Alan Moore Discusses DC's Plans for Watchmen Spin-Offs

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Alan Moore Speaks Watchmen 2 To Adi Tantimedh Bleeding Cool Comic Book News and Rumors

I don't know about you guys, but I never get tired of reading Alan Moore, either his comic work or interviews. He's such an eloquent speaker, which flies completely in the face of his look that says "crazy mountain man."

It's a lengthy interview, but one of my favourite bits that jumped out: I have got a great deal of respect for that work. I do not want to see it prostituted. This has always been my position. I don’t want to see it prostituted and made into a run of cheap books that are nothing like the original WATCHMEN which, anyway, wouldn’t work if it was dismantled. Those characters only work as an ensemble. A comic book about Doctor Manhattan would be really obtuse and boring. A comic book about Rorscharch would be really miserable. They only work together in WATCHMEN, although I’m sure there are perhaps people out there in the industry who would like to be the artist or writer on some WATCHMEN prequel or sequel simply to have their name attached to a successful property for once. When Dave Gibbons phoned me up, he assured me that these prequels and sequels would be handled by ‘the industry’s top-flight talents’. Now, I don’t think that the contemporary industry actually has a ‘top-flight’ of talent. I don’t think it’s even got a middle-flight or a bottom-flight of talent. I mean, like I say, there may be people out there who would still be eager to have their name attached to WATCHMEN even if it was in terms of “Yes, these are the people who murdered WATCHMEN”. I don’t want to see that happen.

It's certainly quite insulting to basically knock any current comic writer today and not calling any of them "top-flight" and even lower. But then, I thought about it some more and...well, I don't agree that there aren't any middle or bottom-flight talent, there are not really any on Moore's calibre. I can't think of any other creator who has used the comic medium to not just tell a story, but to use literary devices within the medium to its full advantage. Watchmen is a very dense book, requiring multiple reads to get everything. Hell, every time I crack it open, even just to flip through, I've still found new things that I hadn't noticed before. Say what you will about the ending, but you can't deny that there are very few, if any, comics since then that have managed to do what Watchmen or other works of Moore have done. There's the psychedelic "sex" issue in Swamp Thing. Or the very dense works of V for Vendetta and From Hell. The insane amount of ideas from his ABC line of comics.

I'm not saying that there aren't good creators or good comics out there. Chew, Atomic Robo, Sleeper, Criminal, Elephantment, Essex County, The Unwritten, etc. Actually, The Unwritten might be the closest thing to what I would consider "literary." I've already started to consider it something on par with Sandman. So, there's a lot of good and even great comics out there, but on the level that Moore worked on, most especially Watchmen? I have to agree. And if, somehow, DC did start putting out Watchmen-related spin-offs and such? I wouldn't buy them and never would even consider them.

His opinions are also why I feel the movie didn't need to be made. It works great as a comic because it's a comic. The same things don't work the same in a movie medium. I was very happy, however, that after the trailer was first released, sales for the book skyrocketed.

Thoughts?
 
I love Alan Moore. I love Watchmen. I think this is a horrible idea.

that being said, Moore is... maybe a little to full of himself. I tend to be more a Warren Ellis fan. He's an asshole, just like Moore, but he's less interested in you thinking he's that much better than you and he just wants you to have some damn fun with your funny books.
 
Oh, he can and is. The problem is he seems to think that no one else is doing good stuff (which I assume to him means, "as good as what I do"). While there is very little in comic-dom that is "as good" as the majority of Moore's work, there is an awful lot of fantastic stuff thats come out since Watchmen.
 
Only one comic has every won the World Fantasy award. Gaiman is just as good a writer and not nearly so full of himself. Moore is a great writer, but he'll never get past himself.
 
Only one comic has every won the World Fantasy award. Gaiman is just as good a writer and not nearly so full of himself. Moore is a great writer, but he'll never get past himself.
Sandman, fortunately, is up there with Watchmen among the topmost recommendations for comics.

Art Spiegleman's Maus won the Pullitzer, as well. And Dark Knight Returns was pretty much alongside Watchmen in revolutionizing the industry.

