The random extracts from "The Black dossier" and 3D pages make this well worth reading. However the central plot is a little weak, and is just an excuse to fit in many pop-culture references. I was hoping for more swashbuckling adventures in the style of the other LXG graphic novels.
That said Alan Moore is an amazing writer and i don't know of any other writer who could handle the different styles of prose used in this collection.

I have read it and re - read it, and I think it's good, really, and Moore put a great effort to make his world even richer of allusions, quotations and homages to the mid twentieth century literature, with a great framework taken from a "post - Orwellian" society. the prose experiment is also good even if it has some part well constructed and other a bit repetitive. so if you love Moore works and the League, you've read Nevins commentary and you are amused by the game of quotations, puns and allusions hidden in the text, buy it, it's probably written precisely for you, but if you won't, it's not half as good as the other league volumes and the author tends to be a little too much enthralled by his own creation and in some points the "Black dossier" is a bit self referential.

Although the other negative reviews capture the problems with this book, I wanted to add my voice to the chorus and attempt to save someone some money.

If you are a fan of the rest of the series, do not buy this book. I agree with the comments that it was "self-indulgent" and a "mess." It is a ridiculous addition to the series, which perhaps should be sub-titled: "A paycheck for nothing." I truly wonder if this book was the result of a contract dispute between Alan Moore and the publishing company.

The end of the book is indeed incomprehensible, and if there is meaning in it, beyond a slapdash nod to the abundance of human imagination, which feels forced and contrived, it is beyond me. I believe that Alan Moore is a genius, due to his work in Watchmen, but this was a disappointment that dips as low as that work reaches high. Atrocious.

I will be selling my copy, for whatever I can get for it, and thereafter, pretending it was not written.

All the elements are there but for some reason the souffle didn't rise. This book will be forgotten. All the bling extras of Moore books - such as additional cover pages and text short stories -- go from side shows to main event, to the book's detriment, rising up like story assassins to smite this tome into a coma. In short, it was boring.

To anyone familiar with the world of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (and I certainly do not mean the movie), this latest volume - The Black Dossier - will still manage to both surprise and delight. Set in a post Big Brother 1950's Britain, the story revolves around the aforementioned book which is taken from the vaults of British Intelligence and contains the history of the various incarnations of The League from its earliest beginnings to the post Martian Invasion adventures of Allan Quartermain and Mina Murray. Needless to say British Intelligence want the Dossier back....
To say any more would spoil what is an extremely enjoyable and exciting romp through a world populated with inumerable figures from literature of the time. As always Messrs Moore and O'Neill have created a world that is at once familiar yet somehow alien to us. The black humour and sense of reality in an an unreal world mean that once you enter into the story, you soon take things almost as a matter of historical record. All in all I can not praise this latest volume too highly - it has been worth the wait!
As a matter of caution, this book is only really suitable for an adult audience, but this should not put anyone off what is a true masterpiece of the graphic novel genre.

When the book starts out in a post-Orwellian world in which everyone is taking off their Big Brother cameras and James Bond is working out of the Ministry of Love, you start to get into the groove of Alan Moore pulp fiction mashups that made the first two books in the series so great. It's a little uneasy at first since these are modern pulps and not the Victorian pulps which are so familiar from reprints and movie adaptations, but then the black dossier is opened and its a whole new experience.

Less emphasis on the framing story (James or Jimmy Bond is chasing after the two remaining survivors of the League and trying to seduce a woman who I should know from other pulps) puts the book squarely in the category of literary parody. And Alan Moore is having a great time. My personal favorite is the Cthulu meets Wodehouse passage in which Bertie Wooster encounters a Cthulu possessed man and figures that he's a bit of an odd duck going on about Cool Lulu and is only saved by Jeeves putting a call into the League. There are also beat poet passages, Fanny Hill bits, and an Elizabethan play about the formation of the first League under Queen Elizabeth. Orlando shows up throughout the book as do a host of other characters that you feel like you should know but probably don't.

And one of the frustrating parts of this book as opposed to the other books is that even though Alan Moore will not pander to the audience by stopping to explain who anyone is, in this book it's less likely that you'll know most of these characters beyond the obvious ones like James Bond and O'Brien from 1984.

Still this is a feast for the mind and the eyes and a worthy successor to the series.

What starts out as a reasonably entertaining chase story devolves at the end into a bizarre semi-surreal mush of overly articulated intellectual BS. Utterly unsatisfying followup to the excellent earlier books in the series.

It begins in the same vein as the earlier books, showing us an interesting world that is a mash-up of many different literary creations; but it is bogged down with long asides which, while sometimes interesting views on the world, do not advance the story at all. By the end it becomes a long exercise in exposition, and reads more like a college freshman's drug-inspired philosophy essay than the "ripping good yarn" I was anticipating.

