(I'm not even going to address the visual diarrhea; I just want to know why people seem to think that it's one of the greatest things he's ever done.)

I've only read the first three collections, but one thing about Promethea for me is that he obviously enjoys doing it: there's a sense of humor and play in here that harks back to the goofy shit he used to do for 2000 AD and even Maxwell's Magic Cat. I also find the occult stuff he's investigating more interesting than the usual blandness of new age babble. Austin Spare and Crowley were intriguing birds whether you buy their line or not. I guess the comparison I would make is to Robert Anton Wilson's stuff like Illuminatus! or the Cosmic Trigger books.

I never got into it, but my wife REALLY loved the first two collections. Number three was apparently so heavy on the Moore pedantry that she had a violent reaction to it and now has absolutely no patience for any comic book at all.

Actually, I've noticed that Moore's stuff often falls into this sort of pattern: the first two thirds of his plot arc are subtle and nuanced, playing with cool ideas without stating them overtly, and then for that final third he seems to lose faith in his reader and devote the rest of the book to whanging you over the head with "LOOK HOW COOL THIS IS I AM SO SMART DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW COOL THIS IS?!?!?!?!" At least, that's how both Watchmen and From Hell struck me.

I thought it was OK, but I didn't really follow it. My old roommate loved it, but he really liked the central conciets of it and really enjoyed the ways that the characters were rendered more than the plot.
Aside from that, it seems to be mostly women I know who like it. I don't know that many guys who follow it.

I loved it--all the way through. It's more of a quick course in occultism than a superhero comic, sure, but I wouldn't call it New Age exactly. It's self-indulgent, no doubt, so I won't try to convince you... and if you thought the art was visual diarrhea it's probably useless to sing its praises to you. Which Moore do you like? League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

(look, it's my mecha debut!)

I actually loved From Hell and Watchmen right up until that two thirds mark. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is consistently good all the way through, but in a totally different way.

I love From Hell and Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and 1963 and Tom Strong and Top 10 and just about everything else. I just can't get into Promethea. And it's not like I'm not trying.

I adore everything Moore touches.

I admit, part of Promethea's lure is that at the time I was reading it (and still, to some extent), I was studying Quabalah, and occultism, and a great deal of the symbology he was using - Promethea's ascent of the tree is still the clearest explanation of the spheres I've ever read.

I don't see it as New Age bs - what he wrote about is quite different than the new age kooks I've had the misfortune of knowing. YMMV, of course, but that's how it looks from where I stand.

man, i miss comics

Comics are still there, ethylene.

but they aren't here
note the difference