Alan Moore on the Difference between LOEG and Before Watchmen

I think it was one of the French Surrealists who said, "Whenever I steal something, I leave my knife." Nobody said, "Would you like to do an Alan Quatermain miniseries?" I didn't have some company suggest that to me and, because I was under contract, I had to say "All right." I took this character that, frankly, at the time when we brought outThe Leaguewas almost entirely forgotten except by the perhaps half-a-dozen people who actually belonged toRider Haggard Society. I mean, the way that I look these days, me and Kevin, we both feel that we probably ought to be members! What we were doing was taking these often obscure literary characters and, when they were in the public domain, yes, we could use them and we could hopefully bring new ideas to them.


There wasn't any point in simply recycling these characters. I think that our interpretations of them have put them into new contexts, and have probably been truer to the originals than any of the official adaptations. We've had several probably decades of people who probably thought that Captain Nemo looked like James Mason. No, he was an Indian Prince.


KA: Right, right. Verne didn't explicitly state that until the sequel,The Mysterious Island.


AM: Right. So, it is done with respect for the material, apart from our satirical touches--in which it is sometimes done with contempt for the material. But, this is a bit different to actually, one would have thought, breeching copyright and also breeching a lot of moral obligations.


KA: And, nobody is saying thatThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemenis the official sequel toDraculaor any of the other works in question.

>>83255969
tl:dr
It's fine when I steal literary characters and change them.
It's not fine when a company uses their property because I say so.

AM: Yes, of course.The Leagueis not an adaptation. It is not me adaptingThe Invisible Man. I'm not taking those peoples' original stories. I'm against adaptation in general--and this is perhaps a different subject--but generally, and there are exceptions, I don't think it works when you adapt one story to another medium. However, there is a tradition of what we did inThe Leaguein literature. I got a great academic book some months ago and I've forgotten the name of the author but it's calledThe Afterlife of Character[ed. note - Written by David A. Brewer, 1726 - 1825]. And, you can tell it's an academic book because they didn't put an "S" after "character." You know, if they had called it "The Afterlife of Characters" that would have sounded a bit less academic! It was a very good book, and it was talking about the incredible afterlife a lot of these characters have had. I mean, Gulliver fromGulliver's Travels. There were so many books that were written about sons of Gulliver, further adventures of Gulliver, books inspired or about characters that were very similar to Gulliver. The same is true with Robinson Crusoe. That spun things likeThe Swiss Family Robinson. You know, obviously, they were a Swiss family, but it's not likely that their name was Robinson. That was a reference toRobinson Crusoe.


KA: Sure.

AM: This has gone on for centuries. And also, funnily enough, and this is one literary source from which I didn't steal, from but my friend, the writer Steve Aylett, sent me a book the other day. He'd read Hermann Hesse'sJourney to the Eastwhich was one of the few Hermann Hesse novels that I didn't read during the hippie days when it was practically compulsory to read everything that he'd ever done. But, I had never readJourney to the East. It turns out it's about a group of mythological fictional characters including Tristram Shandy and Puss in Boots, who travel around the world adventuring and are known as The League. We're going to work that in somewhere. I can't work out how, but this is a kind of tradition. It's nothing to do with comics. It has to do with grown-up books, and I'm quite happy to defend it as such.


KA: You don't see the prequels as just an extension of other writers playing in the worlds you created, in a similar fashion at all?


AM: It's not like taking the ideas wholesale. We didThe League of Extraordinary Gentlmen, because it was a story that we wanted to tell. We thought it was a good idea. We thought it would be exciting to have this huge literary and cultural mash-up. We didn't do it because we were told by our publishers to do it.


KA: Right, understood.

>>83256019
Actually I do see his point.

Like there are idiots who think WICKED affects the content of THE WIZARD OF OZ, but you can always point out that it's not an official sequel.

BEFORE WATCHMEN does claim to be part of the "official" canon. If they called it a what-if or Elseworlds story it would be closer to what LoEG is doing.

AM: Yes, I have taken jobs writing franchise characters in the past. Of course, I did Swamp Thing and loads of stuff, including Superman and Batman. But, I don't do that anymore. All that stuff was my first four or five years in the comics industry, and I hadn't really examined my thinking. But, there were things that I knew were wrong and that I didn't want to do. For example,if I had known when I'd gone into comics, that Mick Anglo's Marvelman character had not been owned by the publisherand that the publisher had not gone bankrupt as we were told--and that the Marvelman character was not in the limbo of the official receivership--then I would never have done that character. I would never have dreamed of it.


My position on all of this has hardened over the years. And, to say this is just what happens in comics--that this is just the tradition in comics--characters get passed from one creator to another and that's just how it is--why is it like that? And, where did these characters come from in the first place? Did they all spring from the brow of Zeus, fully-formed? Or, was there somebody who created them at some point? Was there a sort of Jerry Robinson or Bill Finger? Or, was there a Siegel and Schuster? Or a Martin Nodell or a Gardener Fox who got robbed? And then, of course the attitude--and I probably shared in this when I first started working for American comics--the attitude now is that it's just toys in the toy box, isn't it? You get to play with your favorite toys from the DC or Marvel toy box. Yeah, I don't want to do that anymore. Those toys were pried out of the fingers of dead men, and were pried from their families and their children. That's just wrong.


Everybody in the industry knows it's wrong and for some reason, nobody says anything about it.

It looks to me like spinelessness. It looks to me like all of these superhero comics are cowardice compensators. You've got an industry that has never stood up for itself, and where the people who did try and stand up for themselves got fired--like all of DC's competent writers during the '60s like John Broome and Gardener Fox. They suggested forming a union and at the mere suggestion of it, they were all fired. And, a generation of fan artists and writers were brought in as kind of scab labor because they would have paid to write Batman. That has pretty much delivered the kind of comic market that we have today. Like I say, it's a good industry to be out of.

Sauce


http://www.seraphemera.org/seraphemera_books/Alan_Moore_Interview.html

>>83256019
>doesn't understand the difference between public domain and corporate exploitation

What's it like to be a literal retard?

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>>83256176
>It looks to me like spinelessness. It looks to me like all of these superhero comics are cowardice compensators. You've got an industry that has never stood up for itself, and where the people who did try and stand up for themselves got fired--like all of DC's competent writers during the '60s like John Broome and Gardener Fox. They suggested forming a union and at the mere suggestion of it, they were all fired. And, a generation of fan artists and writers were brought in as kind of scab labor because they would have paid to write Batman.

Based Moore.

While were on the subject whats Moore's biggest work that Wasnt based on somebody elses characters.

Top Ten?

>>83256434
V, Promethea, and From Hell.

Unless you count Jack as a character from somebody else?

>>83256434
We could argue about From Hell

>>83256434
If you don't count Watchmen because of its Charleston-riff roots, then V for Vendetta, easily.

>>83256520
Promethea was just his Glory run with the names changed.

Which makes it a pastiche of a pastiche

So Yeah V it is then

Alan Moore did nothing wrong.

>>83256529
Thinking on it further, it's fucking stupid not to count Watchmen. So what if it was inspired by old Charlton heroes? Everything is inspired by something. Superman was inspired by Gladiator; Batman was inspired by the Shadow and Zorro. It's an original story with original characters, as much as anything ever is.

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>>83255969
>But there's no real comparison. InThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I am not adapting characters. I am flat out stealing them in what I think is an honorable way.
Why is he so perfect?

>>83256019
It's more that Moore did it because he felt he wanted to tell a good story that happen to use other characters. While DC just wanted to make money off of Watchmen.

>>83256915
Also the fact that it's hard to give a company whose business model is still based on a 75-year history of theft the benefit of the doubt.

>>83257092
Really is fucking awful. It's sad how Image really should have been the ones to really change things up but because no one there knew how to handle a company they fucked everything up.

>>83256915

...Rembrandt was an artist. But he wasn't painting art for the sake of art.

DC is a company. They have to eat.

I don't know what Alan Moore thinks comics are supposed to be. Apart from fun, hopefully a little edifying, hopefully a little instructive.

