Alan Moore's early comic Monster to be republished

A "forgotten" early work by the legendary comic author Alan Moore, about a disfigured man who murders those he doesn't like, is to be brought back on to bookshelves after being out of print for more than 30 years. Monster was created for the weekly horror anthology Scream! in the early 1980s, and according to 2000 AD, who will be releasing the 190-page book collecting the story's dozens of episodes in July, it borrows from the gothic horror of Frankenstein and the banned EC horror comics of the 50s, telling of a "gentle monster on the run", who grows up locked in an attic, but escapes and turns to a life of murder.

Moore wrote the series up until John Wagner finished it off, with the debut issue launched on the 24th March 1984. Monster comics was only with Scream! for 3 months before Scream! was cancelled on the 30th June, after a printer's strike. It was later absorbed into the Eagle comics, with only Monster and The Thirteenth Floor series transferring to Eagle from Scream!. Monster comics has been out of print since the 80s.

Monster, added Molcher, is the only time that Moore worked on a series with Wagner. "Finding good quality copies of Scream! has been difficult as the original film of the story has long since disappeared, but we have substantial experience with 2000 AD collections of restoring neglected comics back to how they looked in the 1970s and 80s," said Molcher.

"And while people usually focus on the big UK comics names that went across to the US, such as Alan, Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, John Wagner has been consistently one of comics' greatest writers across four decades."