2000 AD poster art of the titular delinquent duo

(2) ALAN MOORE – D.R. & QUINCH (1983 – 1987)

“Even had I suspected then the truly horrifying suffering and amazing loss of life that would be caused by our well-meaning enterprise… I’d have done it anyway. Only more so.”

One of my hot takes in comics is that I find Alan Moore’s work overrated. I’m not saying I don’t like it. But for me, his finest work was his series D.R. & Quinch, when he started as a writer for 2000 AD and before taking himself too seriously. After all, how seriously can you take yourself when you pronounce the Roman snake god Glycon as your deity? (In Moore’s case, very).

You see, Alan Moore used to be fun – and never more so in this semi-regular but sadly brief series about the eponymous alien adolescent delinquent duo. It started with a one-off comic “D.R. & Quinch Have Fun on Earth” as part of the recurring Future Shock and Time Twister stories, in which the duo steal a time machine to wreak havoc on an insignificant planet in the cosmic boondocks no one cares about (i.e. Earth) as a prank on their college dean. However, they proved so popular they got five longer stories – “D.R. and Quinch Go Straight”, “D.R. and Quinch Go Girl Crazy”, “D.R. and Quinch Get Drafted”, “D.R. and Quinch Go to Hollywood” and “D.R. and Quinch Go Back to Nature”.

You know you’re in for a wild ride when your protagonist’s initials stand for diminished responsibility.

TV Tropes sums it up best:

In what can best be described as “Rule of Funny meets For the Evulz,” D.R. & Quinch tells the totally amazing story of one Waldo “D.R.” Dobbs (the “D.R.” stands for “Diminished Responsibility”), a skinny, lanky, teenage delinquent who boasts a genius IQ, enjoys acts of extreme violence and destruction, and looks like a cross between a gremlin and a skrull with a pompadour, and Dobbs’ best friend Ernest Erroll Quinch, a large, purple-skinned brute who is much, much quieter than Dobbs as he prefers writing to talking. Together, these two deeply sociopathic, evilly affable, omnicidal maniacs do as they please, and what pleases them usually involves death and destruction on a tremendous scale; it helps that, in their part of the Milky Way, nuclear warheads are as easily obtainable as a handgun in the Deep South.

“S’right”

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)