NEWS: Alan Moore Has a Vendetta

CULTURE: Alan Moore Has a Vendetta

As "V for Vendetta" plays in movie theaters across the country, Alan Moore, who created the V for Vendetta comic book upon which the movie is based, declares: "I don't want anything more to do with these works...because they were stolen from me — knowingly stolen from me." DC comics, he says, hijacked his work, and Hollywood destroyed its spirit. Now Moore refuses any opportunities for the works over which he still has control to be turned into films. And today, he's at work on other projects.

and excellent (and rare) TV interview with Alan Moore here...

Well, that's all I needed to know about whether to see the movie or not.

Frankly, after the cinematic disaster area that was the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie, and From Hell being essentially unrelated to his work... I don't blame him.

I had heard it wasn't quite as bad as League (which turned out to be awful when I finally relented and saw it).

And of course people are going to seem bewildered by his claims when they're the people who stand to make money off the movie. They're not going to say, "Mr. Moore is justified in his beliefs! Boycott us!"

And I'm not sure how comfortable I am reading porn written by an eccentric wizard.

"stolen" from him? Hey, you were paid to write it; or you wrote it and sold it...

Unfortunately, Alan Moore has had problems in the past in which the way his works have been translated to film. He also has serious issues with DC Comics (due to their censoring of one of his works without permission), to the point where his contract clearly states that if the company he works for in any way comes under the control of DC Comics, his contract is null and void (he fell into the trap once while working for Jim Lee's Wildstorm, only to have Jim Lee sell Wildstorm to DC Comics).

as for his works turned into movies, the works he has done are:

From Hell (haven't read the book yet, but I hear nothing like the movie)
League of Extraordinary Gentlement (NOTHING like the movie. his characters are strictly based of the literary characters, which the movie is not. the movie also added members and all sorts of things!)

Constantine (when asked about the character, he said "A guy who was into British '60's punk that got into black magic, David Bowie would be the ideal person to portray him," to which the studio replied "David Bowie doesn't sell tickets, we're casting someone else."

and people wonder why he is bitter about movies?

but, also consider that he views movies not even in his top 10 for forms of entertainment.

now, some might say he's having a meltdown or something. when he had his name removed (from I believe Constantine), his response was to have his name removed, and to direct the royalties he would have recieved to various organizations (including, I believe, but do not quote me on this, organizations fighting censorship).

finally, as a final beef he has with DC Comics, his one work, Watchman, is currently owed by DC Comics, and the rights are suppose to revert to him and Dave Gibbons, the artist, when it stops publishing. DC Comics has been milking that one for over 20 years now, continuously reprinting the works so that it never goes out of print, so they retain the rights to it, instead of Alan Moore.

Constantine was Moore's character to begin with, I believe, but he certainly hasn't had anything to do with Hellblazer, which is Constantine's star turn. So. Eh. The movie was certainly horribly botched, but it's a stretch to call it based on his work.

(My personal pick for Constantine would have been Sting, but Bowie'd work, yeah. Reeves was COMPLETELY wrong for the part.)

Goddammit. If this means that we never get a 24-hour Watchmen mini-series (one hour for story, one hour for Tales of the Black Freighter & Hollis Mason's book), I am going to start a list of people at DC and at the studio, and start delivering the cockpunch.

And speaking of Constantine: if you're a Hellblazer fan at all, and you haven't read Garth Ennis' books, run to your friendly local comic shop and pick them up. Wow.

He didn't cash the check and he didn't sign off on the movie. He was paid to write the comic, and that was it. He took no money and asked that his name be taken off because he didn't want the thing to be made, but DC Comics are the ones who actually have control of that. I don't know where you're getting the impression that he wrote the movie; the only credit he was going to be given was for having written the source material.

well it is allen moore after he wrote "the killing joke" he said he hated it. he's a odd genuis.

Errr. no. I think the whole problem is that DC sold it, not Moore.

Well, I don't know whether that's a fair complaint. In 1986, nothing in the comics world stayed in print. Even the very rare collections that were available at the time were one-print-only sort of deals, and often licensed out to other book publishers. When DC issued Watchmen, at the same time as The Dark Knight Returns, nobody knew that they were creating a new model for which there was considerable and lasting demand. The book stays in print because it sells thousands of copies every year. Nobody's forcing readers at gunpoint to buy it; they do so because more and more people want to read it every year. There's no impetus for DC to let it go out of print.