Obviously Moore had something he wanted to do here. Sadly it wasn't very entertaining.

What you have here is just one big mess. I still cant figure out what the whole idea is here. It feels like the story is going along well, then it turns in page after page of Alan Moore just pulling silly League tales and other assorted messes out of thin air. The text ranges from readable to downright blinding in atrociousness. Theres actually pages with no punctuation and no paragraphs, which I'm sure some literary genius finds impressive but to most of us its just a big mess of nonsense.

Moore manages to take the characters and turn them into shadows of themselves in a convoluted mess of a tale that probably amuses some people but will probably turn off and bore half of the fans of the series. Lets face it, there is simply no other explanation for this tale than it being an excuse for Moore to indulge himself with 100s of literary easter eggs that even a well read English Professor would find utterly silly and over the top.

The movie was probably more in kind with the first two novels than this mess of a graphic novel. Its very expensive for what it is and I think anyone who wanted more of the same kind of tales we got in the first two books will be shocked at how far a stretch this is from that. Simply read the positive and glowing reviews here and they are enough to deter you from buying this book. Just listen to some of that utter nonsense and realize that there isn't enough time in your life to do enough drugs or take enough college English classes to find it in yourself to understand or enjoy what Moore did here.

Nick Mamatas reviews BLACK DOSSIER in the brand new WEIRD TALES magazine (No. 348, Jan/Feb 2008) that I just received. He says, in part, "Skim the hardcover [book] and you'll experience . . . the extended prose sections, feel the changing paper stock, and even catch a glimpse of the tipped-in "Tijuana bible" before flipping to the end and seeing the 3D glasses taped to the back cover flap...if you sit down and closely read BLACK DOSSIER, you will be won over... BLACK DOSSIER is Coltrane and Miles Davis. Genius... BLACK DOSSIER is so rich in text, art, and design...that you'll refer to it, over and over, dipping in like you would into a collection of jazz LPs."

I'm especially excited because I am the author of The Great Detective at the Crucible of Life, a novel of Allan Quatermain that adds chapters to his life and Sherlock Holmes's. It is a Quatermain memoir and African adventure, very much as H. Rider Haggard originally told all his Quatermain tales, such as She and Allan and Allan Quatermain and the Ice Gods.

When the remnants of Murray's League resurface in the 50's, the reader's in for a treat. Unlike the first two volumes, the prose in the Black Dossier isn't featured as an extra, but forms an integral part of the storyline and is thus intertwined with the comic sections. Subtle references at fiction from Homer to recent television make this a erudite and fascinating read, in which one can always discover something new. But that's not all. Moore's complex and sardonicly humouristic stories make him one of the best in the grapic novel genre.

Nick Mamatas reviews BLACK DOSSIER in the brand new WEIRD TALES magazine (No. 348, Jan/Feb 2008) that I just received. He says, in part, "Skim the hardcover [book] and you'll experience . . . the extended prose sections, feel the changing paper stock, and even catch a glimpse of the tipped-in "Tijuana bible" before flipping to the end and seeing the 3D glasses taped to the back cover flap...if you sit down and closely read BLACK DOSSIER, you will be won over... BLACK DOSSIER is Coltrane and Miles Davis. Genius... BLACK DOSSIER is so rich in text, art, and design...that you'll refer to it, over and over, dipping in like you would into a collection of jazz LPs."

That was enough for me. It sounds wonderful, and I ordered it and I can't wait for it to arrive in the mail from Amazon so I can experience vicariously more adventures of my favorite African adventurer Allan Quatermain.

I'm especially excited because I am the author of The Great Detective at the Crucible of Life, the first novel-length literary continuation of Allan Quatermain (as opposed to the graphic novels, which I have and treasure in both comics form and hardcover, and insertions into the Wold Newton family of crossover fiction) and adds chapters to the lives of both Quatermain and Sherlock Holmes. I've written it as a Quatermain memoir and African adventure, very much as H. Rider Haggard originally told all his Quatermain tales, such as She and Allan and Allan Quatermain and the Ice Gods.

I can hardly wait to get BLACK DOSSIER in the mail. Dimes to doughnuts it will be a total blast!! My own critique will follow soon.

I've been a fan of Alan Moore's work since the 80's. It was so much fun being a young teenager and reading Miracleman, Swamp Thing, Watchmen etc. as they came out new each month.

I stopped reading comics around the age of 20 (this is not a slight on the industry; I just became engrossed in other things at that stage of my life) but would occasionally check out Love and Rockets or something like that because the medium is still so great - and untapped still, in many ways.

