both anti-fascists, and in Moore’s case, an anarchist, envisioned V’s near-future Britain as the “fascist trajectory for Thatcherism” (37). Warrior’s emphasis on “social realism and political outspokenness” (32) allowed the pair to conceive of a three-volume run with a “political and social landscape recognizable to the reader” (35). V for Vendetta’s Norsefire government thus exhibits both parallels to Thatcher’s conservative government and extreme escalations of it.
Moore has publicly criticized the deliberate apolitical emotional arrest that mainstream superhero stories allow their adult readers in the 20th and 21st centuries, calling it “tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying” (“Watchmen creator Alan Moore: Modern superhero culture is embarrassing.” BBC News, 19 Nov. 2019). Moore and Lloyd enriched the outspoken, genre-busting political content of V for Vendetta with paralleled graphic experimentations and innovations. Lloyd had the idea to entirely ban sound effects and thought balloons from the strip, and Moore added to the concept by getting rid of most caption boxes. As such, Moore and Lloyd used both form and content to revolutionize the comic and graphic novel genres.
Critical Context: Anonymous, Black Lives Matter, and Far-Right Appropriation of Guy Fawkes
The Guy Fawkes Mask, and V for Vendetta more widely, hold a complex and varied place in early 21st-century culture and politics. The mask is often used by protest groups and revolutionary movements, especially after the 2005 release of the V for Vendetta film, written by the Wachowski siblings. It is sometimes called the “Anonymous Mask” due to its association with the hacktivist group “Anonymous,” who wore it to protest the Church of Scientology in 2008. The Church of Scientology would often photograph anti-Scientology protestors to suppress, litigate, and coerce them; as such, protestors were encouraged to hide their faces.
Though it began as a disguise, the mask became a symbol of anti-authoritarianism; in the graphic novel, V wears it for both of these reasons. It was donned by the Occupy movement through the early 2010s and by anti-government protestors throughout the world. As such, many countries have banned the mask altogether. Alan Moore and David Lloyd have both expressed approval for the mask being used in movements like Anonymous.
In 2021, Muncie Central High School teacher Katey O’Connor had her students use V for Vendetta to interpret contemporary social matters. Student projects focused on issues such as LGBTQ+ equality, police brutality, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Armed school resource officers confronted students and had the projects removed (Cole, Samantha. “School Removes Student Project About Fascism After Cops Complain.” Vice News, 19 Nov. 2021). In response, students organized a peaceful protest that resulted in their suspension. Leah Moore, Alan Moore’s daughter, expressed support for the students on Twitter, tweeting that they had her father's support as well.
The Guy Fawkes mask has also been appropriated by far-right groups in the United States. During rallies protesting COVID-19 public safety measures, far-right, neofascist groups such as the Proud Boys and their supporters wore the masks (Owen, Tess. “The Anti-Lockdown Protests Are Getting Weird.” Vice News, 16 April 2020). The mask was also worn during the violent attempted takeover of the United States Capitol Building by Donald Trump supporters on January 6, 2021 (Conroy, Meghan and Robin O'Luanaigh. “Remember, Remember: Guy Fawkes’ Co-opting by the Far Right.” Fair Observer, 7 April 2021).
Events such as these also regularly feature white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and neofascist symbols, contradicting V’s use of the mask to rebel against the white supremacist, fascist group Norsefire. Hugo Weaving, who plays V in the 2005 film, has expressed frustration over the far right’s appropriation of the mask, saying, “That couldn’t be more the opposite of what it stands for” (Sharf, Zach. “Hugo Weaving Sounds Off on Republicans, Alt-Right Twisting ‘The Matrix’ and ‘V for Vendetta’.” Indiewire, 11 Sep. 2020).
Historical Context: Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot
Guy Fawkes was an Englishman born in 1570. When Guy was a young child, his father died, and his mother married a recusant English Catholic. Catholicism had been persecuted in England since Henry VIII’s reign. In 1534, Henry VIII passed the Act of Supremacy, which separated England from the papacy and established the English monarch as the head of the Church of England. He ordered the Dissolution of the Monasteries between 1536 and 1541, which seized and disbanded monastic properties throughout the British Isles, often violently.
Henry’s first daughter, Queen Mary I, whose mother was Catholic, reversed the Act of Supremacy, reinstated Catholicism, and executed many Protestants. Upon Mary’s death, Queen Elizabeth I reinstated the Act of Supremacy and passed the Act of Uniformity in 1559, which made worship in the Church of England legally mandatory. Recusant Catholics—those who refused to submit to this authority—were punished, sometimes with execution. As an adult, Fawkes converted to Catholicism and fought for Catholic Spain against Dutch Reformers in the Eighty Years’ War.
In 1604, Fawkes became involved with a group of recusant English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. Together, they planned the Gunpowder Plot: They would assassinate Elizabeth’s Protestant successor, James I, by blowing up Parliament’s House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on November 5, 1605. They planned to crown James’s young daughter and raise her as a Catholic, thereby restoring the Catholic Monarchy to England. Due to his military experience, Fawkes oversaw the explosives.
In late October, a member of the House of Lords received an anonymous letter tipping him off to the plot. Many conspirators fled or were killed during capture, but the survivors, Fawkes among them, were hanged, drawn, and quartered. For many years, the thwarting of this plot was celebrated by public events; eventually, it became the English holiday “Bonfire Night,” or “Guy Fawkes Night.” Bonfire Night, which is held on November 5, is replete with fireworks and effigies of Catholic figures, particularly Fawkes. Towards the end of the 18th century, children would make and sell exaggerated masks of Guy Fawkes’s face to burn in effigy.
Symbolically, Bonfire Night represents the perseverance of British institutions and the failure of revolutionaries who might seek to overthrow them—depending on one’s ideologies, this could be positive or negative. Throughout the graphic novel, the revolutionary V dons a Guy Fawkes mask, and Chapter 1 begins with V blowing up Parliament, fulfilling Guys Fawkes’s legacy. Illustrator David Lloyd came up with the idea to give V a Guy Fawkes mask. In a letter to Alan Moore, he wrote, “It would give Guy Fawkes the image he’s deserved all these years. We shouldn’t burn the chap every Nov. 5th, but celebrate his attempt to blow up Parliament!” (Moore, Alan. “Behind the Painted Smile.” V for Vendetta, DC Comics, 1990, 272.)
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