For someone to have as much of a beef with work-for-hire as Moore does, he has certainly written a lot of it. V for Vendetta started out with he and Lloyd sharing the copyright, and licensing it to Quality Comics to be printed in Warrior from 1982-84. DC only agreed to license the existing 26 episodes and buy the 10-12 more needed to finish the story, in colorized US format, in return for the copyright as long as it stayed in print. Nobody could have predicted V for Vendetta would be a perennial seller under the new model for trade collections, but nobody forced them to sign their rights over either.

While I greatly respect Moore's talent and am a big fan of his book, his naive misunderstanding of how his chosen industry works always amazes me. Then again, I'm still sore with him over not finishing Halo Jones, so I might be biased.

That's in reference to the fact that Moore wanted his name taken off the comics as well. They aren't going to do that, obviously. I don't think he would have expected them to, either. He was just ranting. He does that.

No, because when you write something for DC or Marvel, they own the rights until it falls out of print, which doesn't happen if it's popular, which Moore's works are. He signed off with DC so he could complete the comic he'd started, giving them the decision about films. His more recent comics were done under his own label, America's Best Comics, and so he owns the rights to them.

Alan Moore hasn't actually seen this movie, has he? I think this all stems from the producers saying that Moore had given the film his blessing, when Moore has always said he wanted nothing to do with Hollywood, in any way. So he went ballistic, and has been trashing the movie ever since. Sight unseen, if I understand it all correctly...

Look, he's a fucking genius. It's his work, he should be able to do whatever the fuck he wants with it.

The article isn't clear, but this is referring to two different things.

First, the producers agreed to strip Moore's name from the film credits -- the film is not Moore's work. He had nothing to do with it.

Second, DC doesn't want to take his name off the comics, because the comics are Moore's work.

alan is so great. a rea l nice guy and a true gentleman

This is what I've gotten from interviews. The only time I think he's seemed like an asshole is when dealing with movie adaptations. And I can understand that. What he's doing is art, and he feels like it's being trampled on. I'd be pretty nasty too.

He signed a contract, so fuck him. Although, given how much of a complete nutter he is, he might get away with an argument that he wasn't legally sane at the time.

Contract or no contract, if my work was taken by others and altered, I'd probably be pissed too.

There's no way Moore could have known over 20 years ago that this is how his work would be adapted, and it's no wonder he's pissed off.

Yeah, maybe he shouldn't have agreed to the contract, but if you look at the lengths Moore has gone to since then, you'll see he isn't the typical person who sells out and then complains about it.

It's like he actually does care about his works and just hates what Hollywood adaptations can do.

I'm pissed off myself that V for Vendetta will now more widely known as a movie made by "those Matrix guys" rather than the original book.

Moore should just suck it up for once...

He is not the end all be all of comics.

No, but he's the best comic writer I know of. But I don't think it's so much ego, it's more that people now associate his work with movies he hates.

I would also hate to see prized creations of my own bastardized, but did he even SEE his creation bastardized, as in, has he even seen the movie he hates so much?
Even if he has, I must say that the fault still lies with one man...Alan Moore. It's completely fair to say that he could hardly have foreseen the series of events that would lead to his comics becoming a movie. Fine. But for him to BLAME OTHERS for his lack of foresight or his own legal deals regarding rights to his work is so pathetic and immature that the more I think about it, the more I think Moore (whom I still respect greatly and who remains one of my top five writers) needs to shut his fucking trap about people in a BUSINESS trying to make MONEY. Are they making a mockery of what you did? Probably, but at some point you signed off on their right to do so, so the first step on that road was yours. If you didn't, get a lawyer, don't whine about it.

IMO I can think of others I would prefer to read...the man may be innovative in many ways, but so are other writers...Moore just thinks he is the end all be all. Even Gaiman isn't as bad as Moore.

This isn't the first time Moore has created a stink about his works...anyone remember the ill-fated Watchmen action figure line that was supposed to come out a few years ago that Moore said no to.....that is what Moore does everytime...it is becoming predictable. He okays something and then right before it is supposed to come out, he disavows it. Predictable.

and believe it or not...I agree with him that most of the adaptations that they have done of his works are shite. Something tells me that this movie however, is a little a different. Especially after LOEG blew up into a POS. He had a little more say in this one....this is just Moore being Moore.