From what little I have read of 'Before Watchmen' it seemed perfectly serviceable.

>>83256895
gimme the chochi edit

yknow the one

>>83257164
What exactly are you talking about? Image is doing pretty great...

>>83256149
>the attitude now is that it's just toys in the toy box, isn't it? You get to play with your favorite toys from the DC or Marvel toy box. Yeah, I don't want to do that anymore. Those toys were pried out of the fingers of dead men, and were pried from their families and their children. That's just wrong.

Industry BTFO

>>83257182
Moore wanted a paycheck too. I'm not saying it was solely done because of the art. But Moore felt LoEG was more than just a paycheck. Before Watchmen was done for the sole reason of making money of the Watchmen name. I haven't touched Before Watchmen so I can't talk about their quality but the reason DC did it wasn't because they wanted to expand on Watchmen or try to improve on it. It was done solely to make a few extra bucks. Moore is just pissed about DC being allowed to make Before Watchmen because to him they don't own Watchmen.

>>83255969
>>83256006
>>83256038
>>83256082
I ain't reading this shit nigga

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>>83255969

God damn

It's like "this nigga can NOT be serious", BUT HE IS

/co/ loves to demonize the guy but he's not wrong.

>>83256866
It was an outright satire.

Thats like calling Superduperman not based on something

>>83257092
Jesus christ.

Signing a contract and gettinf piasy about it later doesnt mean you were robbed.

Siegel and Shuster BEGGED to sell Superman

>>83255969
>implying Alan Moore "created" Watchmen

The biggest crock of shit in comics industry history is the lie that Steve Ditko wasn't the real "creator" of Watchmen. All his contributions have been ignored just because of asspained liberalfags who are asspained that he's a libertarian.

>>83257387
Industry AND characterfags BTFO

>>83257740
Keep your Rorschach boner under the table please.

>>83257235
The internet has become what Image wished it was.
Image is just a place for rich men to dump cash for vanity projects, already established creators to try to milk adapations for loot and newcomers gambling life savings to get "into the industry " and getting less than minimum wage in return


Theyre the Rebeca Blacks company of comics

>>83257607
Siegel and Schuster created one of the most famous pop-culture figures of all time. Their creation has earned DC untold millions, if not billions, of dollars over the years. And they would have died penniless if Warner hadn't been guilted into giving them a token pension.

If you think that state of affairs is okay because "they signed a contract" you are human garbage.

>>83257920
>The internet has become what Image wished it was.
Zero quality control: the place? Pretty poor wishing on behalf of Image...

> already established creators to try to milk adapations for loot and newcomers gambling life savings to get "into the industry " and getting less than minimum wage in return
I see nothing wrong with either of those, even when you're obviously exaggerating.

>Theyre the Rebeca Blacks company of comics
I don't know who that is.

>>83257740
Fun fact: Ditko has never read watchmen, and is only vaguely aware it exists.

>>83258058
Yeah, and the foundations of our nations' great cities were laid by the hands of slaves.

I understand and respect Moore's position but I don't subscribe to this philosophy of original sin.

>>83256304
So it's okay because Alan doesn't have to pay anybody for stealing their ideas?

>>83257387
>Those toys were pried out of the fingers of dead men, and were pried from their families and their children.

You did the same thing, you Northern cunt.

>>83258224
Did he, though? He's pretentious but he managed not to infringe on anyone's copyright and take their money. DC promised him he'd get the Watchmen rights back when it went out of print (no comic had ever been reprinted more than once or twice before then), and then kept it in print for decades, even during sales lulls, to keep it theirs.

>>83258322
>He's pretentious but he managed not to infringe on anyone's copyright and take their money.

Because he stole public domain characters.

> DC promised him he'd get the Watchmen rights back when it went out of print (no comic had ever been reprinted more than once or twice before then), and then kept it in print for decades, even during sales lulls, to keep it theirs.

Then he should get some better business sense.

The worst part is, he's absolutely right and nobody wants to listen.

>>83258377
>Because he stole public domain characters
Not that Anon, but by definition you can't steal public domain characters.

>>83258224
No he didn't
When he found out the creator of Miracle Man was alive and never had the chance to copyright the character he decided that all of his future profits on MM were to be directed to him and his family. He even tried to convince Marvel to remove any mention of "Alan Moore" from the books

>>83258425
So that makes it okay for him to get on his high horse because Lewis Carroll can't collect?

>>83256176
>scab labor
Reminder that Arthur Scargill was a literal Soviet agent.
Also, reminder that labour isn't spelled that way. Fuck off yank transcriber.

>>83258377
Harry Potter, Mary Poppins, Babar, Fu Manchu, James Bond, and Emma Peele are not public domain characters.

>>83258441
>He even tried to convince Marvel to remove any mention of "Alan Moore" from the books

He succeeded, I think aside from a mention in one of the introductions, all of his stories are attributed to "the original writer".

Alan is no phony.

>>83258501
Give the bastard credit, he's insane, but when he says "Take my name off of this and give my share of the money to the artist," he means it.

Then again I'm not sure he's actually penniless or anything.

>>83258377
>Steal

>Public Domain

American public education everyone!

>>83258492
And none of them are mentioned in his work, hooray!

>>83258501
I don't know how these things work, because here in Italy I often see the MM book around and Alan Moore is always on the cover

>>83258530
Alan is no different from DC. He just takes ideas from people who can't sue him.

>>83258539
Okay, you didn't come to this argument even knowing what the fuck's going on, so I'm out.

>>83258542
Probably a different publisher? For shits and giggles, send Alan pics and see what happens.

>>83256434
Constantine, V for Vendetta, Promethea, From Hell, Tom Strong, Top 10...

I mean, Watchmen is original characters, too. Compare Doctor Manhattan to Captain Atom, or even Rorschach to the Question, and it's pretty clear that they're just "inspired by", not reskins.

>>83258577
Probably, yeah, Panini handles Marvel stuff here

>>83257423
>I haven't touched Before Watchmen so I can't talk about their quality
The answer is "not great".

The better entries are irrelevant and can be ignored. The worse ones actively work against the ideas of the original Watchmen.

>>83258625
Dollar Bill, Nite-Owl, and Dr. Manhattan were all middling.

Moloch was the one I liked most, but it's not like it actually needed to exist.

Explain what he did with Harry Potter.

I don't mean to sound like one of those "it's a conspiracy!" types, but does anybody ever get the feeling there's a smear campaign against Moore?

>>83257570
>Thats like calling Superduperman not based on something
Confirmed for not having read the original Charlton characters.

The only reason Captain Atom looks anything like Doctor Manhattan nowadays is because of Doctor Manhattan. Nite Owl reminds most people more of Adam West Batman than Blue Beetle. Rorschach shares a hat and trenchcoat and an extremist philosophy (not the same one, mind you) with The Question.

>>83258683
GASP

>>83258159
Do you understand why copyright exists? It's to encourage people to create art by giving them a financial incentive of exclusive right of sale. Beyond the financial incentive, it is just that the creator of something beloved should profit from that creation.

Now, do you understand why copyright is limited? It's because copyright is an unnatural thing, imposed upon the culture by the State for the benefit of artists. Once the original artist has profited sufficiently to ensure the incentive of copyright works (and also probably after they die) the work returns to the public domain. Because ultimately culture belongs to they people.

If you understand both these things, then you will understand why using public domain characters is fine, while corporate ownership of copyright is obscene.

Good old Alan. I love that man. Remember that not all thefts are alike

>>83258683
He spent how many years being a bitter cunt, talking high and mighty while he makes erotic fan fiction of fairytale girls? Morrison is a better wizard too.

>>83258680
He made him the anti-Christ or something
Now that I think about it, that was probably a joke about how some Christian extremists reacted to the character's popularity back then

>>83257740
>The biggest crock of shit in comics industry history is the lie that Steve Ditko wasn't the real "creator" of Watchmen. All his contributions have been ignored just because of asspained liberalfags who are asspained that he's a libertarian.
...wut

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>>83258539
>none of them are mentioned in his work

>>83258683
>there's a smear campaign against Moore?