I have recently re-introduced myself to comics and have enjoyed a lot of great work that has been produced over the past 20 years or so. I have read the first two volumes of 'League' and must say that this third volume is not only the best one - but one of the best comic-reading experiences I've ever had.

It's different. It's new - it invites the reader to explore a story from several different angles/mediums and thus enjoy a story in a new way. And really, it's a celebration of fantasy, science fiction and anything in literature that has pushed the envelope, from a thematic or story-telling perspective. The final poem at the end is a declaration of this celebration, and I defy you to not read it and smile.

Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill and Ben Dimagmaliw (who is the wonderful colorist and deserves his share in credits for this book) have continued on with the adventures of Mina, Quartermain and company in comic book fashion. They also include "picture books" (The Life of Orlando, which is a highlight and is intended as a reference to be used throughout the novel), a 'new' play by Shakespeare (Alan knocks it out of the park here, lots of fun), Beatnik style writing ala Ginsberg and Kerouac, and a merry-making ending that is in 3-D (this is the League in the Fabulous Fifties, after all!) and features an inspired and heartfelt poem at the end. In fact, I would say the ending is as heartfelt as anything I've ever read from Moore - and all you fans out there know that 'heartfelt' is a word not often used to describe his writing.

This is a story to read in several sittings, like a long novel. It's to be savored .. you can go back, look at something hinted at earlier, etc. Like Watchmen, there are a number of 'easter eggs' throughout this work, as well as all kinds of clues .. and allusions abound. It's a graphic novel for folks who love reading! Especially if you love reading classic Science Fiction and Fantasy.

I applaud Alan Moore for making this and hopes he keeps stretching the medium and possibilities even farther. Alan - if you're reading this - good job! Keep going! Maybe you and Kevin can hook up with Steve Bissette and make a comic book equivalent of Trout Mask Replica. Not that your work on Swamp Thing wasn't absolute brilliance ..! I'm just saying, if any team could redefine what's possible in the comics medium, the way Beefheart played in his own sandbox with American music, it's you guys.

For those still reading this review, I apologize for the meandering. I just finished the book and am pretty enthusiastic. I'll likely edit this later. It's worth buying the hardcover if you like to be challenged and want to experience something different.

This is an amazing book in many ways. Alan Moore's most experimental comic in some time. The media changes in the book (paper differences, style differences, 3D glasses) are all done with purpose. If you ever wanted twenty League stories all at once this is the book for you. The imagined history is comprehensive and fascinating.. but mostly prose. If you can't stand the idea of the book being half prose then stay away... if however you are cool with that then hop on in... it's great! This book does things you've never seen before in a book, it is an absolute virtuosic performance on every level. He copies (with purpose) the styles and worlds of everyone from P.G. Woodhouse, to Shakespere to Lovecraft.... this book is all over the map.

Moore may have been getting weird lately but his writing his still top notch in the comic medium... Good job Mr. Moore.. now give us book 3 please, with whatever publisher you like.

I was looking forward to getting this in the mail so much. I opened the box brimming with excitement. Then I tried to read it. To say getting through the entire book was painful is an understatement. I read every word and the more I read the more bored and tired I became. By the end I was glad it was over and very unhappy to have spent my money on this book. Mr. Moore is my favorite comic book writer, but he missed the mark on this book by a huge margin.

Lots to look at here. Only thing that seems to be missing is a story. Oh, and an ending...or any rising action. Or plot. Or resolution.

This was quite disappointing compared to the earlier volumes in the series. While there were glimmers of many interesting ideas, none of them were well explored, leaving nothing but a series of brief cultural references that would probably be lost on anyone who isn't old enough to remember the old Flash Gordon serials.

Having just read this League adventure, I have to say that a lot of the plot was a bit of a mess. For myself a lot of the Fun of this was reading the Book and spotting the Cultural references from the Start. From Roy of the Rovers, Coronation Street to Hi-de -Hi to Dan Dare pilot of the Future and Fireball Xl-5.Virtual every page had little injoke, however if you don`t have these bits of amusement then the Book would have passed you by. Not the best work that Mr Moore has produced.

Loved the first two...hated this one. Moore suffers under the weight of his own genius with extremely obscure literary references taking place of compelling storytelling. Very, very, hard to get through the dossier portion of this book. No fun.

Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neills continuation of the League saga broadens the scope of the source material, incorporating 20th century pulp novels, comics, children's books and films into its all-encompassing fiction universe. While its impressively crafted expansion on the League mythology makes the book a must for fans, its structure, sandwiching lengthy expository passages, novelty inserts and even a 3D section in between the more conventional graphic novel segments, might scare off more casual readers.

