"Buy what won’t make you feel dirty."

I very much enjoyed Tim Marchman's interview with Len Wein --and a handler(!) from DC Entertainment named Pam, I might add-- about the recent Before Watchmen project that has ignited a firestorm of comics controversy about creators' rights and corporate control. His talk with Wein lends a different angle on the topic, one from a long-time comics professional, and also puts a finer point on multiple arguments made about the situation.

I encourage you to check it out!

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons carving up a cake!
(image yoinked from IGN)

In-depth Interview with Alan Moore

Alan Moore talks about Watchmen, his career, the comics industry, and the upcoming Before Watchmen books DC Comics is publishing in this great interview with Seraphemera Books comic writer Kurt Amacker. It's a lengthy and thorough piece, definitely well worth your time to read.

V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta is a dystopian future tale, set in the a time after nuclear war has decimated the world and Norsefire, a fascist regime, rules the UK. The story follows a young woman named Evey who is saved from police brutality and rape by V. V is a masked vigilante who wears a Guy Fawkes mask and whose real face is never seen. An ambivalent figure, he is an expert bomb maker, hacker, and gadfly who is well versed in the arts, literature, and music. Many of those artistic endeavors are illegal in the current government, and he does everything he can to kill the Norsefire leaders and foment revolution. At first, Evey is taken by his cause, but she wavers in her allegiance and questions his methods.

This story was originally published serially in Warrior, a UK magazine. It was written by Alan Moore and drawn by David Lloyd. Moore is a prolific comics writer with multiple titles and accolades to his credit. Lloyd has been creating comics for decades now, working on numerous projects including licensed characters such as Dr. Who and James Bond as well as original characters like Espers and Hellblazer. He also works on original graphic novels, including the crime thriller Kickback.

V for Vendetta was adapted into a very popular movie in 2006 that starred Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman. As with other adaptations of his works, Moore distanced himself from the movie, criticized its producers, and refused royalties. Lloyd was more receptive to the adaptation. The movie has been an inspiration for the internet group Anonymous, who engage in civil disobedience via the internet and in person, attacking Scientology and the Bank of America among others, while wearing Guy Fawkes masks in the style of V. David Lloyd speaks about Anonymous' appropriation of his work here.

V has also been linked to the more contemporary Occupy movement in the US.

This graphic novel is now considered a classic in the medium and has received much praise. Andy at Grovel wrote, "This book has an eloquence and beauty to it, stemming from both the writing and the artwork, both of which are at the peak of their craft." William Jones added, "It is another fantastic entry into the world of subversive comics by the industry’s best." Timothy Callahan called it a "major work" and summed up that it is "an unconventional comic book, with the core of a superhero story, the remnants of an Orwellian nightmare, and the soul of a cabaret show."

A preview is available from DC Comics, the book's US publisher.

Happy 58th Birthday, Alan Moore!

Alan Moore is an English writer well known for a long and distinguished career making comics and graphic novels. He began his career writing stories for British publications such as 2000 AD and Warrior, while also contributing to Marvel UK. In the early 1980s he was recruited as a writer for DC Comics. While there, he wrote back-up stories for Green Lantern and was assigned to write the Saga of the Swamp Thing. His run on the title revolutionized the comics marketplace. He revived the character and took him in new directions of horror and drama prior unseen in mainstream comics. Stories aimed at more mature readers became more common. His strong work led to an influx of other British writers, creating a phenomenon known as the British Invasion. Additionally, he created memorable and successful characters like John Constantine and set a foundation for DC's highly successful Vertigo imprint.

Moore has always had a penchant for creating imaginative and sturdy fictional concepts. Some developed during his Captain Britain run at Marvel UK greatly influenced Marvel Comics in the US, providing concepts and characters, such as Betsy Braddock who became Psylocke, that appeared in many X-Men books. He also brought the fictional conceit of parallel universes to Marvel and established its main universe as Earth-616. At DC, stories that appear in minor back-up stories still exert an influence on major crossovers and storylines more than 20 years later.

