WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

I've always seen it as a childish of Moore.

He does want almost obscene control of his works that he signs over, but then again, he also produces the best stuff.

It's hard to judge. I wonder if Alex Ross, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, etc. ever run into this kind of thing.

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I can hardly blame Moore for wanting such a degree of control over his work. I don't think it's unfair of him to ask for residuals or veto power over merchandising.

However, Watchmen has built up quite a fandom over the past 20 years. And for all that, what do we have? A graphic novel, a movie that only recently broke out of development hell and a small amount of merchandise that you can now only find for a few hundred bucks on eBay.

Other fandoms have action figures, book series, franchises, and all we have is a book and a movie-in-progress. Personally, I think we need more. There's far more money to be made from the property and there's room to expand and explore this world that Moore and Gibbons created.

So, as much as I respect Alan Moore, I think that DC would be doing all of us a favor by giving him the finger right back and selling us some action figures or putting the tabletop RPG back in stores or something.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

As long as they don't rerelease the portfolio... just picked one of those up!

But yeah, we do need more merchandise, and that's a fair point; other writers have much, much more to be cashing in on.

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i think mr john lydon said it best with "ever get the feeling you're being cheated?" moments before he left the sex pistols.

buisness is a buisness, no matter how much they try and make you think otherwise.

moore has been royally screwed by dc, and he vowed to never work with marvel for much less.

lets not forget he is still working and still getting his stuff out there without being under the big two.

and he is one of a very few where he can afford to call the shots or just quit, because the buisnesses can't buy talent, or more so a reputation like moore's.

it is dc who have shot themselves in the foot, as did marvel on 2 occasions

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I'm still kind of wondering what exactly Moore is missing out on, besides publishing his book under a different publisher.

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And deciding not to let the corporate pirates that shivved him in the back so many times before continue to capitalize off his efforts.

You want merchandise? Try the WB cutlery and steak knife set protruding from between Mr. Moore's shoulder blades. Supply and demand being what it is, I'm sure they're a dime a dozen.

P.S. I like your signature, but it's "...IMAGININGS" not "imagination."

That's true, but if he had the type of control he wanted, we wouldn't have the upcoming movie.

Where do you see 'imaginings'? I only see 'imagin' on the back of Bernie's comic.

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I appreciate the sentiment, Vynson. I really do. In an ideal world, DC could make merchandise and prequel stories to Watchmen with Alan Moore's input, blessing and compensation. Alas, that may never come to pass.

Generally, fandoms are a give-and-take. We support a property, the PTB make product of that property, we buy them and scrutinize them and discuss them and the cycle continues. The Watchmen fans, however, have been maintaining this fandom for 20 years, and for what? For all the work that's been done to promote the book and increase its readership, what has DC given us? A movie with a troubled 20-year stay in development hell.

We deserve more. If Alan Moore is the only thing preventing that and if he refuses to negotiate or accept compensation, then forget him. Sure, he created the graphic novel. But by refusing to deal with DC and by separating himself completely from the movie, he has effectively handed ownership of the property to DC and to us, the fans.

It's not his property anymore.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

The big deal here is Alan's reputation as the best comic writer in the world. For Alan to be at his best he must challenge the status quo, subvert people's expectations and generally make people really THINK about the whole comic book "super hero" genre.

Imagine Steven Spielberg and George Lucas going to the bosses at Fox and saying "We've got this great idea for a new Indiana Jones film! Harrison has already said yes..." and the head honchos go "Woah! Wait a minute there Hollywood's Greatest Movie Gods! We can't give you total creative control..."

That just wouldn't make sense!

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...like Coke in green glass bottles. They don't make it any more...

It seems to me, Vynson, that the disconnect can be summed up thusly: I believe that a written work belongs to whoever paid for said work to be written. You believe that a written work belongs to the writer. Does that sound about right?

I concede that I made a mistake in saying that we the fans own Watchmen.

But the truth is this: DC owns Watchmen. Moore and Gibbons signed the contract, and DC paid them for it. Unfortunately, Moore and Gibbons were left out of residuals or creative control from that point onward. It wasn't fair by a long shot, but it was legal. That's reality.

If Moore can do a thing about any of this, he hasn't. He's given up all involvement, credit and compensation for the movie and he won't even talk to DC. If Uncle Alan ever decides to fight for Watchmen again, I'll be right behind him. Until he does, he has effectively given up any right to say how the Watchmen property should be handled.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

I admit that I don't agree with Curiosity here. I'm leaning more towrad Vynson's point of view on this one.