The Black Dossier has a level of complexity that's far beyond the average reader. Moore makes so many references to famous literature both in the characters he uses and in the writing styles of the various Black Dossier segments that many people will be confounded at the meaning of a large portion of this story. I read a lot but still I was Googling many names to get a better understanding of the story. If you haven't read many of the more famous 19th & 20th century works of fiction then you may want to wait for the proper Volume 3, which is in the works. The Black Dossier will delight some and baffle many.

This was a heavily anticipated book for me, but I found myself disappointed by it. There are a lot of cool things about it, but the story is not great. I mean, it is, of course, well-plotted, but the events of the story seem kind of inconsequential. However,The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 is just fantastic.

Don't approach The Black Dossier as LOEG3. It's not. It's more of a primer for the new series Century, a history of the League up to the 1950s, and a broad overview of the alternative history in which it's set, and the characters that inhabit that world. It's filled with treats for the attentive fan, but for the casual reader it will come across as infuriatingly, willfully obtuse. It makes great demands on you. To make the most of it, you will need to have the kind of encyclopedic knowledge of comics and pulp fiction that Moore and O'Neill have. Or, try Jess Nevin's annotations at http://www.shsu.edu/~lib_jjn/dossier.html. Very useful. I recommend reading the book once through, then again with his notes. I guarantee you'll pick up twice as much background detail.
To summarise; enormous fun and a beautiful object. But very much an incidental volume to the series.

This is a quite good book. Not as good as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume One, but good nonetheless. I love all the references to 1950's British culture especially all the little hidden thigs like the Giles cartoons granny at the start waving her umbrella at the cars.

Having devoured the first and second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books, I looked forward to this one hungrily for a year. Perhaps I looked forward to it too much; the antique pop culture references used to be gleeful, and generally supported the humour and characterisation; now, they've become long stretches of impenetrable text and they just get in the way. We scarcely glimpse Mina and Alan as we leap from Lovecraft to Beat, from Wodehouse to Fanny Hill.

The young Alan, especially, suffers from this. Except for one good line in the James Bond scene, he's really not given anything to do that reveals his Alan-ness; what is life like for him? What makes him more than a blonde square-jawed action hero? We don't know, and I was looking forward to finding out.

Actually, I enjoyed the Fanny Hill with the Beardsley-inspired art, the Wodehouse-Lovecraft pastiche was a laugh (although done before), and I loved the Pornsec Tijuana bible. I don't condemn Moore for the inside jokes - it's the author's right to do that, even if it does limit the audience - but as someone who was in on it, I didn't find it served the story.

It reminded me of the long stretches of Promethea where we trudged through the whole Tarot deck. The art was absolutely transcendent, and sometimes the wonderful characters survived the paragraphs of occult exposition, but often as not it felt forced and dry.

Maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe someone else can read the whole Beat pastiche without their eyes glazing over. Maybe if I hadn't come to it wanting to know more about Mina and Alan, I would have enjoyed it more. I still think Moore's brilliant, and not everything he does has to be to my taste.

Once again, the Nottingham Bard fails to disappoint. Even with the story no longer concentrating on the original line up and bringing a slightly more contemporary feel to the book this latest addition falls nicely in with the previous volumes.

Slightly different in style to the previous books with the main plot being more intercut with excerpts from the titular Black Dossier (on varying paper stocks and sizes for added effect) it provides an engrossing and layered experience.

The inclusions of classic British characters including Billy Bunter and the backdrop of 1984 (48) are often inspired and completely at odds with childhood memories.

A slight shame, therefore, that it's unavailable in the author's homeland ~ undoubtedly for copyright reasons too many to list~ and we are forced to import!

Bring your head - you'll need it on the trip!

Great for any fan of League who doesn't mind a little reading. The parts of the Black Dossier being interspersed throughout the book were a great idea, and they provide the history of every generation of the league (and some information on France and Germany's leagues as well). The comic portion delivers too. If you hate actual reading, this may not be for you at this price, but if you don't mind...pick this up.

Is there a ton of easter eggs in this book? Probably, but I didn't care to look.

Is this a literary masterpiece? No, but there is more work per page than perhaps anything I have ever read.

Is it worth that wait? Absolutely not, and I would like mt $20 and 2 hours back.

This book is like Modern Art. If Alan Moore spent an hour explaining his book to me, I might recognize it as truly brilliant, but I shouldn't have to have it explained. The Black Dossier will entertain alternative high schoolers and literary majors to no end, as they one-up each others' brilliance, but I prefer a tight read. Something can be brilliant AND accessible. The beauty of the previous LOEG was that you could pat yourself on the back for recognizing a reference, but you didn't have to study a 100 year old encylopedia to get evry reference. I'm sure Alan's close friends loved the book, but forget it.

