I might have posted this twice. I don’t think he is a hypocrite. I think his comics try to be evolved in their thinking. I don’t sign on everything he has done, but his best comics don’t make the mistakes of the culture he is criticizing.
I might have posted this twice. I don’t think he is a hypocrite. I think his comics try to be evolved in their thinking. I don’t sign on everything he has done, but his best comics don’t make the mistakes of the culture he is criticizing.
Yeah, I think this is it; he’s not so much a hypocrite as much as an old guy who hates what the more leery side of capitalism has done to one of his favorite art mediums, but is more stubbornly cranky and grumbly at times than incisively targeted.
Comics were a corporate-dominated medium long before he arrived, he made his name with the properties he was given to create with or be inspired by, and they remain corporate-dominated medium after he left the mainstream.
He’s always going to be a legend, and he’s always going to have a point... but his point would be better made by guys like Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, or Bill Finger. And there’s a few things he’s done that have made the cranky old man aspect more clear for the time being.
IP ownership is a funny thing - the ability to use older IPs, whether through public domain (like Moore’s usage of classic characters in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) or through corporate running of them (regular comics, with guys like Grant Morrison and Scott Snyder doing legendary things with soemone’s else’s character) allows mythos to survive, but it’s folly to pretend that the creators have ever reaped *all* the fruits of their labors.
Like action, adventure, rogues, and outlaws? Like anti-heroes, femme fatales, mysteries and thrillers?
I wrote a book with them. Outlaw’s Shadow: A Sherwood Noir. Robin Hood’s evil counterpart, Guy of Gisbourne, is the main character. Feel free to give it a look: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asi...E2PKBNJFH76GQP
Siegel and Shuster did make that point, repeatedly, multiple times.
Again, that's not the point.IP ownership is a funny thing - the ability to use older IPs, whether through public domain (like Moore’s usage of classic characters in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) or through corporate running of them (regular comics, with guys like Grant Morrison and Scott Snyder doing legendary things with soemone’s else’s character) allows mythos to survive, but it’s folly to pretend that the creators have ever reaped *all* the fruits of their labors.
WATCHMEN was intended to be, and understood to be, a standalone creative owned work whose rights were expected to be returned to Moore-Gibbons. The closest analogy is Kieron Gillen signing with Image to do The Wicked + The Divine but Image then screw him over (which Image hasn't done, that we know of).
It's not the same thing as working on licensed IP.
Moore doesn't want the rights of Swamp Thing, Superman, or even John Constantine (a character he co-created and introduced into the DC Universe). He wanted Watchmen which was his by right.
God I wish. That would make me a creative genius who has written masterpieces every decade of my career (which cannot be said of Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, among others).
Sadly I am not.
It's McCarthyist. The "y" is not silent, my dude.How droll that a grammar Nazi would accuse someone else of "McCarthist fashion."
McCarthyist happens to be a real word, on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism). Also the Collins Dictionary (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us...sh/mccarthyist).
I thought I would get called out for not knowing Wertham well enough?!?
I don't know about hypocrisy per se, but his defensiveness over the inclusion of Gollywogs in LoEG and his willingness to take credit for Geoff Johns' Blackest Night sight unseen both indicate a lack of character that makes me unwilling to extend to him the benefit of the doubt
Yes he could have used the magical comic book lawyer thats always existed to help him... jesus christ...
He came out of british scene that didnt even have contracts. Judge dredd didnt even have a contract. Nothing... no paperwork at all. Thats why Zenith is hardly reprinted. Imagine the beatles without contracts. Imagine star wars without contracts. Thats what 2000ad looked like in the 70s and 80s. No rights. Not even a boilerplate to sign or give to a lawyer.
No offense but you can only talk like that because 1000s have been shafted for decades to get any sort of rights at all for you.
He was wrong on the Golliwog (no way to rehabilitate that) but what was wrong about what he said about Blackest Night? Johns took a story that was meant to be a one-off and turned into a bloated crossover.
https://www.comicbookdaily.com/minut...mble-on-a-bit/
The story that was meant to be a one-off was just one of the influences on Johns' story that had very little impact, other than a handful of names. If Moore didn't want to read the book to know what he's taking credit for, he shouldn't be commenting on it at all. But instead he decided to take credit for a story he knew nothing about and had nothing to do with. Creators who aren't morally bankrupt don't do that.
EDIT: I suggest you actually read the interview you linked, because if anything I'm being kind to Moore here.
EDIT 2: Actually, thanks for that, because it firmly establishes that Alan Moore is definitely and inarguably a hypocrite. In that interview he gets upset about someone doing to one of his stories what he did to Victorian literature as a whole. LoEG volume 2 has more in common with War of the Worlds than Blackest Night has with the Alan Moore short story. It's rank hypocrisy for him to take credit for both stories
Last edited by Thezmage; 10-22-2020 at 12:10 PM.
Of coarse he is. He gets pissed at DC for using stuff that he had come up with and then goes over to Image and turns Supreme into a straight up Silver Age Superman knock off. Even going so far as to give Supreme his own versions of Supergirl and Krypto.
I agree golliwog is beyond rehabilitation but there is a very strong case that the creator got f'ed by history, cultural studies, and was hijacked by people during her own time.
Alan had the balls to go back to the primary materials and try to raise awareness knowing full well how easy it would be to misrepresent what he was saying.