Not really... here's the thing, he says hard truths that people don't wanna listen to. In this sense, his own words damage his public image more than a campaign would. Hero we need, not deserve, etc.

>>83258680
He used him as an avatar for all the ugliness and pettiness he sees in the modern world and shallow fiction, which I don't think was fair but whatever, I'm not going to feel bad for Harry. He doesn't fucking exist, and if he did he'd have magic powers and a ginger to fuck while I sit here aching from working a shit job.

>>83258377
>public domain
>steal
What.

>>83258780
>Implying Hermione wouldn't be the one trying to reason with him while Ron pissed himself and begged for his mother

Missed that one, Alan. Oh well.

>>83258754
>Morrison is a better wizard too
Grant please go and stay go.

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>>83258377
>he stole public domain characters
>stole
>public domain

>>83258780
Do you know what a parody is?

>>83258743
That's a lot of high-minded garbage. The law doesn't care about "encouraging creativity". It's all business.Moore can sniff his own farts all he likes, he's playing with a toy box as much as DC is.

>>83258780
Please point to where the words "Hogwarts", "Harry Potter" or "Voldemort" were used.

>>83258798
>>83258848

I meant "steal" as in "rip-off" you illiterate faggots.

>>83258854
Supposed to be funny?

>>83258920
Oh that's completely alright then, he's just ripping off the characters without even acknowledging their creator. That's much better.

>>83258942
It's not a rip-off if it is the actual characters.

>>83257607
>Signing a contract and gettinf piasy about it later doesnt mean you were robbed.
Getting fucked and moving on doesn't mean you didn't get fucked.

>>83258104
The company that put out Rebecca Blacks video was an outfit that would make a song and music video for anyone who pays.

Image holds a similar pattern, if you have the grands to spend you get to have a comic out.

Image was mesbt to be a vehicle for creator owned books without answering to a boss and getting all your proper proceeds.

Right now its mostly used by already big names so they can get option money actual support of new creators is next to nil because of how little money the system is.

Image only works if you are already wealthy.

The internet serves to actually get out whateve books you want and keep total ownership with next to nothing paid out of pocket.

Its Ultimate creative freedom.


Im not using that to insult Image they do good books, but they have not lived to the ideal.

>>83258888
>lot of high-minded garbage
Ah, the "stupid and proud of it" kind of anon. You go, man. Don't let anyone bring you down with their "facts" or "reasoning". Your gut tells you what's what, and it's never wrong!

>>83258557
Do you just not know what public domain, intellectual property, and copyright are?

Public domain exists so that, years after the creators are dead, the characters can get new life.

I can't understand why Johnsfags get triggered so hard by people like Moore or Gaiman.

>>83259004
So then DC isn't ripping-off Moore. Glad we settled that.

>>83259014
>facts

Is that what you call your flowery rhetoric?

>>83259019

>the characters can get new life.

It's about business, anon. Just business.

>>83259011
Problem is no one fucking buys comics anymore, and it's a logistical and expensive nightmare getting LCS's to order, stock and re-stock them. You have to basically be insane to want to do monthly issue comics instead of graphic novels.

>>83258058
They literally DESIGNED Superman to sell him to a company.

They were not swindled or cheated or sneaked into anything, they desperatly wanted to sell . They chose to totally sell him to DC because they had no idea how big he would get. DC had no obligation because Superman was theres, thats what sold means. I cant sell you a horse and expect to get proceeds of all its race winnings unless that was our deal.

Hell, the only reason its a comic book is because the newspapers wouldnt take it.

>>83258975
>Supposed to be funny?

Nope, it's not a requirement.

To be fair those pages are funny.

>>83259080
I've read this before, Moore is obvious, but why did people (supposedly) start hating on Gaiman and Sandman?

>>83258159
The tldr is that Moore says its ok because he just does fanfiction.

>>83258888

Believe it or not, the law does care about encouraging certain behaviors and discouraging others. That is basically its main purpose.

But I'm interested in hearing your logic anyway. Do you think copyright shouldn't exist? Or that it should be permanent?

>>83258790

And this is why I don't feel bad for Watchmen. The literary worth of the charters isn't what's important here

>>83259011
>Image holds a similar pattern, if you have the grands to spend you get to have a comic out.
That is good, is it not?

>Right now its mostly used by already big names so they can get option money actual support of new creators is next to nil because of how little money the system is.
I see, that's legit criticism. However, Image isn't the only publishing company out there, and if getting to publish a comic if you have the money to do it is their goal, that's perfectly fine.

Image has their place in the industry and I would say they do more good than bad, would you not?

>>83258975
Its satire/parody, thats fucking allowed.

Snl doesnt steal when they do a sketch.

>>83259154
>(supposedly)

Yeah, I've never seen hate for Gaiman actually.

>>83259128
So are you against they very IDEA of public domain?
So no Dracula or Sherlock Holmes stories shoyld ever be made?

>>83258975
>Supposed to be funny?
Nnnnno? Parody isn't always comedic.

>>83258942
>I meant "steal" as in "rip-off" you illiterate faggots.
That's not what "rip-off" means, anon. A "rip-off" is when you produce a new work designed solely to exploit the brand visibility of an existing or upcoming product, largely by confusing consumers or being cheaper in exchange for lower quality - like creating Transmorphers while Transformers is on the cinema.

By contrast, the Sherlock movies starring RDJ are not "rip-offs" of Conan Doyle's work.

>people actually defend DC and Marvel
>even in the year our Lord 2016, where they can get their capeshit fix from Valiant
Blows my fucking mind it does.

>>83259290

He's not respectful to the characters or the creators wishes. I don't think J.M Barry would have appreciated Wendy being used for porn no matter how "tasteful" Moore thinks it is

>>83259080
>I can't understand why Johnsfags get triggered so hard by people like Moore or Gaiman.
The latter two produce actual art instead of just bashing their favourite action figures together and writing down the results. This leaves fans of the former feeling insecure and aggressive.

>>83256304
>it's okay because the original authors are dead!
>it's not okay for a company to use what they own tho

No anon you are the fucking retard.

>>83259343
>So are you against they very IDEA of public domain?

No, you must be confusing my posts with some other anon's. For the record I'm actually for the idea of public domain beginning when the creator dies, regardless of current ownership.

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>>83259345
>creating Transmorphers while Transformers is on the cinema
wait that's an actual thing

>>83259397

You can like all of them. I wont stop reading Morrison because Moore told me not to

>>83259228
I never said they didnt. I said the internet better serves the ideal of Image than Image does .

>>83259446
That's terrible. "Son, I've written a book I think will put you through college and sent it to the publisher, they're very excited about it." "That's great, dad! Let's go out and have dinner to celebrate. OH NO!" "I've been hit by a bus and am dead! Aieee!"

Then the publisher prints it, makes millions, other publishers do the same because nobody has a copyright it, and the son gets a job at Burger King.

Asshole.

>>83259377
How the hell is anyone supposed to get editorial approval from dead people?

Do you know what Fair Use is?

>>83259582
I think leaving rights in wills is allowed

>>83258683
he slags off a company that manchildren for some stupid fucking reason feel loyal to. of course they'll shit talk him.

>>83259418
So do you think public domain shouldn't exist? Or that artists don't deserve control of and compensation for their work during their lifetime?

Could all you fanboys try to articulate a coherent position instead of making obvious false equivalencies?

>>83259640
Why does it have to be either of those pants-shittingly stupid extremes?

>>83259080
they know Johns will never produce work within spitting distance of shit like Watchmen or Sandman.

He's just an okay cape writer. and that is fine.

>>83259640
He is free to use whatever he wants but it doesn't change the fact that he is only using those characters because they are popoular fictional characters.
He is selling fan fiction and saying it's fine because the authors are dead and somehow this makes it more morally acceptable than DC using characters they legally own.

At the end of the day it's the same thing, using characters created by others without the permission of the original authors.
Copyright laws aren't the point of the discussion.