The truth is I've never seen the contracts Moore signed with DC, I wasn't in any of their meetings. Its hard to say that he was royally screwed on the deal. It's alot of "he said, they said" stuff. Whatever the deal was, Moore signed it. I don't think they had a gun to his head or put somethng in his water before they started the dealmaking. But corporations can be sneaky, they have lots of lawyers and money, and a big track record of fucking creatives.

Whatever the case is, it sucks that publishing houses, record companies and movie studios tend to rape decent works of art for quick cash. It's not like its ever going to stop, it's the nature of the beast. The fact that Moore is now independent and can write his own ticket is great. It sucks it's not a luxury all artists have.

On the other hand (and like I've said in other threads on this board) some respectful merchandising is not raping the work. I know Vynson disagrees with me on this, but a handful of Watchmen figures targeted at collectors (like the DC Direct figures that Moore stomped on) are no big deal. Nor would be smiley face pins, Vedit Method posters, etc. But who draws the line? How do you stop it from leading to "Watchmen Babies" or hacks writing "The Adventures of Rorschach?" I don't know.

I guess my point is, at some point the product almost becomes property of the fans. Let me explain this point by citing Star Wars. When Lucas made the follow up trilogy he made them for himself. He was very clear about that. He didn't cars about what the fans hoped to see and were waiting 20 years for. He shoved Jar Jar down our throats and gave us crap dialogue and poor directing all because it was his baby. Needless to say, episodes 1-3 were crap. If he listened to anyone around him, any of the fans, entrusted the directing and dialogue writng to those who could do it better than him, we would have got better movies.

If the majority of Watchmen readers respect Moore's work and they want a few action figures, he should be a sport and let us have them. Maybe the rift with him and DC runs too deep and he just won't give them an inch reguardless of the fans. Maybe he feels figures cheapen his work, I don't know. It's probably the former.

I'm not sure how to end this post, so I just will...

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Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music - George Carlin

DoomsdayClock wrote:

I guess my point is, at some point the product almost becomes property of the fans...

Yes, that is usually the point when it enters the public domain:

70 years after death of author, or if work of corporate authorship, 95 years from publication.

Here's a joke for you that might illustrate the point:

THE COMEDIAN:
Excuse me, Mr. Moore, but what's the difference between a hooker and DC Comics?

ALAN MOORE:
I don't see much, Mr. Blake. Pray tell.

THE COMEDIAN:
A hooker will stop screwing you when you're dead.

Well, pardon my ignorance about how copyright sales normally go.

And we're not talking about the League or From Hell or V for Vendetta, though I agree those onscreen adaptations were thoroughly butchered.

If you want to talk about what I think should be the case, I totally agree with you. Alan Moore should get residuals for his work and veto power over what DC does with Watchmen. He should expect his work to be treated with dignity.

But that's not reality, Vynson. The reality is that Moore was totally ripped off and he appears to have grudgingly accepted that. Key word: Grudge. Moore has completely abandoned all rights to Watchmen. If he wants to fight DC for a fair shake again, more power to him. But if he's content to stay in his study, refusing to acknowledge Watchmen as anything other than a graphic novel, let him.

Also, I think that what Doomsday is trying to get at is that whatever DC does with Watchmen, they're going to do with complete knowledge that an entire fandom will backlash at the slightest misstep. As much as fans love their property of choice, they will acknowledge that a particular episode, movie, toy or character (*coughJarJarcough*) sucks.

Imagine what you would do if DC really did greenlight a "Watchmen Babies" TV show. Now multiply that by 20 years' worth of comic book readers. DC will not want to face that.

Anything that has to do with Watchmen -- be it prequels, action figures, T-shirts or what have you -- has to be something that we would accept and buy.

EDIT: Very funny, Vynson. I think I'll add that to the joke thread.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

Obviously, when I said it becomes a property of the fans, I wasn't speaking literally. What I was trying to get across is that when a movie, a comic book or anything becomes part of the zeitgeist it sort of grows into something bigger. Maybe my Star Wars analogy didn't illustrate that well enough. I'll try again:

Speilberg is making a new Indy film. I'd like to think he's making that film for the fans and that's likely why Harrison Ford agreed to be in it as well. Speilberg, and to a lesser extent Ford, don't need to maje that movie to pay any bills. They can do some other project and be as well paid. They understand that the fans have built that property to what it has become and that it was the fans that engrained Indy into pop culture. Now they want to make a new film and bring some of that magic back to the fans. To bring them some joy.

Watchmen is not Indy, nor is it Star Wars, but to a Watchmen fan, I'm sure it can feel as big as those franchises. So because of that, what I'm asking is, does Moore owe the fans anything? Does an obligation to the fans outweigh a grudge he has with DC. Maybe. Maybe not. Again, I don't know how bad DC screwed him.

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Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music - George Carlin