The Alan Moore thread (all things bearded and be-ringed!)

[TheButcher]

From CBR September 10th, 2008:
Revisiting Alan Moore's Official "Watchmen" Prequel

[TheButcher]

From BC:
The Before Watchmen Gallery And Quote File (UPDATED)

[DennisMM]

The only title of this mess that I can imagine reading is Minutemen. The others interest me not at all. And that Comedian cover with his cigar hanging out of the mouth zipper is downright obscene. For one thing, he doesn't wear a freaking gimp mask in the comic.

[TheButcher]

From Bleeding Cool:
League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 2009 Off To The Printers

Nemo: Heart Of Ice – A New League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Comic For The End Of 2012

In yesterday’s webchat (referred to earlier), Alan Moore revealed that the next League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen project to follow the conclusion of Century this summer, is to be called Nemo: Heart Of Ice, and that forty of the forty-eight pages involved have been written so far… and that we’ll see it before the end of the year…

Nemo appears to be on his deathbed in LOEG: Century 1910, and this adventure is set in he twenties, so something is up. More told the throng that “It takes place in Antarctica and [the work of H.P. Lovecraft] is a major component. You figure it out.” We are sadly denied a reference to King Kong though…

[TheButcher]

From BC:
First Minuteman Art From Darwyn Cooke – And The Watchmen Contract

[TheButcher]

From CA:
'Before Watchmen': New Darwyn Cooke Artwork Emerges, Moore Addresses Legal Questions

[TheButcher]

From BC:
“If DC Want To Soil Themselves In Public And Kill The Reputations Of A Number Of Otherwise Possibly Halfway-Decent Writers And Artists, Then I’m Certainly Not Going To Stop Them. And I Shall Take My Fun And My Pleasure However It Comes” – Alan Moore On Before Watchmen

[TheButcher]

From CA:
Alan Moore Confirms Details of 'Watchmen' Contract, Estrangement from Gibbons

[Leckomaniac]

Listen, Alan was overly harsh when dismissing the creators involved in BEFORE WATCHMEN. I mean, saying that this is their only chance to be involved with something that the mainstream recognize? I don't know about that. I mean, Darwyn Cooke has New Frontier, which was a successful animated film. He is also doing the Parker GNs, which are widely known. Azzarello created 100 Bullets, which is a successful indie book that has nearly been made into a TV show. I think he is selling those guys short.

On the other hand, I recognize his frustration. I think perhaps his attempts to distinguish his work on LoEG and Lost Girls is a little disingenuous, but I don't begrudge him his bitterness. None of us has any idea what was going on at the time, but if it truly was Moore's understanding that they were to own the rights, it is entirely understandable why he would be pissed. At some point, creators need to get behind each other so that these kinds of things become less frequent. And for a group of high profile creators to so willingly aid DC in exploiting Moore's creation against his wishes, as he sees it, well that would piss any of them off were they in his position.

Anyway, this was always going to be a thorny issue. The irony is, I think Moore's continuing to add fuel to the fire will only cause more people to buy it.

[DennisMM]

I have to admit, I'm probably going to buy Minutemen #1, to see if I can stomach it and how interesting it is. If I like it, I'll wait for the TPB. If not, #1 goes into the recycling bin. (That's where all the comics that displease me will go from now on, since (Almost) Free Comics is finally over.)

I think the artists and writers of Before Watchmen are being disingenuous when it comes to their feelings about Moore's owning the rights to the original book. My guess is that plenty of these creators would have backed Siegel and Shuster in their fight against DC, or Jack Kirby's battle for rights and credit on his Marvel characters. What's the difference between those situations and Moore's, except that Moore was promised outright the ownership of his work?

As for whether Watchmen shouldn't be followed because it was so great ... it was, wasn't it? It shares the apex of superhero comics with a handful of other works. Alan Moore shares the apex of mainstream comics writing with a handful of other writers. His casual writings are better than the finest comics many other writers will produce. His ripoff of E.T., written on order from the editor of 2000 A.D., is arguably better than E.T. itself. His work-for-hire on Swamp Thing and Superman produced stories that, once again, sit at the peak of those characters. The man ground out quickie Image stories to feed his family that are better than the work of hundreds (thousands?) of writers who gave their all to make what they hoped would be great comics. If I defend Alan Moore against his detractors, it's because he deserves to be defended.