>>83259512
But I don't know if that was the ideal of Image. The ideal of Image I believe was creative freedom and no interference from above, not creative fostering. I don't know if any publisher's mission is.

I mean, even if it was, I was already reading comics when Image was born and I mostly remember it feeling like a place where authors would unleash their full potential. Sometimes good, mostly bad.

There is nothing wrong in what you said, what I'm taking issue is mentioning Image, when Image doesn't stand for what you think it does and is doing a good job on their own.

>>83259582
The profit from that book can be inherited to the son, but any further works based on that book, using the characters or settings from that book shouldn't, because clearly the creator isn't involved.

I'm clearly not in charge of any of this shit so don't get too worked up.

Wait a second didnt Moore re-use the same setting he did in Neonomicon for his current comic called Providence ?

He is basically writing a prequel for a book.

>>83259880
It's also a semi-sequel and spiritual sister to League

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>>83256087
In absolute fairness, Before Watchmen doesn't do shit to Watchmen

Watchmen is right there. It hasn't changed.

Nothing about this picture right here changes a damn thing about Watchmen.

>>83259801
>Popular characters
>Alan Qatermain, Captain Nemo,John Carter...

Loeg is lit major family guy.

Jekyl Hyde is literally the one mainstream character of the leauge

Who the fuck knows who Mina Nurray is?

>>83259798
But Watchmen and the Sandman are also cape books.

And honestly SCW is a masterpiece>>83259849
Hard to unleash your full potential when you need to put up ten grand just to play ball.

>>83259954
>Who the fuck knows who Mina Nurray is?

literally anyone who's read the most famous vampire story of all time? Or any of its adaptations?

>inb4 lel my misspelling was intentional I was only pretending to be retarded

>>83259954
Anyone who read Dracula you idiot.

>>83259154

Lex Luthor's Action Comic after Johns tried to push his idea of Death. Gaimanfags get pissed, and they got what they wanted, but johnsfags then were insulted,

>>83255969
>no see it's ok when I do it because I'm Alan Moore
Washed up hack is still a hypocrite, full story at 11

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>>83260032
>Sandman is a cape book
wat

>>83260138
It literally has Batman in it senpai

it takes place in the DC universe proper.

>>83260032
Johns is just a cape writter doesnt mean the other guys are not.But Johns has NEVER done anything as good as whatever happened to the man of tomorrow or whatever happened to the caped crusader and just by looking at his modern work it's clear he is already forgot how to do a good story.

>>83260115
Didn't he rewrite it so Death was only Death for nice people or some bullshit?

>>83260268
And Alan Moore is a bitter old pornographer coasting by on work he did in the 80's.

>>83260126
How is Moore a Hack? Why are Johnsfags so butthurt? Moore is an angry cunt bu the guy's shit can make better stories than Rebirth

>>83259911
How so?

>>83260318
>coasting by on work he did in the 80's.

At least he has work he can coast by on

>>83259801
Copyright laws are entirely relevant. They set the terms of public domain, and I don't see how you can talk about TLoEG in this context without talking about public domain.

The law isn't always right. DC legally owns Watchmen, but they have no moral right to it, because they didn't create it. You can say "well, Moore shouldn't have signed the contract," but we both know that we don't live in a perfect world where corporations and contractors always negotiate on equal terms. And we never will until people stop acting like the way Marvel and DC do business is okay.

By the way, what's your position on the unprecedented measures DC used to maintain the rights to Watchmen by keeping it perpetually in print even when sales didn't justify it? Is it okay as long as it obeys the letter of the contract, even if it's dishonest?

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>>83260323
>Moore is an angry cunt bu the guy's shit can make better stories than Rebirth
I see someone's asking for a storytime of Neonomicon.

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>>83260318
>he hasn't read Providence

>>83260358
>semi-sequel
characters from Neonomicon show up and it's implied that Providence is Cthulhu creating a new world retroactively

>League
All of Lovecraft exists and interacts

His comic in Cinema Purgatorio was like a bad creepypasta he should be embarrassed

>>83260208
I realize that, but 90% of Sandman has nothing to do with superheroes. They only appear in volume 1 and 10 iirc.

>>83260397
>moral rights
That's a retarded argument if Moore wanted to own the characters he should have signed a different contract

>>83260441
>Providence

More Lovecraft mythos and rape? I'll pass.

>>83260410
We like Neonomicon.

>>83260397
so if Alan Moore was dead there would be no problem in using Watchmen?

>>83260318
And? Whats wrong with that?

When moore was 32 he was working on Watchmen and already started V for vendetta, and swamp thing

When he was 42 he was working in SUPREME.

At age 43 Johns was working on Darkseid War.

>>83260410
Wasn't Neonomicon okay outside of the fish-rape?

>>83260493
>he doesn't remember Hector Hall
>he doesn't remember that Sandman literally affected canon of the rest of the DC universe across its books

>>83258141
Great analogy.

But the slaves are dead. the leaders are dead, the natio changed.

Moore lives, the guys responsible most are alive, DC hasnt changed.

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>>83260615
near the entire book is fish rape

so technically, yes.

>>83260057
>>83260066
Dracula is the only character in dracula who is mainstream popular.

In fact most peple who know of Dracula never read the novel.

Not unsimilar to modern superheroes and there films in fact

>>83257740
Ditko doesn’t give a shit he is still doing what he loves best, making his own comics and being left the fuck alone while doing it.

>>83260305
He was trying to do the weismman thing from Captain Atom. And then the whole "darkseid captured death or at least part of it". There was a lot of shitpost on that storytime.

>>83260268
Whatever happened to the man of tommorow is steaming shit.

Its Ultimatum for silver age superman with really poor plotting.

Worst thing Moore has writte that I know of.

>>83260410
How is that not better than Rebirth?

Rebirth is a piece of crap the only good things are the consequences. But in general is just another FCBD comic.

>>83260558
Moore signed a contract that would let him own the characters! DC used a loophole to make it so they would never get to that phase of the agreement, and it was a practice with nearly no precedence, are we going to mock Moore for not being able to predict the future?

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>>83260661
Well I can tell YOU'VE never read Dracula, for one

And you appear to have never seen a movie or any other adaptation either.

Fucking moron.

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>>83260701

>>83259219
That shows you didnt worked something from your own.
Sad little sheep anon.

>>83260701
Quality Cereal post

>>83260115
>>83260305
Those were Greg Weisman and Paul Cornell.

This is a Crisis on Infinite Wrong.

Taking two books by two different folk, making up what they did AND attributing them to a third unrealated creator.

Jesus

>>83260615

>Fish rapoe

Fucking hell I like Moore but can he just stop with the fucking rape. It's shit like this that makes it easy for people to b8 and call him a hack

>>83260714
It's in the contract he should have considered that. Did he not read it closely or think before he signed? Moore isn't a victim he signed it himself

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>>83260724
even weeboos would agree with you

>>83260794

What? He didn't respect Harry Potter so why should I respect Watchmen.
Is it OK to shit on somebody elses work just because you don't like it but then cry when other people use yours?

>>83260397
Sales did justify it because if they went out of print, they lost it forever.

Seriously though, surprised no one noticed such an obvius work around at the time.

>>83260615
No it wasn't.
Moore had admitted he hadn't read a lot of Lovecraft at that point and it shows.

It's like we went through a Lovecraft encyclopedia and started throwing terms out when he felt like it.
Neonomicon is shit.

But Providence is so good...it makes it better

>>83260810
Blackest Night Used Weisman idea of Death, and then Johns repeated it in Darkseid War.

>>83260867
>>83260724
What is the most recent mass media apearance of Mina Nurray?

Aside from the horrid LXG itself

>>83260558
I can't tell if you're actually an edgy teen who thinks he's smart for realizing that the world isn't fair, or just a desperate cape fan grasping at any available straw to avoid grappling with the injustices that Marvel and DC's empires are built on.

>>83260590
I think an author's heirs have some right to the profits in the event of premature death. If Watchmen were in the public domain I would have no problem with anyone using it, because that's what the public domain is for and I think it's a good thing.