The book is over-worked and the last 20 pages are such a mess that I can't find a better word in the English language than mess.

And while I am no proponent of drugs, this book is cheaper than dropping acid. And produced the same effect.

There's an old adage about jokes: if they have to be explained, they're not funny. What does that say about gags with references so esoteric that they have to be Googled?

Such references (not always humorous) abound in The League of Extraordinary Gentleman: The Black Dossier, the latest volume in writer Alan Moore and artists Kevin O'Neill's graphic novel series about literary heroes and villains. In previous installments, Mina Murray, the heroine of Dracula, led a Victorian Era espionage team also consisting of Allan Quartermain, Mr. Hyde, the Invisible Man, and Captain Nemo to face such challenges as Fu Manchu and The War of the Worlds' Martians. This time, for a story mostly set in 1958, Mina and Allan rub elbows with characters of films and television as well as literature.

How necessary is it for readers to recognize the many characters, ranging from The Seven Against Thebes to Prospero, from the Scarlet Pimpernel to Jeeves and Wooster, from Big Brother to Captain Edmund Blackadder? Not very, if the reader is content to enjoy a fanciful escapist adventure story with stunning visuals. Still, most readers should have no trouble recognizing "Jimmy", a lecherous secret agent. "...[I]s this what it's come to? The British adventure hero? Pathetic," Allan says of Jimmy. (Infer what you will about Moore's view of heroes.)

Some may be disturbed by the presence of Golliwog, a nineteenth century children's literature character who looks like a blackface minstrel performer. Others might be uncomfortable with the sexual content, sometimes used for broad humor.

The scope of the Black Dossier is nothing if not ambitious. Between incidents of the frame story are a comic strip about Orlando's millenia-spanning life, the first act of a lost Shakespeare play, a nearly unreadable parody of Kerouac, and a sample of the sort of pornography allowed in Airstrip One (if you don't know what Airstrip One is, then I recommend reading 1984 as soon as possible). The Black Dossier even comes with 3D glasses, helpful for enjoying the fanciful conclusion in which Moore channels Shakespeare in praise of fictional characters.

Researching the figures in the book does require some work, but it is a reasonable price to pay for the ability to enjoy a unique reading experience on multiple levels.

There's an old adage about jokes: if they have to be explained, they're not funny. What does that say about gags with references so esoteric that they have to be Googled?

Such references (not always humorous) abound in The League of Extraordinary Gentleman: The Black Dossier, the latest volume in writer Alan Moore and artists Kevin O'Neill's graphic novel series about literary heroes and villains. In previous installments, Mina Murray, the heroine of Dracula, led a Victorian Era espionage team also consisting of Allan Quartermain, Mr. Hyde, the Invisible Man, and Captain Nemo to face such challenges as Fu Manchu and The War of the Worlds' Martians. This time, for a story mostly set in 1958, Mina and Allan rub elbows with characters of films and television as well as literature.

How necessary is it for readers to recognize the many characters, ranging from The Seven Against Thebes to Prospero, from the Scarlet Pimpernel to Jeeves and Wooster, from Big Brother to Captain Edmund Blackadder? Not very, if the reader is content to enjoy a fanciful escapist adventure story with stunning visuals. Still, most readers should have no trouble recognizing "Jimmy", a lecherous secret agent. "...[I]s this what it's come to? The British adventure hero? Pathetic," Allan says of Jimmy. (Infer what you will about Moore's view of heroes.)

Some may be disturbed by the presence of Golliwog, a nineteenth century children's literature character who looks like a blackface minstrel performer. Others might be uncomfortable with the sexual content, sometimes used for broad humor.

The scope of the Black Dossier is nothing if not ambitious. Between incidents of the frame story are a comic strip about Orlando's millenia-spanning life, the first act of a lost Shakespeare play, a nearly unreadable parody of Kerouac, and a sample of the sort of pornography allowed in Airstrip One (if you don't know what Airstrip One is, then I recommend reading 1984 as soon as possible). The Black Dossier even comes with 3D glasses, helpful for enjoying the fanciful conclusion in which Moore channels Shakespeare in praise of fictional characters.

Researching the figures in the book does require some work, but it is a reasonable price to pay for the ability to enjoy a unique reading experience on multiple levels.

In common with the previous volumes of LOEG, Moore and O'Neill have come back with a strong interpretation of a ficitonal world based on fictional characters co-existing in the same era, a Wold Newton-type technique.