[TheButcher]

Jim Lee's "Before Watchmen: Nite Owl" Cover

[TheButcher]

From Hero Complex:
‘Before Watchmen’ in spotlight at L.A. Times Festival of Books

[DennisMM]

Jim Lee's "Before Watchmen: Nite Owl" Cover

Looks much closer to the film costume than Dave Gibbons's design. That's too bad, because that was really unusual.

[TheButcher]

From Newsarama:
NYCC 2011: Creator-Owned With ROBERT KIRKMAN LIVE!

"One night, Erik Larsen was out with us and he said "this is what I'd do with Supreme"

So... Erik Larsen is illustrating the last issues of Alan Moore's Supreme, and then is going to jump on and continue the story.

From CBR:
Preview: Supreme #63

"REVELATIONS"

The legendary Supreme returns! ALAN MOORE's final SUPREME tale is the ultimate jumping on point for new readers! The triumphant return of Image Comics' most powerful hero! As Supreme romances Diana Dane he takes her on a tour of the Citadel Supreme and tells all of his innermost secrets just as Supreme's most hated nemesis, Darius Dax, makes a most unfortunate discovery: the key to defeat his abhorred adversary! It's most mind-blowing cliffhanger in the history of comics! Featuring a story by award winning author ALAN MOORE (WATCHMEN) and art by fan favorites ERIK LARSEN (SPIDER-MAN, SAVAGE DRAGON) & CORY HAMSCHER (X-MEN). You wish all comics were this good!

[Bloo]

this came across my Tumblr feed today and I died laughing

[DennisMM]

In his "about the author" blurbs, he used to write that "when he is old, he will look like Father Christmas's evil twin."

[TheButcher]

From Deadline:
Is Harry Potter The Antichrist In Alan Moore’s Latest Graphic Novel?

[TheButcher]

If 'Watchmen' is the Bible then God is angry (and lives in U.K.)

[TheButcher]

A Step Nearer To Twilight Of The Superheroes?

I’ve run this theory before. But the evidence keeps mounting up.

That, step by step, DC Comics is laying the groundwork to run Twilight Of The Superheroes, the Alan Moore pitch that they bought, lock, stock and two smoking Benson And Hedges, before Moore fell out with the company and withdrew his labour.

But DC Comics owns the pitch, fair and square.

The plot of the framing device is as follows: the story starts at its ending in a one-page prologue that takes place at the end of 1987 in a bar someplace in New York. John Constantine sits drinking alone, looking very bitter and pissed off at somebody or other. A striking and personable blonde enters the bar and, noticing Constantine, leans over and asks him for a light. Constantine, sitting there with a crumpled letter in one
bunched fist and a glass in the other, glances up at her and then stares at her as if transfixed. We close up on his face and then move into flashback. Basically, the whole series is what passes through Constantine’s mind in the two seconds it takes him to respond to the girl asking him for a light

You can read the whole pitch here.

We’ve seen the uses of the Houses of Secrets and Mysteries, we’ve seen Superman and Wonder Woman getting it together, w’ve seen a man from the future changing his own past (Booster Gold in the Dan DiDio/Geoff Johns Justice League International Annual), we’ve even seen one destroyed future in Swamp Thing/Animal Man’s Rotworld.

But John Constantine, at the centre of the Twilight Of The Superheroes story, is getting his own comic in the New 52. Originally, Twilight Of The Superheroes was intended to spin Constantine off into his own book.

Joining the dots by dots by dots by dots…

[TheButcher]

From Bleeding Cool August 30, 2012:
Could We Get A Twilight Of The Superheroes From DC Comics?