>>83260953
Probably that Dracula TV show with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers after The Tudors ended. So 2014.

>>83260953
>I've been shown to be a fucking retard but I'm committed to this argument now

It's okay anon, you can just close and hide this thread and in a couple of hours you'll have entirely forgotten how you looked like a retard

Also for fuck sakes, it's Mina Murray.

And several. Dracula Untold, Penny Dreadful, Dance in the Vampire Bund...

>>83260778
>>83260799
This is not bait.
I could write an entire book on how shitty that book is.

I think I did an annoted story time a while back.

The entire book is

1. Insert gooy silver age character
2. They now kill and die
3.Repeat

Thats its entire premise its a superhero slasher film, and slasher films tend to suck.

Aside from that, the plot is on rails with a shit ton of character idioation, plot holes and general contortions of the plot to get it to work.

And the ending literally says the very idea of Superman was a bad idea.

Its almost a paraody of the cliche people have of Moore.

Its really bad.

>>83261024
>marvel and DC's empires
You take funny books way too seriously the comic book industry is pitiful

>>83260927
Death wasnt even IN Blackest Night.

And Nekron didnt even follow the "Weisman" rules. Hell, he wasnt even death in that book!

Does anyone here read?

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>>83261087
>I could write an entire book on how shitty that book is.
Well, go ahead.

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>>83260953
>>83261027

Dracula untold

>>83261143
That was also in 2014.

>>83261087
>1. Insert gooy silver age character
>2. They now kill and die
>3.Repeat

Isn't that Johns?

>>83260953
Mina Murray is in the current Showtime series Penny Dreadful,

>>83261124
>Hell, he wasnt even death in that book!

Yeah, we know, that's the whole point of She being in Action Comics. Blackest night was a retarded mess. God, remember the new origin of life?

>>83261024
There is no injustice in this case. Moore made a decision he regretted and whined about for decades

>>83261074
>>83261027
>>83261143
Guys. I know we value power levels but she is not well known.

The dudes entire premise that loeg was taking advantage of well known charaters was faulty, because Alan himself noted he picked mostly obscure shit.

Even the big names like Mycroft, Mauareu and Dracula are behind the scenes or plot tools, rather than full fledged characters.


Alan fucking Quatermain for gods sakes .

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>>83261190
I knew it, i just didnt want anyone to claim my waifu

>>83261121
The power of DC and (especially) Marvel isn't in funny books. You know that.

>>83261179
Yes, except Johns revives them and then sets up a painfully artificial nostalgia moment.

>>83261087
>And the ending literally says the very idea of Superman was a bad idea.

Characterfag got triggerd lmao

>>83260323
>Imediately assuming that the guy was a Johnsfag solely because he is criticizing Moore.

So who's butthurt here?

>>83255969
As someone who lives in North Hampton, I've seen Moore about the town, on a good day, he's one of the nicest bongs in all of Britannia, but on a bad day, he's going to everyone and letting out all of his rage

>>83261228
>Alan fucking Quatermain for gods sakes .


How is that obscure?
The whole point is that is a well known character. Look i seriously can't understand that in a board like this people seem to think is normal not to read classics, even if you didnt had to do it in school but for fucks sake, even /tv/ is better than this.

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>>83261087
>And the ending literally says the very idea of Superman was a bad idea.

>>83261335
Does he dress like a wizard

>>83261269
What power? Are you talking about movies? How are they powerful?

>>83261374
No, but he looks like a mystical hobo a lot of the time.

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>>83261228
I'll admit Alan Quatermain is -kinda- obscure. Most people if they HAVE heard of him go 'that's the guy who George Lucas totally ripped off to make Indiana Jones right' which is pretty damn inaccurate (fuck Cracked).

If you're lucky you'll find someone who remembers the movies from the 80s.

reminder that Chamberlain was buttfucking the guy playing his brother in the sequel to this movie

>>83261374
Speaking of which, does anybody have the comic strip where Moore is dressed like a stereotypical wizard and is putting a curse on DC comics?

>>83257520
But he's not right either....

Speaking of Dracula and respecting the creator and their families how do you guys feel about Dracula The Undead written by Dacre Stocker being pushed as an official sequel to the book?

>>83258425
And DC didn't steal anything by a legal definition either. We obviously aren't using legal definitions here you sack of shit.

>>83256355
>>83256895
>based
>perfect

This is what we're calling SJWs now?

>>83258711
Nite Owl is a pretty goddamn close copy. The only reason people hone in on Batman is because normalfags don't know who the fucking Blue Beetle is.

>>83261405
Are you seriously unaware that money gives you power?

>>83261630
Money gives you advanced hoarding abilities and peace of mind. It does not give you power.

>>83261087
>Aside from that, the plot is on rails with a shit ton of character idioation, plot holes and general contortions of the plot to get it to work.
Gosh, almost as if the plot was being manipulated by some 5th dimensional imp! Oh wait.

>>83261676

Come on mate...

>>83261676
You're right, it's not like Super-PACs and rich organizations hold power in our very government right now, money has nothing to do with that.

>>83261630
Does Moore have a lot of money or does he have to pay alimony to his lesbian ex wife?

>>83261630
Moore still gets paid for watchmen. What is the issue?

>>83260794
>>83260879
A better comparison would probably be what DC's doing right now with Rebirth. They're sort of taking Doc Manhattan to task for the perceived effect that Watchmen had on comics, and on DC in particular. And like the Harry Potter analogy, it's probably not entirely fair, but it's still an interesting criticism of pop culture through the burning of much-loved effigies.

>>83260821
But that's how you weed out the plebs easily. Like >>83260570

>>83262046
Moore is just a smelly old pornographer. Accept it.

>>83262018
At least Johns had the decency of saying that Manhattan isn't an actual villain and that he's just an entity that represents a cynical point of view because that's how his world was. Moore turned Harry Potter into an antichrist that could shoot lightning out of his dick.

>>83262224
Well, he plainly says so himself. I don't see the problem.

>>83262224
He may be all of those things (I haven't smelled him, personally.) But he is not JUST those things.

>>83261621
He's a little bit like Batman. He has the whole "rich parents die and leave him an inheritance he used to fund his crimefighting activities" angle. Everything else is pure Ted, though.

>minimal bitching when Constantine and Swamp Thing are put into the DCU
>absolutely no one says a thing when the Endless show up briefly too
>but suddenly when Watchmen is canonized people flip their shit and argue about the sanctity of these characters despite them being transparent rip-offs of the Charlton heroes and despite the fact that Watchmen has always been a DC book so any relationship it might have to the multiverse would make complete sense

Basically everything I've learned this week since Rebirth has boiled down to Watchmen being too sacred to even breathe on while other properties that are just as good and perhaps even better can go to hell if the same thing happens to them.

I couldn't make it through the first couple of sentences before I was bored

>>83263388
Not that I dislike Rebirth -- I enjoyed it quite a bit -- but Constantine, Swamp Thing, and the Endless were always connected explicitly to DC properties. Watchmen was only sort of nominally inspired by DC characters by way of Charlton. It would be more like if Transmetropolitan got forced into mainline DC.

>>83263388
>minimal bitching when Constantine and Swamp Thing are put into the DCU

Since day one? Why would anyone complain about that.

>>83262538
well yes

he's also a bitter self-righteous tool

>>83260867
You've got to have read or watched an adaptation of Dracula to understand the importance of SHE

>>83255969
>barely-educated thug


At least the prick is honest.

>>83263479
Do you really think your inability to read more than two sentences at a time makes you cool and aloof rather than a literal retard?

>>83259168
So if Marvel and DC came out and finally admitted that they're publishing fanfiction it would be okay?

>>83263608
And a great writer. Don't forget!

>>83263608
And the most influential comic book creator since Jack Kirby.

>>83263388
Swamp Thing, Constantine and the Endless were always in the DCU though.

>>83263771
He's an alright writer who has a major problem writing endings to stories. That makes him about... Scott Snyder tier tbqh.
>>83263786
That's not a good thing, when you look at the state of modern comics.