This time the era is the 1950s, a post-Big Brother totalitarian UK that reminded me of Moore's V for Vendetta and resonates with a modern war-on-terror Britain and US.
I don't think its an accident that this story brings back Moore's criticism of authoritarian regimes seen in The Watchmen and V for Vendetta.

The book moves away from between a standard graphic novel format and writings in the style of authors from PG Woodhouse to Jack Kerouac and even a Tijuana Bible (an eight-page blue comic that was popular in 40s and 50s America) and a 3D comic.

Part of the fun is trying to work out the literary and popular culture references as Moore mixes the well-known with the obscure to cook up a heady story. James Bond changes from blond beef-cake Daniel Craig, to the ruthless psychopath that Fleming originally intended. In Moore's story Bond's character has an additional dimension: treason.

This is what I expected: a daft, dark, and cynical turn on cultural icons. Fun.

It pains me to give this three stars- if there were a way to do 2.5 stars, that would be much more appropriate. If you like reading small cryptic type and don't happen to have VCR instructions around, this is the book for you. There were still interesting parts- mostly in the graphic portions of the book- but I suppose due to the vast expanses of written material between them, there was very little flow to the story. If you think of the first League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as Star Wars, the second League as Empire Strikes Back, this one would be reading the credits to Return of the Jedi.

A wholly unsatisfying continuation of a great idea. Rather than showing us anything that the League did in its centuries of existence - even in what looks to have been eventful decades between the series - we get secondhand reports. The Dossier itself is a pastiche of different media (an excerpt from a Shakespearean play, various official reports, chapbooks and penny dreadfuls, and even 3D scenes for which the book includes paper glasses) introducing characters who do little and dropping hints of what might have been interesting. The 80 year jump between volumes is widened by offering very little insight as to how the world has changed - both temporally in terms of the series and in deviating from our own. There are fewer literary allusions as well compared with earlier books.

It's obvious Moore loves the idea of the League and the literature he parodies, and O'Neil's artwork is probably better here than in the previous issues. But to set up the chance to meld the comic's concept with Lovecraft (to use one example), only to opt out and mention it in passing, strikes me as a colossal missed opportunity.

I love the League, which I once described as a 20 page comic book with 26 pages of footnotes. It is Moore and O'Neill's lavish love letter to turn of the century fictional constructs, and I found the first two books fascinating, as well as a ripping good read. This book I had mixed feelings about. The comic book adventure portions were as good as ever. The written "dossier" material was much less interesting, and the 3-D section in the back of the book I found completely unintelligible. I wonder if the "dossier" was a response to the popularity of the online footnotes to the first two books. If so, I would urge Moore and O'Neill to stick to the graphic novel portion, and let the readers do the research and write the notes - for me, that detective work was part of the fun.
Warning - nudity and sexual situations. NC-17 at least.

Although this publication is nearly two-years late in being released, it is another exceptional piece of work from Southhampton's, Alan Moore.
Filling in details of the many different 'Leagues' that have banded together to aid Great Britain and her allies in times of need, The Black Dossier resides within the vaults of MI5 and is about to be stolen.
Join Ms Murray and Mr Quatermain as they try to stay ahead of their persuers in the 'litarary' Britain of 1958.
This tale is punctuated by historical sections detailing other escapades but written, and published, in a style that befits the setting.

This book does not reach the jaw dropping heights of the first two volumes, but only because of its different take on the subjects.
Kevin O'Neil's artwork is once again perfectly suited for the tale and Mr Moore has does a fine job of weaving the 'seemingly' disjointed sections together (they make more sense than other reviewers are giving them credit).

The book is well bound, and even the 3D insert (complete with glasses) is a little bit less of the gimmick we're used to and adds to the fantastical nature of the ending.

The main complaint this book has been getting is that it's not like the first two volumes - but you should know that from the title! So if you want more of the same, wait for volume three, but if you want something different, challenging, and ultimately more rewarding, then read The Black Dossier.

Love & Peas, Peej

this is boring and hardly has any comic pages and alot of long winded "story" about the histiry of LXG.

Very haphazardly written. Hard to feel for the characters. I liked the beginning, but towards the end, the books drags like a ton of bricks.

What an end ! this book may be the final chapter of the League of extraordinary gentlemen and also the final chapter of Alan Moore's writing in mainstream comics, so... he put everything he could into it : tons of literary references, mature contents, parody, satire, in a word : extravaganza, both in the story and in the form of the story.
Certainly an UFO in comics today, maybe a masterpiece, anyway a must have for all those who claim to be comics readers (even if several readings are highly recommended)

The highest praise I can give to this book is that it makes you want to read more! Not just more Moore but more EVERYTHING! The layers and depth to almost every panel on every page draw your eye to new references and ideas at startling speed. It means I spent at least as long on the internet googling 1950s soap powders or Edwardian ghost finders or 3D specs as I did reading and re-reading the book itself, and that's the joy of it!

