WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

If you count ifanboy, cbr and comicgeekspeak as mainstream media outlets, then yes.

More like LAMEstream media. OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO. I crack myself up.

Also, no.

If you count ifanboy, cbr and comicgeekspeak as mainstream media outlets, then yes.

if they're just steamrolling over him?

They offered me the rights to Watchmen back, if I would agree to some dopey prequels and sequels.

I had grown so sick of WATCHMEN over these last 18 months that I didn’t want the rights back anymore. If they had offered them back to me back when I wanted them, ten, twenty years ago, then maybe this could have all been resolved in a friendly fashion. But no, I wasn’t going to take the rights back at this stage after they had pretty much, in my opinion, raped what I had thought to be a pretty decent work of art. I didn’t want them throwing me back the spent and exhausted carcass of my work and certainly not under terms that would apparently allow them to go on producing witless sequels and prequels ad infinitum.

So this would seem to explain their apparent desperate need to get me to put my signature upon something, which I’m not inclined to do. This is because I actually felt that the work we did on WATCHMEN was somehow special. I have got a great deal of respect for that work. I do not want to see it prostituted. This has always been my position. I don’t want to see it prostituted and made into a run of cheap books that are nothing like the original WATCHMEN which, anyway, wouldn’t work if it was dismantled. Those characters only work as an ensemble. A comic book about Doctor Manhattan would be really obtuse and boring. A comic book about Rorscharch would be really miserable. They only work together in WATCHMEN...

I certainly am not going to meekly fall into line and sign away the rights of my property because that would be as good as saying “Yes, well, the business about you threatening Steve Moore and his dying brother, at least in my opinion, that’s all okay, let’s forgive and forget. The fact that you’re going to turn over these characters and this work that I was so proud of to a bunch of people that I consider to be hacks to simply dilute it and degrade it for your commercial profit, that’s all okay by me.” No, that isn’t going to happen. That is a thing that I will go quite a considerable way to stop happening.

So I said to Dave Gibbons, “For the sake of our friendship, Dave, I think it would be better if you and I did not discuss WATCHMEN ever again.”

I got the sense that they were talking, what, a couple of million, something like that, to sign over all of my rights to WATCHMEN. Which I again rejected for much the same reasons. This all took about two or three minutes and that concluded the conversation. I imagine that this will probably be the last one I will be having with Dave, which is very regrettable. I do tend to get the feeling that everything that I say is being ignored. All the things that I ask to have done are just completely ignored.

I don’t even have a copy of Watchmen in the house anymore. The comics world has lots of unpleasant connections, when I think back over it, many of them to do with Watchmen.

A comic book about Rorscharch would be really miserable.

Do we really want to be in the position of having the original work hereafter referred to by the term "The Alan Moore run on WATCHMEN"?

If anything, I personally think that all of this is likely to make Alan even more determined to insist via legal channels that his name be removed from the creator credits of all future printings of the original graphic novel.
Rather this than suffer the ignominy of being spoken of amongst any potential new audience thus: "You should read WATCHMEN... just make sure you get the one written by Alan Moore, not the ones by [INSERT NAME HERE]."

Do we really want to be in the position of having the original work hereafter referred to by the term "The Alan Moore run on WATCHMEN"?

But in the case of DK2, Miller has only himself to blame. He was the one who happily went and created his own significantly lesser follow-up and probably now wonders - like most fans - why he bothered in the first place.

Writer, I'd like to get your take on a few things.

What is the difference between Moore taking classic literary characters that some other writers created and inserting them into his own comic book series' and other writers taking the Watchmen characters and inserting them into their own comics. What gives Moore the right and not anyone else?

Is it simply because Moore has been outspoken about his anger toward DC? The writers Moore borrowed from are all dead, but how do we know that Jules Verne or H. Rider Haggard were alive they wouldn't be vexed at Moore for what he did to their creations?

And what about Dave Gibbons's rights? He was co-creator - not just the guy who happened to draw it - so if he's agreeable to see these new incarnations, why doesn't he have the right to green-light such projects?

Everyone seems to put Moore on this intellectual and moral high horse, but he took DC's money to create Watchmen. He willingly signed the contract; they let Moore pick Gibbons as his partner; and moreover, DC took a huge risk on a far-out concept and let Moore and Gibbons make the series they wanted to make. What did DC do that was so "evil?" What did they do that they haven't done to every comics writer and artist in the history of comics. What have they done that Marvel hasn't done - or any corporation.

If you think about it, Stan Lee has been "treated worse" than Alan Moore, but Lee's relationship with Marvel is solid. The comics industry is a business, period. Moore wants it to be about "art," but it's not. It took Moore a while to figure this out and now he lives on the fringe of comics and is happy to be there doing his art. I'm happy for him, but I think he needs to get over himself. He's not the martyr he would like us all to think he is.