>>83263846
>when you look at the state of modern comics
By "comics", do you mean "capeshit"?

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>>83263388
>it's a oneshot story, it doesn't need a sequel!
>moore's characters are way too cerebral for dc's. not one single hero is on rorschach's level intellectually, let alone manhattan's.
>dc did enough to alan moore, this is just spitting on his defiled corpse.
>watchmen exists as a comic in the dc universe, why would it suddenly be its own world?

I overheard all of this from a group of tabletop players who were discussing Rebirth when I went to my comic store on Thursday, so the bitching isn't just contained to /co/.

>>83263846
Stop with this "I'm so cool and different because I don't like Alan Moore" hipster bullshit. Nobody's buying it and you just sound desperate.

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>>83263846
>He's an alright writer

Speaking from someone whose only exposure to Moore was Watchmen and TKJ, what other objectively good stories has he written? I genuinely want to learn more about this dude.

>>83264040
The best story he ever wrote was V for Vendetta.

TKJ was not objectively good.

>>83263802
To be honest, I would think it was stupid if they made the Endless a major part of a big storyline too. Yes, they're technically in the DCU, but they've been essentially out of it for so long that it would have the same feeling of desperately grasping at something popular to get attention that this Watchmen bullshit does.

A minor reference is a totally different thing though.

>>83264040
"Objectively" is a dubious term, especially when it comes to art. But I'd recommend Tom Strong, Top Ten, From Hell, his run on Swamp Thing and V For Vendetta.

>>83264040
From Hell is fucking brilliant, up there with Watchmen in quality.

>>83264040
His run on Swamp Thing is more or less universally agreed to be great. V for Vendetta is pretty well liked, too. And I love The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but some people take issue with it in ways that are explained all throughout this thread.

I haven't read From Hell because the lettering makes my eyes bleed, but I hear it's really good.

>>83264040
Providence

>>83264040
Almost everything he's ever written is above average, so it depends what you want.

>V for Vendetta
>From Hell
>Miracle/Marvelman
>Swamp Thing
>Tom Strong
>Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow
>League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

All should be mandatory readings for any comic book fan, and his current Providence is god tier.

>>83264083
>TKJ was not objectively good

Why not?

>>83256149
>Was there a sort of Jerry Robinson or Bill Finger?
You cheeky bastard

>>83263894
> it doesn't need a sequel!

This is what bothers me the most. You have an emotional moment with Wally and Barry, the return of several beloved characters, multiple themes that include legacy and the importance of optimism and hope, the foundations laid for the future of the dc universe, and story that acknowledges the entire history of the dc universe, and the only thing people care about it's the watchmen reveal, to the point where they refer to it as a sequel. Nevermind everything else.

>>83263998
>I like the writers I'm supposed to like

Good goy.

>>83264243
>You have an emotional moment with Wally and Barry, the return of several beloved characters, multiple themes that include legacy and the importance of optimism and hope, the foundations laid for the future of the dc universe

Maybe people can see through those gimmicks?

Returning characters, "emotional" moments? Yawn, if DC took all those away for a sales gimmick, and is bringing them back for another sales gimmick... you can see where this is going, no?

I don't know, I could be giving people too much credit.

>>83264214
nayrt, but i think it relies too much on shock value instead of real substance, and it's pretty much responsible for turning the joker into an edgemaster mass murderer.

i think some people are discouraged too by the fact that it's such a simple story with very simple themes, unlike the majority of moore's other work. i don't think that's a bad thing at all, though; it's a nice, easy read and a pretty good window into the changes dc was putting their characters through at the time to make them darker, which would lead to burton's batman, then to btas, etc.

>>83264371
Not like the Watchmen thing isn't a sales gimmick too.

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>>83264243
>multiple themes that include legacy and the importance of optimism and hope, the foundations laid for the future of the dc universe, and story that acknowledges the entire history of the dc universe
Absolutely disgusting, especially with Johns at the helm.

>>83264435
True. It will probably all succeed, nostalgia sells, for a while.

>>83264371
The "gimmick" here is that they're bringing back a beloved setting and history, and scrapping one that was received lukewarmly. It's only "sales" in that people want to buy things they enjoy.

I guess I don't see where the cynicism is coming from. Are you aghast at people wanting things?

>>83264256
Sounding even more desperate there.

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>>83256006
>I took this character that, frankly, at the time when we brought outThe Leaguewas almost entirely forgotten except by the perhaps half-a-dozen people who actually belonged toRider Haggard Society.

Except for, y'know, those two Richard Chamberlain movies they made to ride the Indiana Jones money train.

>>83255969
>American comic industry
Well, I always wonder when will this shit die, everything about it after 2000 is just a pile of shit especially from the big 2 like DC and Marvel.

>>83256718
Halo Jones

>>83264621
>le comic industry must die maymay

Moorefriends, looking past all the legal bullshit DC and Moore have went though and just focusing on the creative aspect, what are your thoughts on DC actually WRITING the Watchmen characters? I keep hearing the same old song and dance about how bad it is that they're USING them from a corporate standpoint, but no one ever talks about how it's giving other writers, some of whom were inspired by Moore to go into the business, the opportunity to write these characters in interesting new ways that may only be possible in the new setting.

Do you think that Moore is the only one who can write them well?

>>83258827
>Suggesting that Alan Moore would read modern trash like Harry Potter.

>>83264707
>the opportunity to write these characters in interesting new ways that may only be possible in the new setting.

This is what make the american comic a cluster fuck to begin with, buddy. And it always end up with the exec said "Hurr Durr, I want more Money so fuck your enthusiasm and creativity and do as I said"...just look at the current Marvel and DC, dude.

>>83264815
>Shitting on things he doesn't read

ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

>>83264707
>>83264707
I'm skeptical because I don't think there's any direction you can take them that won't turn them into identical clones of their original counterparts instead of expies, or warp them so much that they're barely identifiable as themselves.

What could you do with Nite Owl when he's already identical to Blue Beetle? If they bring Rorschach back from the dead, how is he even going to be in a position to fight crime after having his entire identity and world view shattered?

People have a right to be skeptical. tbqhf, the only two I could trust writing them aside from Moore would be Morrison, Gaiman, Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conners; the last two wrote the only good books in the Before Watchmen line, but one of them is dead so that narrows the list down even more.

>>83264707
I don't really mind on that front, some writer may get a paycheck out of it and may make something readable or even good.

But I haven't thought about creative teams they could put on it, I don't care, and I'm almost surely not gonna read it, just as I won't read much of Rebirth or whatever Marvel is called these days.

And that's really my problem with DC (in this case), none of what I read in the Rebirth special seems interesting, it's at best tacky and at worse laughable. Maybe I'm too old to get my string pulled by nostalgia. I guess what I'm trying to say is that DC's editorial is the issue, not they using Watchmen.

Marvel's a whole different animal, they're some kind of indestructible monster, running their franchises to the ground but somehow they still have good sales so some weird satanic pact shit is going on there.

>>83264371
Generating emotion is kind of the point of fiction. If it succeeds at connecting with the audience, it will sell well. Limiting your storytelling possibilities because you don't want to give readers what they want is just as stupid as giving them what they want for the sake of it. But apparently writing a good story is a sales gimmick now, and the smart thing to do is being a cynic that criticizes every move the big bad industry does without thinking them throught.

>>83255969
>long winded speech with absolutely no actual explanation and a big appeal to emotion about how he's just a wee boy from the midlands
>public domain (just another facet of copyright law) means it's ok to fuck creators
Allan is a shit

>>83263786
That'd be Frank Miller not Moore.

>>83265433
>But apparently writing a good story is a sales gimmick now

What story are you talking about?

>>83265433
When you've been writing the same story for 50+ years without end, telling a good story is obviously no where near your list of priorities.

Everything DC and Marvel do at this point is a sales gimmick, kind of by definition. They're not keeping this going for the artistic integrity of it. And that's okay, they're a business trying to make money, I get that. But it's just kind of a joke at this point (with the punchline being that people still buy it.)