At times it can be so intriciate it's almost daunting but it is worth the effort.

If you have not read the previous League stories do so before you mine these pages in order to get the best seam.

Its not going to be available in the shops outside the US of A because of some copywright wranglings so snap it up quick sharp!

Black Dossier has been a long time coming. Plagued by copyright squabbles and endless delays in publication, fans of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen at times despaired of ever seeing the book in print.

It wasn't worth the wait.

Far from the 1890s, in which the first two League adventures were set, Black Dossier takes place in 1958. A pair of World Wars has passed, as well as the Big Brother era set forth in George Orwell's classic 1984. Former Dracula's bride Wilhelmina Murray, now a blonde but still youthful, and adventurer Allan Quatermain, rejuvenated and posing as his own son, are the only remainders of the previous (but not original) League.

But where earlier volumes focused on adventure and conflict, Black Dossier involves simply a book about League history. Mina and Allan want to read it, even though it's largely about them, and certain forces in the British government want to stop them from doing so. That's pretty much it.

Oh sure, I'll give the book credit for incorporating a young James Bond, Emma Peel (nee Night) and Bulldog Drummond among the forces arrayed against them. But, while the literary references that punctuate these books have been a delightful puzzle in the past, many of them in this volume are so obscure as to be tedious.

It's well documented that creator Alan Moore spent much of the creative period for this book in a slap-fight with DC, which owns the America's Best imprint under which the League books to date have been published. And it seems to me Moore -- who has since severed all ties to DC and has promised future League books to Top Shelf -- basically just tossed a bunch of ideas into the Cuisinart to produce this mess.

Artwork by Kevin O'Neill, on the other hand, is as professionally handled as ever, and DC outdid itself in its presentation, which includes a heavier stock of paper for certain sections, a Tijuana Bible insert and fancy 3-D glasses for use in the bewildering conclusion. Sadly, Moore let his readers down. It remains to be seen if he can woo them back with promised future volumes.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles.(net) editor

enigmatic, layered, surreal, multidimensional...alan moore brought all of his strengths to bear in this supremely and explicitly strange yet delightful book. as with the other LOXG books and "from hell", moore incorporates myth and matter here for another experience unlike anything in the world of graphic novels. like any of his works, you have to read it three times to get all of the details...and even then like playing a record backwards to imagine some satanic incantation...there are subtexts real and perceived for the reader to dwell on. yes this book is enigmatic and somewhat incongruent, but that is part of its joy...you just pick up whatever glimpses of alan's blazing world he offers up, and delight follows.

Great read - love the 3D bit at the back.
If you liked the first 2 you're bound to like this one.
Bit of a hassle having to get it from Amazon.com instead of the uk site (not available here) but worth it.

Too clever. Too many references for the sake of being clever. Moore has won in convincing people comics are a serious art form but the Black Dossier is a pyrrhic victory. It doesn't work.

The last chapter in 3D? What's that all about? Here's a reference, The Emperor's New Clothes.

Don't expect a narrative like the first two volumes. Moore and O'Neill create a universe where the past incarnations of the League have had an impact on the world as great as the Murray group we know and love. But to do that Moore uses different media than the "traditional" graphic novel format. There are type written reports, English history comic strips, an unearthed portion of uncompleted Shakespearian play, a sequel to Fanny Hill (on parchment type paper) and many other genres. It becomes obvious that Moore would have included a vinyl record if he could (though it is rumoured that this will come with the Absolute version) but the 3-D section works a treat. The Kerouac inspired story (Sal Paradyse) is extremely heavy going but Moore is simply staying true to the way he wishes to present the vision he has.
I know some will be disappointed because of the lack of a similar narrative to the first two volumes but they should revel in a true genius like Moore cutting loose in his own inimitable fashion.
It whets the appetite for Volume 3.

I'll confess that a lot of highbrow entertainment goes right over my head. I'd generally rather watch a major Hollywood release than a small art house film so it is with great regret that I admit that `The Black Dossier' just didn't do it for me. Time Magazine declared `The Black Dossier' the second best graphic novel of 2007. So am I just uncultured or is this a classic case of the emperor having no clothes?

If you loved the previous League of Extraordinary Gentlemen... well, you may or may not like this one because any similarities are purely coincidental. Rather than a continuous storyline it's broken up into small chunks featuring different art, writing styles and even paper stock. In fact the final portion is done in 3D with glasses included. I love Alan Moore's writings. I consider Watchmen to be the greatest piece of comic literature ever but The Black Dossier had the feel of a great artist overindulging himself.

