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The first issue

Big Numbers is an unfinished comic book series by Alan Moore (writer) and Bill Sienkiewicz (artist). Two issues, out of a planned 12, were published in 1990 by Moore's short-lived imprint Mad Love. Moore described this series as a potential magnum opus.

In the two issues which were published the broad story is about the effect of a new US backed shopping centre development on an English town, based on Moore's home town of Northampton. Moore tells the story from a number of perspectives using a range of disparate characters. Another level of understanding is through fractal geometry, chaos theory and the mathematical ideas of Benoît Mandelbrot. The series intended to show that patterns existing at the large scale (the effect of the town) would have existed at a micro scale (the effect on individual characters lives).

Unlike many other comic books however, the story is told in an entirely real world. This is emphasised by Sienkiewicz's use of "photo-realistic" pencil drawings for the series.

As the detail involved in the series was so intense, Sienkiewicz had problems keeping up the workload, and his assistant Al Columbia took over art duties on the series. No issues of his work were published.

In 2001, Alan Moore spoke about the ideas being developed into a TV series as he had the whole story mapped out on a sheet of A1 paper and 5 episodes written. He also said there was no possibility of this ever becoming a complete comic book series.

The series won the Squiddy Award for Favorite Limited Series in 1990.

• Comic Book Awards Almanac