The worst part about DC and Marvel screwing Moore over the years is all the potential good shit he might've written if he hadn't fallen out of love with the industry. It's clear he still loves comics as an artform, but his only outlet now is either the few projects he manages to self-fund (Dodgem Logic) or small-ish publishers that guarantee him complete control and ownership (namely Avatar and Top Shelf.)

>>83266134
I wonder how much he costs to comission

>>83266167
I wonder how much it'd cost to have him record Jerusalem as audiobook... and how many CDs it would fit in

>>83266134
>Marvel screwing Moore
When did that happen?

>>83266134
I would have loved to see him write more stories about Batman and his rogues gallery. Always wondered why he didn't since they have everything that appeals to him.

It would've been nice to see him do something with teen superheroes, too, a deconstruction about the idea of how your identity as a hero and a person is rooted in your age bracket and how once you come of a certain age you either move on and grow up or stay where you are and try to cling to the past. That would've been unique.

>>83264426
>i think some people are discouraged too by the fact that it's such a simple story with very simple themes
I hear this often, yet even more often in the same thread I hear people who still don't understand the joke nor what the ending implies.

I've even seen people blame TKJ for trying to give the Joker a tragic origin, which directly contradicts the possibility they read it since TKJ if anything confirms Joker mockingly discrediting his own memory.

Unreliable narrator does not even begin to imply what he did, he's basically implied to be unscrupulous to the extent of deceiving himself, not just the audience, into believing he has to commit ills.

>>83266348
>deconstructions
>unique

I am so loving this meme. I love how taking apart old ideas in lieu of having new ones is deep and intelligent. God I love it.

>>83266463
Moore does deconstructions well though. Not everyone is some shitty subversivist like modern cape writers

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>>83266348
Moore doesn't really care much for Batman, according to Millar.

>It would've been nice to see him do something with teen superheroes, too,

I think that's what Youngblood was going to be; Moore doing a New Teen Titans-esque book.

>>83266002
Having lived this long also gives them some storytelling potential. Something like the multiversity, for example, could have never been written by a company with less than 70 yeas of existance. Hell, even Marvel wouldn't have been able to do it.

>>83265433
>. But apparently writing a good story is a sales gimmick now,

I really hope you don't believe Rebirth is a good story.

>>83266520
He liked gotham and characters like clayface better than BATMAN.

Killing Joke? is not even a batman story is a gordon-joker one.

>>83266606
I don't think it's a good story.

I think it's a great story.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>83266463
It's interesting you chose to sarcastically comment on the skewed view a certain writing style displays novel thinking and intellectual depth, given sarcasm is one the oldest forms of just that sort of thing.

>>83264542
Yeah, but it was Cannon Films.

>>83257182
>companies have to eat
What?

>>83266520
God that cunt can't accept Morrison did to Superman what Millar dreamt of doing.

>>83266606
I enjoyed it. It's been mostly praised. It is not an amazing feat of storytelling but for what it was I think it qualifies as good.

>>83266504
He's great at it but I'm just so sick of deconstructions at this point. No shit much of fiction is shallow and unrealistic, we don't need reminders because adults usually understand that things don't work like that.

>>83266689
Sarcasm has always been the lowest form of wit, I know.

>>83266767
He actually thinks Morrison writes a better Batman than Superman back when they were friends, IIRC.

>>83267043
Judging from Morrison's JLA that assumption isn't wrong. But Morrison did provide him with ending of Red Son.

>>83266767
Jesus, he didn't say anything about Morrison. Not everything is about whatever "feud" Grant has ginned up for attention this week.

>>83267043
>>83267237
>Johns is made consultant of DCEU instead of Morrison or Kelly
FUGG DIS

>>83267452
Morrison would be kind of unaccesible for general audiences. Thought I would love a cinematic universe spearheaded by Morrison.

Btw does anyone know what Kelly has been doing recently?

>>83267349
Millar knows Morrison is a better writer than him and Morrison wrote the Superman Millar wants to read, admitting it is another thing.
>>83267452
Wouldn't work with Morrison, he'd end up throwing tamper tantrums because they won't use his ideas. Johns probably consults directors and WB on 10 different projects daily and maybe twice they take it in consideration. Kelly isn't as knowledgeable as Johns when it comes to DC.

>>83267754
>Kelly isn't as knowledgeable as Johns when it comes to DC.

Johns doesnt know shit about batman and he is a writter, he never touched a wonder woman comic prior 2014, he wasnt into vertigo, etc. He is pretty limited when it comes to everything he didnt love as a kid or things he wrote

>>83267754
And you got that from a post where he didn't mention Morrison or his own Superman writing once?

Morrison fanboys are just the most delusional, obsessive people on the planet aren't they?

So basically moore is fine with someone doing want grant did with multiversity but against people just flat out using watchmen for the brand recognition.

fair nuff

>>83267908
He has more than 20k floppies of DC comics, he knows his shit well enough.
>he never touched a wonder woman comic prior 2014
Neither did Morrison prior to his WWEO, he received a lot of criticism for how he couldn't do jack shit with character in his JLA and Final Crisis, he even addressed those.
>he wasnt into vertigo, etc
That's a bullshit meme. He said himself that he was very big on Morrison's Animal Man and other Vertigo stuff, in fact Animal Man is one of the first comic he started following. He said it in Morrison's documentary if you want to check that.

>>83267972
What? That Morrison writes the Superman Millar would definitely read? Heard of something called Superman 2000? Go look it up.

>>83256176
Why does he hate people who get into comic books because they genuinely love comic books when he collected comic books as a kid and loved Superman?

>>83268315
He's saying that DC and Marvel are stuck in a feedback loop of sorts. The people writing there now are doing little besides "paying homage" to the stories they loved when they were younger, which is in part why Moore thinks mainstream superhero have not progressed much: it's the same ideas recycled again and again.

>>83259105
and why exactly is this a problem ? I honestly see little to no cons and a lot of pros for stopping floppies and going straight to tpb for the industry as a whole.

>>83268315
He doesn't hate the fan writers and artists, he hates the companies for exploiting them.

>>83268521
What else can they do with the characters that hasn't been done before? We've been interpreting the same characters for nearly 50-80 years.

>>83268690
Write something fucking else for a change

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>>83267676
>Btw does anyone know what Kelly has been doing recently?

Making disgusting amounts of money off of Ben 10?

>>83257740
Peter Bagge is a libertarian. Ditko is a crazy person with barely comprehensible ideology.

>>83269281
Yes, I'm sure a ten-year-old wants to read yellowed old Siegel and Shuster stories about a circus strongman, and not the shiny comiXology ebooks he can read on his iPad. You might've read the stories a thousand times because you're a fucking elite comic nerd and you know what's good, but young people want to read about things relevant to their time and place. And if an up-and-coming writer wants to put his own twist on a familiar story, well -- there's his audience.

Do you realize how many people pass shit up because it looks "too old"? Where they could be using newer works as a gateway to the classics?

>>83258385


I do anon

>>83270304
I was totally that kid, but I was a weirdo.
Most kids aren't too picky unless they are spoiled assholes.

>>83259927
Doesn't it being a prequel effectively change the characters from what you may have thought from just reading Watchmen? It doesn't ruin your enjoyment of Watchmen, but it's literally changing the history of the universe and being advertised as 100% canon by DC. It's the same problem a lot of people have with the Powerpuff Girls reboot. It doesn't change the original show, but it still leaves a bad taste in their mouth because it's nothing but a vapid attempt to cash in on the franchise without the involvement or even the consent of the original creator.

>>83259480
The Asylum makes a living doing that entirely. Most of their movies are made for people not paying attention to accidentally choose their knock off movies over the real deal since they're released at about the same time. They also make the movie covers and titles just similar enough to the movies they're aping to be mistaken for them but not so much so they aren't sued. It's funny because half of the time the actual content of the rip off movies aren't similar at all and are made just to have a similar title and cover.

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>>83260323
>How is Moore a Hack?
How is building his entire career off the backs of other people's characters, and then spending his twilight years whining without a shred of irony about other people using the content he created under contract, not hack behavior? And where on Earth does Johns come into this? I thought Morrison was the boogeyman for Moorecucks.