It was to have been Alan Moore‘s great DC Comics Event, that would crossover with all manner of DC’s books. The Twilight Of The Superheroes. A story about the end times of the DCU, a dark and apocalyptic future for the DC Earth, the superheroes and villains split into different Houses, with John Constantine given the power to change it all with a word…

And DC bought it.

However, between buying the pitch and Moore actually working on the comic, he fell out with the publisher and went on strike.

Fifteen years ago, Moore gave me permission to reprint the proposal, which I was planning to do in a way designed not to infringe DC trademark or copyright. At which point, DC Comics sent their very first Cease & Desist order by e-mail, to me. On the very reasonable basis that they’d actually bought the proposal, and had paid Alan Moore in full. Something Moore then agreed that, yes, that had probably happened. So that was that.

The proposal is often hosted by one site or another, until DC Comics tells them not. Right now it can be read here.

There are a few, fair use extracts that may be worth mentioning.

House of Justice

The House of Justice, built around the remains of the JLA’s old cavern headquarters, is the residence of the remains of the Justice League. These are the most important of the lesser House, along with the Titans. The lineup of the Justice League at the time of our story includes Captain Atom and the Blue Beetle, an Aqualad that has grown up to be the new Aquaman and a Wonder Girl who has taken on the mantle of Wonder Woman after Wonder Woman herself opted to become Superwoman upon marrying Superman.

Yup. Superman and Wonder Woman hooking up.

John Constantine

Constantine is about twenty years older, but obviously hasn’t changed a bit, except for the fact that he’s living with a woman and has been for the past fifteen years. This woman might even turn out to be the Fever character that I introduced in my two part Vigilante story a while back. Anyway, her and Constantine are to all intents and purposes married, and are obviously loving it. Constantine is still into the same sort of scams and wheeler-dealing, and in the whole story of Twilight he seems to be the only character who has his finger upon all the pulses and knows exactly what’s going on in this maze of plot and counterplot between the various factions involved.

A John Constantine up and about and active in the DCU… and married…

And then there’s that bit in Justice League International where the hooking up of Superman and Wonder Woman seems like the thing a certain Booster Gold was here to prevent happening. But now he’s too late.

Wth DC Comics looking to their assets and seeing what can be exploited, and Geoff Johns with a history of talking minor plot points by Alan Moore and turning them into massive crossovers, could Twilight Of The Superheroes be rewritten, reinterpreted, but brought into service for today?

Or possibly tomorrow?

[TheButcher]

End Near? Doomsday Clock Holds at 5 'Til Midnight

[TheButcher]

From Bleeding Cool:
FIRST REVIEW: League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo Heart Of Ice

[Tyrone_Shoelaces]

this came across my Tumblr feed today and I died laughing

Are we really sure he's only an impersonator?

[TheButcher]

From George Koury's The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore:
Page 110:

The Stuff that makes Watchmen radical is not really the stuff that's in the plot. It's not dark treatments of super-heroes--I mean, that had been done before. i mean you could even say that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were going for a gritty, darker treatment of the super-heroes back in 1961 with the Fantastic Four. More shadows in the artwork, kind of depressed slum dwellings in the backgrounds, more realistic dialogue and character interaction.

Alan Moore

[TheButcher]

The Unseen (and Uncreated) MARVELMAN

Alas, the Marvelman we never saw, courtesy of Padraig O Mealoid:

Briefly, what the [Dave] Elliott group intended to do was to licence Marvelman from Emotiv – rather than buy the character from them outright – and with the consent of all the other copyright holders – Moore, Leach, and so on – to produce three films based on the three books of Moore’s run on the character; to publish the three volumes of Moore’s run with new artwork, all done by a single artistic team, possibly with Garry Leach involved; to also republish the books in Moore’s run as they had originally appeared, with the original artwork; and to then go ahead and produce two new mini-series, both set in the time before Moore’s story started.

I love the Moore Marvel/Miracleman series a lot, but the idea of seeing the three volume run re-illustrated by Garry Leach is something that I really, really wish had happened. Marvel, consider this the baseline for your eventual Marvelman plans…

The Beat:
Poisoned Chalice Part 14: Back to Marvelman