Is Alan Moore a hypocrite?

[Mark Trail]

Article here, in which Moore criticizes superhero as follows: "All of these characters have been stolen from their original creators, all of them." The writer continued, "They have a long line of ghosts standing behind them. In the case of Marvel films, Jack Kirby [the Marvel artist and writer]."

I see his point but, at the same time, Moore made his fame using the same characters, "stolen" from their creators: Swamp Thing (Wein/Wrightson), Superman (Siegle/Shuster), Batman and the Joker (Bill Finger/Jerry Robinson) and even, in the case of Etrigan, Kirby himself. Even "Watchmen" started out as a revamp of characters created by the likes Steve Ditko and others and LOEG is replete with his use of other writers' characters (everyone from Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker to Ian Fleming and J.K. Rowling).

Thoughts?

[manwhohaseverything]

It depends. The character's are already corporate entities. There is nothing he can do about it other than speak about it. I do believe moore's superman works are heavily inspired by siegel's works. So,he keeps the creators in mind when he writes stuff.

[Crazy Diamond]

Article here, in which Moore criticizes superhero as follows: "All of these characters have been stolen from their original creators, all of them." The writer continued, "They have a long line of ghosts standing behind them. In the case of Marvel films, Jack Kirby [the Marvel artist and writer]."

I see his point but, at the same time, Moore made his fame using the same characters, "stolen" from their creators: Swamp Thing (Wein/Wrightson), Superman (Siegle/Shuster), Batman and the Joker (Bill Finger/Jerry Robinson) and even, in the case of Etrigan, Kirby himself. Even "Watchmen" started out as a revamp of characters created by the likes Steve Ditko and others and LOEG is replete with his use of other writers' characters (everyone from Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker to Ian Fleming and J.K. Rowling).

Thoughts?

Ignoring claims of morality, it was the owners of DC and Marvel who claimed ownership of the characters created over the years. In some cases, they even try to keep said creators from making money off of their own creation (ex. Ghost Rider). Then there's the stories of many comics creators who die in poverty or obscurity. So how is Alan Moore a hypocrite for pointing that out?

If you work at a company where the owner gets the majority of the profits while the workers don't get much at all, are you just as responsible?

[PCN24454]

One of the reasons why DC is often hesitant to use Black Lighting is because they don’t want to have to pay out royalties to his creator, so he has a point.

[Agent Z]

Since I'm rather ignorant of business, maybe someone can answer me this; just how much would a company really lose if creators earned the full amount of money their creations were worth?

[Flash Gordon]

The WATCHMEN characters may have been inspired by the Charlton Comics characters but they're wholly their own characters. That narrative that Moore is a hypocrite for taking inspiration from Blue Beetle to create Nite-Owl or whatever is so tired. Everything is inspired by something else.

As for Batman, Superman, and Swamp Thing? He did all of those a long, long time ago.

Alan Moore did a lot for creators' rights and organizing the labour of the industry to campaign for those rights. He's always been an ally. He's also one of the greatest writers of our times.

[LordMikel]

Since I'm rather ignorant of business, maybe someone can answer me this; just how much would a company really lose if creators earned the full amount of money their creations were worth?

So this is an example.
https://www.celebritynetworth.com/ar...ay-off-batman/

Basically Jack Nicholson said, "I'll be Joker, take less from for the movie roll salary, but I get a cut of all depictions of Joker memorabilia from the movie." He ends up making a lot more money because of that.

Now personally, I think Marvel/ DC should be putting that kind of a clause into every contract they sign. "If you create a new character, and he becomes popular and we sell merchandise of him, you are going to get a cut of that revenue." Why, because you want people to create new characters. Bruce Timm and Paulk Dini create Condiment King, and McDonalds comes along and says, "Hey, we'd like to use that character for a series of commercials against Ronald McDonald, we will pay you 10 million for his use" then DC should be saying thank you, and pay them 1% of 10% or whatever and keep up the good work. Because that is revenue they never could have expected.

But all of this creator stuff is why Image was formed. I crate it, so I get to own the rights to it.

[H-E-D]

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Since I'm rather ignorant of business, maybe someone can answer me this; just how much would a company really lose if creators earned the full amount of money their creations were worth?

It depends on what you mean by money. For a corporation it's not about earning well or making a profit, it's about maximizing profits. It's not about lot of the money, it's about all of the money. In other words it's about greed, not money on a level that you and I understand, care for, or will ever recieve. DC in a running-business sense in a must-screw-over-artists-to-survive-as-a-company sense do not need to screw over creators and others. They don't have to do that. They do that because they want to underpay talent and get most out of the cheapest. In other words, exploitation and greed.

Having total control on Watchmen IP, means DC makes all the money from Watchmen merchandise, Watchmen Movie sales and Home Video and Streaming sales, HBO series, and so on. The comics -- Before Watchmen, Doomsday Clock, Rorschach -- they don't make much profit by themselves but by spinning profits out of Moore-Gibbons' creations, making legacy characters out of it, and printing more stories set in that story, they get to assert more control over the story and its legacy going forward, introducing concepts that a later adaptation can use alongside the original. While at the same time merching stuff away.

One thing people forget. Watchmen was a commercial success for a miniseries with original characters. But it wasn't a blockbuster success that people think it was. Watchmen didn't sell as well as John Byrne's The Man of Steel, or Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Moore and Gibbons had a contract that rights would return to them after first printing, which was the common practise at the time. Nobody did second printings of a miniseries back then. DC specifically kept Watchmen in print to screw Moore/Gibbons over. The sales of Watchmen weren't high enough to justify DC's position (i.e. see Moore didn't know how successful it would become, which is beside the point) and in a fiscal sense Watchmen even in the 80s didn't bring them more bank than Superman and Batman even then.