That said, I do agree that there has been some very good, if not great, stories told. But few have had that same level of intricate, literary detail that requires multiple readings to fully get and appreciate all of it. For example, Ed Brubaker is probably the best writer in the biz right now, but even I'll admit that his stuff isn't on the same level as Moore's.

I agree with Espy, though. Warren Ellis is awesome. He knows how to write pure, good, fun comics. Nextwave and Planetary both come to mind. I've never gotten into Transmetropolitan, though. Read the first volume and it just didn't grab me. Now that I'm quite a bit older and more well-read in comics, I keep meaning to give it another go.
 
Yeah, I've read a few of Moore's books, and they can be good (although I personally felt The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to be a grand idea that was a silly book), but his pretension is painful. The Sandman series blew all of them way, way out of the water IMHO.
 
Moore's best stories were "Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" and "For the Man Who Has Everything"
 
I find Alan Moore to be so "meh" that I have to continually re-learn who he is and what he has done whenever these discussion occur.
 
Moore wrote The Killing Joke, he can be as full of himself as he likes.
because he wrote one of the 3 worst Batman stories of all time?[/QUOTE]

Sorry, but Killing Joke doesn't even come close to the 3 worst. I would consider the three worst to be:
1) The Dark Knight Strikes Again
2) All Star Batman & Robin
3) Batman: Cacophany (wherein Kevin Smith tells us that Batman lost bladder control during Batman: Year One)
 
He's the guy that wrote that book about underage girls having sex.

---------- Post added at 02:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:07 PM ----------

Moore wrote The Killing Joke, he can be as full of himself as he likes.
because he wrote one of the 3 worst Batman stories of all time?[/QUOTE]

Sorry, but Killing Joke doesn't even come close to the 3 worst. I would consider the three worst to be:
1) The Dark Knight Strikes Again
2) All Star Batman & Robin
3) Batman: Cacophany (wherein Kevin Smith tells us that Batman lost bladder control during Batman: Year One)[/QUOTE]
You have my one and two. I'll admit I didn't read Cacophony after the first issue, because I didn't really feel like reading Batman versus [STRIKE]Jay[/STRIKE]The Joker.
 
Lost Girls is supposed to be literary pornography, according to Moore. From what I've heard, it might be raunchy and sex filled, but it's very well written.
 
From the linked interview

At the end of the day, if they haven’t got any properties that are valuable enough, but they have got these ‘top-flight industry creators’ that are ready to produce these prequels and sequels to WATCHMEN, well this is probably a radical idea, but could they not get one of the ‘top-flight industry creators’ to come up with an idea of their own? Why are DC Comics trying to exploit a comic book that I wrote 25 years ago if they have got anything? Sure they ought to have had an equivalent idea since? I could ask about why Marvel Comics are churning out or planning to bring out my ancient MARVELMAN stories, which are even older, if they had a viable idea of their own in the quarter-century since I wrote those works. I mean, surely that would be a much easier solution than all of this clandestine stuff? Just simply get some of your top-flight talent to put out a book that the wider public outside of the comics field find as interesting or as appealing as the stuff that I wrote 25 years ago. It shouldn’t be too big an ask, should it? I wouldn’t have thought so.
He is either ignorant of the industry of comics or intentionally insolent in his replies.

Either way I'm back to "meh" again.
 
Lost Girls is supposed to be literary pornography, according to Moore. From what I've heard, it might be raunchy and sex filled, but it's very well written.
So are the articles in "Cartoon Underage Dumpster Sluts" but in the end it's still just creepy old dudes writing about little girls having sex.
 
W

wana10

Moore's best stories were "Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" and "For the Man Who Has Everything"
i stated my opinion about alan moore in the bold claims thread so i'm just stopping by to say the justice league episode about the man who has everything was awesome, as in better than the comic awesome.
 
D

Disconnected

was he on this pedestal before watchmen became the best gasmsplooge comic of all time*. OF ALL TIME!.

*i do not share this common opinon of watchmen
 
He is either ignorant of the industry of comics or intentionally insolent in his replies.

Either way I'm back to "meh" again.
The point he is trying to make is, instead of returning to something that was written 25 years ago, why not create something entirely new to work with?

