The third volume grows out from the fairly radical approach that we’ve taken with The Black Dossier. We decided that, for practical reasons, we’d like this third volume to be structured differently than the preceding two volumes. We thought that it might be easier on the readers if we did three standalone 72-page volumes that are, nevertheless, connected by an overarching story, so that if there is a long wait between issues, it won’t be a cliffhanger. Having read one chapter of this third volume, the readers will be satisfied to a certain degree They will feel like they’ve read a substantial chapter of a story that answers the questions that it has raised to a large extent, while still leaving a couple of plot threads dangling, traveling into the next episode. Now, we the story overall is going to be entitled Century, because it takes roughly 100 years to tell. The story starts around 1910, where you’ve got a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen composed of five or six characters from that period’s literature – a couple of familiar faces and a few new ones. Basically, they are acting on strange presentiments of a disaster that is going to happen in London and that they think may be connected with the forthcoming coronation of the king. These are the events around which Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera concerned itself, so we’ve got characters from that – Mack the Knife and Pirate Jenny – turning up and playing quite a big part in this first chapter. There are also threads which refer to an occult conspiracy – again, drawn from the occult literature of the period. In fact, there’s quite a good scene with kind of a magician’s club somewhere in the West End, where most of the 19th century occultists are all hanging out and discussing trade secrets.
The second book, by which time the League has been pared down to three or four members, is set in 1968, and revolves around the psychedelic, swinging London of that period, and which features a variety of characters from the films and literature of that time. Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius makes an appearance. There are also a lot of references to some of the cult cinema of that period, to television, to literature, and even to comic books. And then, the third and final chapter of Volume 3 is going to be set in 2008. We’ll bring the League right up to date and will, I hope, demonstrate the flexibility of these characters, and that they are not just perennially frozen in a kind of Victorian wonderland and can’t survive outside of it. I think that we’re going to demonstrate that you could extrapolate upon these characters until the end of time, if necessary. They’re adaptable, is basically what I’m saying. I think by showing that we can actually set the story in the present day, that it will be a good demonstration. In the overall course of this third book, I think that the subtext is probably going to be the decline of culture. I mean, the first part is set in 1910 and will probably be packaged in the style of one of the very beautiful post-art-nouveau art movements of that period, and will look fairly gorgeous. The second one, set in 1968, will probably have a cover that is in a psychedelic poster style. The third one will be reflective of our culture in 2008. And, I think that something about the tone of the books themselves and the way that they’re packaged will kind of give a strong message that we’ve come a long way since the glory days of the Victorian era, with all of those marvelous and rich characters. Yes, we’ve come a long way and it wasn’t necessarily in the right direction. That’s going to be part of the subtext of Volume 3, but as usual, it will be a fairly rip-roaring yarn that will build up to quite a devastating climax in Book 3. And, there’s a sort of encroaching frankness to the delivery. Perhaps that’s because we’re moving out of the Victorian era, where if I wanted to have the characters use and expletive or a swear word, I would substitute a line of asterisks, which was the Victorian style. In The Black Dossier, we’ve been a lot more frank about the sexuality and language. And this is something that I think we’re going to be continuing with as the League progresses through the decades towards the present day – that they will reflect the times that they are moving through. And as a result, some of the material in the third volume is quite savage. I don’t really want to give too much away yet, but some of the scenes in the second book are very, very bleak, and the third book is a complete nightmare. But, that’s the one that I haven’t yet written, so I should be getting to that sometime early next year.
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