How would the comics' business look like if creators and artists had more rights? Look at book publishing. Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, Rick Riordan, George R. R. Martin and others own their IP and creations, and get most profits from merchandise and royalties from sales. They make money for themselves, for their publishers, and for their agents. Alan Moore wrote A Small Killing for a book publishing company, Victor Gollancz, and he got treated like any writer of books did. He got an advance, he got royalties. Moore earned more upfront from A Small Killing than for anything he did at DC, including Watchmen. If DC Comics hadn't stiffed Alan Moore, if Moore and Gibbons got the rights back to Watchmen, Moore would have worked for DC more. Moore and Gibbons in interviews prepping up Watchmen (i.e. honeymoon period before DC screwed them over) discussed projects and ideas enthusiastically. They talked about a prequel with the Minutement in the style of Golden Age comics. Moore was also interested in a Bizarro miniseries with Kevin O'Neill. It's likely that Moore graphic novels would be published exclusively with DC Vertigo.

So in the long run, DC lost out on Moore rather than Moore losing out on DC.

[al-f]

So in the long run, DC lost out on Moore rather than Moore losing out on DC.

That's debatable. The movie, TV series, insertion of Watchmen characters into DC's main continuity, with all the merchandising that's going to generate... I don't think anything else Moore may have done for DC would have surpassed all that profit.

The ones who ultimately lost are us, the fans; because of DC's completely immoral business practices, we lost all the potential great stories Moore could have written with fan-favorite characters from the DC universe.

[Dark Falz]

I think that if you're a creator working with/for a publishing company, and you want to own the rights of what you create, be careful of what you sign, and don't take people at their word alone. Do that, and you should be pretty okay. If someone is in blatant breach of the contract, you should have a pretty good case against them, so you would hopefully not have too much trouble finding a lawyer to take it.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

I think that if you're a creator working with/for a publishing company, and you want to own the rights of what you create, be careful of what you sign, and don't take people at their word alone. Do that, and you should be pretty okay. If someone is in blatant breach of the contract, you should have a pretty good case against them, so you would hopefully not have too much trouble finding a lawyer to take it.

that's where I'm confused, did he and any other disgruntled creators not know what they were getting into? It is possible they were mislead. But at the same time didn't Alan Moore write some Green Lantern stuff, then get mad when other GL writers that came after him used some of his ideas in their stories? Seems hypocritical to me, not like Alan Moore created Green Lantern, why are his ideas supposed to be sacred and untouchable?

[Hol]

I think that if you're a creator working with/for a publishing company, and you want to own the rights of what you create, be careful of what you sign, and don't take people at their word alone. Do that, and you should be pretty okay. If someone is in blatant breach of the contract, you should have a pretty good case against them, so you would hopefully not have too much trouble finding a lawyer to take it.

Yeah I mean creators are adults and should know what they are getting into when they sign contracts. Just because a character blows up and makes DC or Marvel a ton of money doesn't mean the creators are being treated unfairly. Make a better deal. And if you do not have enough juice to make a deal you are happy with then don't sign. Publishers are taking a shot too. Not every character worked on for a publisher is a hit.

And it is sad to see anyone (creator or not) poor. But is doesn't mean they deserve more money for a deal they agreed on.

[DrNewGod]

Moore is one of comics greatest creative talents. He's also a cranky old coot.

If you read his Prometha, you get a pretty clear picture of how he views reality and capitalism. It's a really good read, BTW, if a bit of a skull bender.

I don't think him a hypocrite. True, he made his fame on others' creations, but its not like he took ownership of that IP, and has sat around harvesting the surplus from those creations. I can see where your question comes from because he altered Swamp Thing and Marvel Man almost as much as Marvel Studios has Thor or Scarlet Witch. However, I think his real beef is about IP owners hoarding the monetary benefits of the comic creations.

I do think his position on IP ownership unrealistic. That's not to say wrong, but given how the laws of IP ownership work, he shouldn't expect otherwise. Comic companies probably deserve his windmill-tilting a bit less than the society that sets the rules of intellectual property.

[married guy]

I think that if you're a creator working with/for a publishing company, and you want to own the rights of what you create, be careful of what you sign, and don't take people at their word alone. Do that, and you should be pretty okay. If someone is in blatant breach of the contract, you should have a pretty good case against them, so you would hopefully not have too much trouble finding a lawyer to take it.

There are PLENTY of exceptions to this though - and it's a pretty important piece you're missing.
Superman was created by two kids in the middle of the Depression. They were paid a $100.00 and given a job of writing & drawing their creation.
Once it took off, the company proceeded to screw them over making literally MILLIONS - and when they complained about not getting a tiny slice of the perfect pie they'd created they were fired!
It took the release of the Superman movie and Neal Adams telling their story to all and sundry for DC to finally come to the table - and even then it was from fear of public backlash, not because it was the right thing to do.

Bill Finger got screwed by Bob Kane who made the deal with DC that EVERY Batman appearance ANYWHERE was required to state: Batman - created by Bob Kane.
Finger came up with damn near all of it, but died broke and virtually unknown to the general public.

Sure, now it's completely different, and if you choose to create a character while working as a paid for hire that takes off - expect to get very little.

It was a very different landscape in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Unfortunately, history is littered with comic creators being fucked over by both DC and MARVEL.