Of course, the exact same thing could be asked to any Hollywood executive these days.

---------- Post added at 02:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:51 PM ----------

Lost Girls is supposed to be literary pornography, according to Moore. From what I've heard, it might be raunchy and sex filled, but it's very well written.
So are the articles in "Cartoon Underage Dumpster Sluts" but in the end it's still just creepy old dudes writing about little girls having sex.[/QUOTE]

The...Lost Girls are...very mature...for their age? :D
 
From a business perspective? An established franchise will always sell better than a new property. It is the safer bet. It sucks, and a lot of stuff which was cool gets ruined by it, and a lot of great new stuff doesn't get developed properly, but I can kinda understand it from the company perspective.
 
Well sure it's a "safer" bet, but if the comics industry continues to rely on the "safer" side of things sales will keep going down, comic shops will keep closing and you will keep paying 3-4+ dollars for a 22 page comic.

Personally, since we are talking business here, I believe if comics are to survive in any real form they have to actually get their heads out of their asses and embrace the digital model as fast as they can. If I could download a comic for 99c on iTunes and read it on my computer or iPod/pad or ereader I would buy a hell of a lot more than I do now and I have a feeling I'm not the only one.
 
I've always hoped that comics would do their usual big name, franchise stuff but keep lots of room open for new, experimental things. Hell, even go as far as to put ads for said new things in your franchise books. Because honestly, Superman and X-Men are always, always, ALWAYS going to sell.
 
I've seen what it is like on the store side. Selling comics is a shit business. Buying the comics from the distributor, you have to sell half the comics to break even and have to buy in bundles of 6. So that means selling half your order to break even. It's not just content driving the comic industry into the ground.
 
3) Batman: Cacophany (wherein Kevin Smith tells us that Batman lost bladder control during Batman: Year One)
First, that'd be Widening Gyre. Second, he says Batman had an involuntary physical reaction due to a combination of fear and the unexpected heat of a fiery demonstration. He is commiserating with a fellow vigilante, one just starting out. Now, mileage may vary here, but that scene was neither written nor came off as "dur hur hur, Batman pissed his pants derp!" but as "wow, Batman is a person who can get scared". Humanizing, if you will. Since Batman's whole shtick centers on his plain old humanity, I liked it. The mini-series on the whole is kinda meh (though I love Flanagan's art) but that scene is not what it is made out to be.

As far as Moore goes...I like a lot of his work. Those first four Top Ten volumes are some of the best comics of the past twenty years. But Jesus Christ, the man is such a raging egotist that I can't stand to read his interviews.
 
While I agree with the general point about the terrible idea of a Watchmen franchise, that "why can't they make anything new" is pretty tough talk for a guy who made a huge part of his career making memorable stories from derivative ideas. Heck, Watchmen was originally supposed to be a story about the Charlton Comics stable, but DC said no, so Moore made facsimile characters so he could keep the story.

There's nothing wrong with derivative works, of course. Watchmen was awesome, and "The Man Who has Everything" is a huge favorite of mine. I just think Moore is on a serious high horse with no legs on that point.
 
I disagree. As you said yourself, there's nothing wrong with derivative works. I've argued many times before that most of literature is inspired by something that came before. Shakespeare, for example, borrowed heavily from several fellow playwrights to create his work. He stold lines almost word for word right out of travel journals for The Tempest.

There's nothing wrong with taking something and being inspired by it to create your own thing. Watchmen and the Charlton characters are very different. Watchmen grew out of something different, as a result.

You can make something new out of something old and still make your product something original.
 
You can make something new out of something old and still make your product something original.
Of course you can.

But Moore making many of his bones through derivative works and stories based on licensed IP is undeniable, and his dismissal of other people trying to do the same thing just reeks of ego (and hypocrisy, were I to think that Moore doesn't honestly believe what he's saying about himself).

If he thinks that the industry's "top-flight" people are crap, what difference does it make whether they work on licensed IP or original works? If they're good, the work has an excellent chance of being good. If they're crap, the work has excellent chance of being crap.
 
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