Having read my way through the complete (as of now) runs of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman (and their various artistic collaborators) on the character originally known as Marvelman and now known as Miracleman, I decided to pick up a couple reference books about the character. The first is Kimota!, published by comics reference publisher TwoMorrows. Originally published in 2001, there was supposedly a 2010 new edition, but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere at any price, nor was it in any libraries, so I settled for getting the 2001 edition via interlibrary loan.

Kimota! largely consists of interviews with various figures: Mick Anglo (original creator of the character), Alan Moore, Dez Skinn (original publisher of the 1980s revival), many of the artists (Garry Leach, Alan Davis, Chuck Austen, Rick Veitch, John Totleben, and Mark Buckingham*), Cat Yronwode (publisher of the comic when it moved to Eclipse Comics), Neil Gaiman, Barry Windsor-Smith (who did a lot of covers), and Beau Smith (who worked at Eclipse when it published Miracleman). It also contains other features like Moore's original proposal for the revival, a timeline Alan Moore and Steve Moore worked out of how (among other things) Marvelman fit with V for Vendetta (!), an index to all issues of the comic, the script of Miracleman #1, the pencils for an unpublished Moore/Totleben collaboration, and more.

Kimota! is a quick and easy but informative read; it's the kind of "companion" book that doesn't focus on analysis really, but more on providing behind-the-scenes information. The interviews are interesting and fun. What were these people thinking when they did this work? There's good tidbits here you won't find anywhere else. Not everything here is going to interesting to every reader—I skipped over the script to Miracleman #1, the unfinished Moore/Totleben story, and the index, for example—but there's a lot to like here, and I tore through it in about a day.

Like I said, I had to read the 2001 edition of Kimota!, but even the 2010 edition wouldn't have been very up-to-date, as it would have predated Marvel's acquisition of the character and republication of the Moore and Gaiman's runs. That's probably its biggest flaw; there's just a significant piece of Miracleman content that the book does not and cannot say anything about. If TwoMorrows announced a third edition, I would pick it up... but maybe they need to wait until The Dark Age is done.

Is this book for everyone with a casual interest in Miracleman? Probably not. (Though—do people with a casual interest in Miracleman actually exist? Seems to me you're probably either in or you're out.) But if you're the kind of person who's into 1) Alan Moore, 2) the development of superhero comics as a genre, or 3) literary histories and copyrights, (and I'm into all three) this book is a must-read.

* I think John Ridgway is probably the significant omission. Of course, as a Doctor Who Magazine fan, he's one of the ones I'd like to hear from the most!