Many of his most influential works were created in the 1980s including Watchmen, regarded by many to be the best graphic novel, Miracleman, considered by many to be the ultimate superhero narrative, and V for Vendetta, a dystopian future story of rebellion in the vein of Orwell's 1984. But his remarkable oeuvre also includes works such as The Killing Joke, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the America's Best Comics (ABC) titles Tom Strong and Promethea. More recently, he has been working on pastiches of classic works, such as the erotic fantasy story Lost Girls (in collaboration with his wife, artist Melinda Gebbie) and the Lovecraftian Neonomicon.

Alan Moore has been perceived as difficult or arcane to some, and has had publicized feuds over the years with many comics companies over the rights and uses of his works, including Watchmen and the ABC line of comics. He also gained notoriety for his abhoration of the big budget movie adaptations of his works and refuses to include his name in any of the credits. Nor does he collect the royalties from these motion pictures.

Alan Moore has won almost every award that can be awarded in the field of comics, as well as some that are not typically offered to the medium. Among the latter of these is the Hugo Award he won for Watchmen as well as its inclusion on the Time Magazine All-Time 100 Novels list.

His work has become so widespread that he also has had the distinction of appearing on The Simpsons. Apparently whenever he gets upset at the corporate misappropriation of his works...


...he can only be soothed by Little Lulu comics.

Watchmen

Watchmen is the creation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, two creators who came to work on American comics during the "British Invasion" of the 1980s. The series came about as a reworking of a storyline pitch Moore made about the Red Circle superheroes but was eventually put to use with the recently acquired Charlton superheroes, including Captain Atom, the Blue Beetle, and the Question. Rather than permanently alter how DC Comics might use these characters, rough analogs were created, and Watchmen was set in a universe outside of DC continuity. More about the Charlton-DC connection can be found in this Toonopedia entry.

Set in the 1980s, Watchmen is set in an alternate, dystopian society where Richard Nixon is still president, the United States won the Vietnam War, vigilante superheroes have been outlawed, the Cold War still rages, and the US controls the balance of power via the services of Dr. Manhattan, a seemingly indestructible and omnipotent superbeing who can alter objects at the atomic level. The plot progresses as an investigation of the death of the Comedian, a former superhero who turned to working for the US government as an operative in international hotspots. The brutality and ease with which he was dispatched leads Rorschach, a rogue costumed detective, on the trail of a "mask killer" who is targeting former superheroes.

Watchmen was originally published as a 12-issue limited series beginning in September, 1986. Along with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which was published almost simultaneously, it is credited (or blamed, depending on who you ask) for launching a different way of telling superhero stories with a more realistic, grittier sensibility. Some, such as blogger Curt Purcell, have pointed out how this change was already underway by the time of those two limited series but that their popularity and acclaim have lead to their being considered torchbearers. Regardless, Watchmen has received a great amount of praise, even from outside the comic book community. It is the only graphic novel to win the prestigious Hugo Award for Science Fiction work in Other Forms (in 1988) and is also the sole graphic novel on Time Magazine's "All Time 100 Novels."

There is a preponderance of information about Watchmen online. The Watchmen Wiki has a huge amount of information about the plot, characters, and world of the series, role playing game, as well as the film version. There is an Annotated Watchmen website chronicling many of the intertextual and historical references throughout the book. Here is a Slate article by Douglas Wolk about the book's and Alan Moore's impact on comics. Also, here is a clip of Alan Moore himself talking about Watchmen specifically. Dave Gibbons expresses his viewpoints about the series in this Publishers Weekly interview.

In 2009, a movie version of the graphic novel was released. It was directed by Zack Snyder, and as with many of his other works, Moore did not allow his name to be among the credits nor did he receive any royalties. In this interview with Wired Magazine, he expresses his views about how the story being suited ideally and solely to the comic book format led him to ignore all attempts at adaptation, even in the form of motion comics. Gibbons has no such reservations, as seen in this interview about his role in the movie's creation.

Moore was able to poke some fun at the potential commercialism that would accompany a Watchmen adaptation in a cameo appearance on The Simpsons, as seen in the still from the episode below:

Perhaps his concerns were slightly justified by solicitations for products related to the movie including Nite Owl coffee and electric blue Dr. Manhattan condoms that came in packages emblazoned "We're society's only protection."