>>83256176
>John Broome and Gardener Fox

really tho?

>>83271889
Kek, this thread was started out of butthurt for Johns being called a hack.

>>83271889
Johns used Manhatten as a character so Watchmenfags are anally apocalypsed

>>83271253
To be fair, the Minutemen and Silk Spectre books in that line were really, really good and proved that these characters CAN be written by writers other than Moore. I'm sad Cooke is dead because he really seemed like one of the only people in the industry who could do the Watchmenverse justice.

Fuck, even the other Before Watchmen books, barring Rorschach and the Comedian which were god awful on every level, weren't horrible, just mediocre.

>>83271889
There is no such thing as "hack behavior". Only hack writing. What Moore does outside of writing has nothing to do with him being a hack or not.

>>83266585
I'd argue that them being around this long actually limits their potential, not expands it. Multiversity isn't exactly the best standard bearer either since it wasn't exactly anything outstanding or something that couldn't been possible without the DCU. Marvel and DC's universe at this points are bloated zombies of status quo held together by various reboots, rehashes, and retcons over the years. Very few changes are ever permanent yet various crossovers or events are touted as the next big world-shattering only for whatever they change they bring to be almost instantly reverted with the next one. It's a joke at this point that's illustrated how no one important or popular ever truly dies in DC or Marvel.

>>83264707
>Do you think that Moore is the only one who can write them well?

judging by before watchmen and the way Geoff "Cereal Hack" Johns approached Dr. Manhattan, yes.

>>83266585
>Something like the multiversity, for example, could have never been written by a company with less than 70 yeas of existance. Hell, even Marvel wouldn't have been able to do it.


lel why?

you think Marvel doesn't date back long enough? Namor the fucking Submariner is only a few months younger than Batman.

You could easily adapt multiversity to occur in the marvel universe, thoughone problem doing so may be the marvel multiverse being a lot bigger than the 52 universes threatened in multiversity.

im sure that can be remedied with a bit of thought.

>>83272944
Good thing we're talking about his writing then.
Specifically his belief that using other people's characters is artistic and morally unimpeachable while the act of compensating the creator turns it into crass exploitation.

That and the fact that he can't write anything without jerking off Lovecraft and raping half the cast.

>>83270304
so we'll keep rehashing the same shit forever?

thats pretty fucking boring.

>>83273369
Well, it comes down to the fact that Marvel has no iconic heroes. Namor may be almost as old as Batman but he's irrelevant even in his own continuity.

>>83273489
Captain America was created only 3 years after Batman, and he's an icon.

>>83273569
If you want Diet Superman, yeah, I guess Captain America is an icon. He doesn't represent anything about the Marvel universe, though. He's just another authoritarian dickwad wearing a flag.

Now Thor, you could make an argument for, but he doesn't sell so Marvel's never bothered to integrate him more deeply into the MU's fabric. The "Thor is a title not a name" thing could be perceived as the beginnings of an attempt at such, but if so I think we can safely say no one wants more of it.

>>83273653
>He's just another authoritarian dickwad wearing a flag.

Yep, obvious """"contrarian"""" memeposter

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>>83273653
>If you want Diet Superman, yeah, I guess Captain America is an icon. He doesn't represent anything about the Marvel universe, though. He's just another authoritarian dickwad wearing a flag.

>>83261143
Yeah, for two minutes.

>>83264707
The thing is, the Watchmen book and it's characters are so celebrated, that most writers will have an hard time writing anything interesting because in the end they'll just try recreate what the characters are famous for

Writing Comedian means try-hard, disrespectful and dark humour, writing Manhattan means looking for yet another way to show how detached he is from humanity, writing Rorschach means coming up with new badass killings and journal entries, and so on

It's like with all the American attempts to write Silent Hill, to make an example: in the end they all have an hard time to tell an actually interesting and multi-layered horror story and it all comes down to repeating tropes layered by the original games, like "le epic twist that the character forgot his dark past"

>>83257423
>Moore wanted a paycheck too. I'm not saying it was solely done because of the art. But Moore felt LoEG was more than just a paycheck.

...But LoEG really wasn't all that great. Sure,stuffing all that Victoriana in one comic was really cute. But it was a gimmick.

>the reason DC did it wasn't because they wanted to expand on Watchmen or try to improve on it. It was done solely to make a few extra bucks.

Of course. They're a company. Making GOOD stuff is up to the writers and artists.

I am a Transformers fan. You may laugh. Thing is, the original comics (and cartoons, but leave those) were toy commercials... but Budiansky did some pretty stunning stuff.

That is where an artisan shows he is also an artist. With Alan Moore being emphatically working class you'd think he'd be all over that.

He could have written his own check, writing a prequel to Watchmen, and then turn it into a searing satire. We'd have laughed at those dunderheads at DC, and we would have bought every issue, and everybody would have been a winner.

And yet, I do fully understand Alan: being asked for a do-over to a project you consider finished is a little hurtful. But he could have given his blessing at least. I don't know, be the editor? "No. No. No. Definitely no. This... yes."

Nah, not his style.

>>83257607

Recently read Maximortal. I wonder how accurate that was.

>>83274415
If writers did try something truly "out of the box" with the characters, they'd get dragged by Watchman stans.

>>83274667
It's a mix of stuff. Like for instance Wally Sidney is supposed to be Walt Disney and represent bigwigs at comic companies. It's not 100% accurate (especially since Veitch had to modify things to fit with the story).

>>83261621
Visually Nite Owl looks more like Batman than Blue Beetle. Ted also wasn't fat at the time Watchmen was published (that came years later in JLI). It's only if you're aware of Ted that you'd pick up on things like how the Owlship is like the Bug.

>>83266670
Yeah and Millar's point is that Moore doesn't care for Batman.

Come to think of it Moore also wrote a text story that was more focused on a guy using the gun that killed Bruce's parents.

>>83274650
To be fair, why should he give his blessing when DC is being a dickbag in the first place to keep the rights through a legal loophole?

>>83257182
Yeah i bet didio was going really hungry before they made before watchmen YOU FUCKING RETARD PLEASE KILL YOURSELF

Is Alan Moore just a retard
>Sells the rights to his characters
>Complains when they're used
Fucking why? What the fuck did you expect to happen?

>>83261285
A superman book that ends with Superman quitting and happily stating Superman was a bad idea is some Snyder tier shit m8

>>83261688
Turning "because the plot said so" into a chatacter doesnt excuse shoddy writing.

Ironic shitposting is still shitposting. A shitty plot on purpose is still a shitty plot.

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>>83276634
Whatever you say, anon

>>83261348
What school has Alan Quatermain as required reading? Are you seriously unironically telling me that most normal people know who the fuck that is?

>>83258711
>Not the same one

Roarshach is a LITERAL walking spoof of Dikto objectivism.

His entire visual design is based on that.

Both Nite Owls may as well be a pallet swap.

They even kept The Bug!

And are you telling me the guy caught in a nuclear accident revived into a god like super human was an oc donut steel?

Cmon son

>>83276686
>plot
Are you touched in the head? This isn't a case of a natural scheme laying itself out at the behest of an average character, this is the result of a reality warper gunning for the psyche of their opponent before striking while they're vulnerable.

It's like calling any movie with demon possession "because the plot said so".

I can't even call this fumbled attempt at a critique laughable, it's just unsubstantial.

I'll be honest I liked Watchmen, TKJ was ok and his Awesome comics stuff was nice cotton candy, but Alan Moore never gave off GOAT OF ALL TIMES vibes to me.

I feel he may have a higher peak but other authors are more consistent.

Like you look at Morrison or Gaiman's bibliograhies they have a higher average quality than Moore's.

Moore is an admitted fanfic author and after a while his shtick gets...stale.

And his original stories tend to be boilerplate creepypasta style stuff.

>>83263388
>are put into

They were in it from the start you ponce! And so were the Endless!
Are people this stupid?

>>83258854
Just flipping yourself into knots to watch this guy's back.