Porn - in soft pastels

Sixteen years in the making and finally available in the UK, Alan Moore's erotic opus - in which the three foremost heroines of children's fiction (Wonderland's Alice, Oz's Dorothy and Peter Pan's Wendy) meet, disillusioned, in 1913 Austria and embark on an emancipatory (and wholly unrestrained) sexual odyssey - is a mesmerising piece of work. As expected, Moore crafts a tale teeming with elegance, invention, wit, emotion and, ultimately, overwhelming amounts of forthright sauce. But it's artist Melinda Gebbie who is essential to the book's success. With her entrancing use of layered pastels, the trio's passions are suffused with a dreamlike aura and an engrossing beauty that significantly aid Moore's admirably quixotic task of bringing artistic standards back to the domain of erotica.
Danny Graydon