V for Vendetta

First hardcover edition of V for Vendetta, published by the Book of the Month Club. This is the only hardcover edition published before the 2005 film tie-in. Written by Alan Moore with artwork by David Lloyd, the serial first appeared in the British anthology Warrior beginning in 1982 and was completed and collected by DC Comics in 1988-89. Moore conceived it as a response to Thatcher-era Britain, and the dystopian England it depicts is controlled by a fascist party called Norsefire. Taking place in the aftermath of a nuclear war, Lloyd's vision was meant as an extrapolation of where he feared England was heading. The central figure, V, is a former prisoner of a state internment camp who uses assassination, sabotage, and elaborate theatrics to dismantle the regime. Moore is careful not to make him entirely sympathetic, and the book's tension between anarchy as a philosophy and violence as a method is never cleanly resolved. Lloyd's artwork, all black and white in the original serialization, suits the darkness of the material well. The Guy Fawkes mask has since become a global symbol of protest through the 2005 film adaptation and its adoption by the Anonymous movement, though it carries considerably more complicated weight in the comic itself. Scarce edition.

Hardcover. First Hardcover Edition. Tall octavo, black boards. Stated "First Printing" on the copyright page with a paper label identifying the printer as Ronalds Printing; the name of the printer of the paperback edition is blacked out, as issued. New York: DC Comics, 1990. #11337.
Fine in fine dust jacket.