The central story involves Mina Harken and Allan Quartermain who have de-aged and are wandering around 1950's England with The Black Dossier, a book that chronicles the existence of previous extraordinary leagues. So Mina and Allan essentially have the same Dossier which the reader holds. The dossier is written from the viewpoint of various members of other league's including a sex-shifting immortal and a woman who seems to do nothing but prance from one sexcapade to another while traveling with various historical figures including Gulliver. The stories are extremely verbose including many pages of solid text with zero illustrations. And the writing is often mind numbingly boring as if they were written just to demonstrate Alan Moore's peerless knowledge of literature. Alan Moore is a fantastic writer, perhaps the best writer in the history or comics but the dense prose he writes seems more like the Cliff Notes of a larger, better story. One portion borrows from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and as someone who is familiar with Lovecraft's works it was kind of interesting to see how Mr. Moore incorporated it into the story but most references are far to obscure for me.

I did catch Mr. Moore in one mistake. On the trail of Harken and Quartermain is none other than British superspy James Bond who is more of a bumbling charlatan in this story. Turns out Bond is a traitor and the evidence is in his first case codenamed `Doctor No' or `No Doctor'. In this the author is a little too clever for his own good. Doctor No was the first film but the first book was Casino Royale and since Mr. Moore takes all his source material from the literary versions I would consider this an error. Petty, I know but it's a complaint based on the fact that I think `The Black Dossier' takes itself WAY to serious.

This is probably the most generous three stars I have ever given on Amazon but I keep asking myself who am I to judge Alan Moore. It may well be that this book is just beyond me but I really struggled to get through it. In one long section of text Mr. Moore wrote the entire length as one run on sentence. Besides the complete lack of punctuation it was written in a very odd style that made it difficult to read. At this point I said `No Mas'. I couldn't take it. It was mentally too exhausting to read and I gave up. I guess that's my take on the whole book. Too much effort is placed on the reader. I guess if I was a literati I might be able to pat myself on the back for recognizing Mr. Moore's references and that might be fun but for me the book just grew tiresome.

I was disappointed by this one. Only a much too small part of the book consists of comic pages, delivering a framing story around the actual Black Dossier, which is like a scrapbook with a lot of text and a few unappealing drawings. Maybe some hard core fans will like it. I felt cheated.

Even better than the first two League mini-series. Moore and O'Neill have packed so much in to this book; the denseness of the Kerouac stream of consciousness is difficult at first but a colleague suggested reading it aloud - he's right, you really get the rhythms and the meaning is clearer this way.

The James Bond cypher takes the "blunt instrument" mysoginist from the first Fleming novel and develops the ruthlessness alarmingly. Other cameos are carried off with humourous aplomb. If only DC hadn't been such arseholes this would have included a CD and other goodies. Roll on the absolute edition.

The greatest writer in comic history has created a book with such incredible production values that everything else on the shelves seems shabby in comparison.

Well, what can one say about a graphic novel that uses every possible kind of illustration, story-telling technique, and a truly interdimensional blockbuster ending? There's even a pair of 3D glasses for reading the last dozen pages or so - this will blow your mind! Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill have dropped all pretense that this is just another graphic novel. They are intent on taking the reader/viewer to places where no graphic novel has gone before. I found their use of another universe especially interesting, since I did the same thing in Book Two of my own two part novel, Neitherworld (also on Amazon). The authors and their substantial collaborators - both in number and skill - have created something utterly unique - a book that is almost the definitive work of other classics - such as Fanny Hill, Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's dream, Greek god and various farrie tales throughout the ages. Until now, I didn't know such stories needed pulling together - now I know better. The only thing that suffers, however, is the tightness of the narrative. With so many sub-stories, contained within the ecclectic "Black Dossier" which the main characters are reading along with us, the reader (us, not Wilhelmina Murray and Alan Quartermain Jr.) one goes carreening from tale to tale like a literate billiard ball, never quite sure what bank or ball one will be bounced from next. It is a wild ride, but definitely worth it. I do think this is the end of the series though - it's very hard to imagine what the authors could do for an encore.

While it's not the kind of comic you'd crack open for some light reading (though I guess if you wanted to you could skip the "Dossier" parts and just read the comic story) this is a very dense and jam-packed book that makes great use of the "multimedia" aspect of comics Moore played with in other books, especially "Watchmen". It loses a star because it is so narratively slight--it's there more to give info on the background of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen--but when viewed as part of the continuing story of LoEG it's an essential chapter.