Sure. DC's move to make Watchmen prequels may be motivated by greed, but I really doubt that. If what they make turns out to be a big pile of shit, so be it. It doesn't sully or stain Moore's work. Did Star Trek V make all the trekkie's forget about Star Trek II? Did it make the fans say, "fuck this, Star Trek sucks now, it's all over." No.

The truth is, what will overshadow the original Watchmen more isn't a shitty prequel or spinoff, but a really good one. In fact, if they crank a few shitty one's out it will help put a huge nail in the coffin of a Watchmen franchise. A good one however, would likely create an opening for more and more comic byproducts.

I love Moore's early work. He was a genius. But he needs to relax and see what other talents can do with Watchmen - just like he re-invented Verne and Haggard. Not because these new artist can do better, but because they should just have the freedom to try.

What is the difference between Moore taking classic literary characters that some other writers created and inserting them into his own comic book series' and other writers taking the Watchmen characters and inserting them into their own comics. What gives Moore the right and not anyone else?

it was tying it into the rape-revenge stories and making light of a verys erious sub-genre that kind of offended me.

Context is all-important. No-one picks up a comic featuring century-old characters and expects it to be canon, especially when said characters are embedded in popular culture to the extent that playing with them is not only acceptable, but important.
Any follow-up/follow-behind Watchmen comics would be published by DC Comics. This isn't The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This is Jaws 2.

But the purpose of Watchmen was so that any spin-off/sequel/prequel stuff wouldn't be as good as the original, was it not? Again, with the exception of that Minutemen prequel Moore & Gibbons were going to do, but then the DKSA thing would come up again.


I'm done with this thread.

Writer, I'd like to get your take on a few things.

What is the difference between Moore taking classic literary characters that some other writers created and inserting them into his own comic book series' and other writers taking the Watchmen characters and inserting them into their own comics. What gives Moore the right and not anyone else?

Is it simply because Moore has been outspoken about his anger toward DC? The writers Moore borrowed from are all dead, but how do we know that Jules Verne or H. Rider Haggard were alive they wouldn't be vexed at Moore for what he did to their creations?

And what about Dave Gibbons's rights? He was co-creator - not just the guy who happened to draw it - so if he's agreeable to see these new incarnations, why doesn't he have the right to green-light such projects?

Everyone seems to put Moore on this intellectual and moral high horse, but he took DC's money to create Watchmen. He willingly signed the contract; they let Moore pick Gibbons as his partner; and moreover, DC took a huge risk on a far-out concept and let Moore and Gibbons make the series they wanted to make. What did DC do that was so "evil?" What did they do that they haven't done to every comics writer and artist in the history of comics. What have they done that Marvel hasn't done - or any corporation.

If you think about it, Stan Lee has been "treated worse" than Alan Moore, but Lee's relationship with Marvel is solid. The comics industry is a business, period. Moore wants it to be about "art," but it's not. It took Moore a while to figure this out and now he lives on the fringe of comics and is happy to be there doing his art. I'm happy for him, but I think he needs to get over himself. He's not the martyr he would like us all to think he is.

Sure. DC's move to make Watchmen prequels may be motivated by greed, but I really doubt that. If what they make turns out to be a big pile of shit, so be it. It doesn't sully or stain Moore's work. Did Star Trek V make all the trekkie's forget about Star Trek II? Did it make the fans say, "fuck this, Star Trek sucks now, it's all over." No.

The truth is, what will overshadow the original Watchmen more isn't a shitty prequel or spinoff, but a really good one. In fact, if they crank a few shitty one's out it will help put a huge nail in the coffin of a Watchmen franchise. A good one however, would likely create an opening for more and more comic byproducts.

I love Moore's early work. He was a genius. But he needs to relax and see what other talents can do with Watchmen - just like he re-invented Verne and Haggard. Not because these new artist can do better, but because they should just have the freedom to try.

Writer, I'd like to get your take on a few things.

What is the difference between Moore taking classic literary characters that some other writers created and inserting them into his own comic book series' and other writers taking the Watchmen characters and inserting them into their own comics. What gives Moore the right and not anyone else?

Is it simply because Moore has been outspoken about his anger toward DC? The writers Moore borrowed from are all dead, but how do we know that Jules Verne or H. Rider Haggard were alive they wouldn't be vexed at Moore for what he did to their creations?

And what about Dave Gibbons's rights? He was co-creator - not just the guy who happened to draw it - so if he's agreeable to see these new incarnations, why doesn't he have the right to green-light such projects?

Everyone seems to put Moore on this intellectual and moral high horse, but he took DC's money to create Watchmen. He willingly signed the contract; they let Moore pick Gibbons as his partner; and moreover, DC took a huge risk on a far-out concept and let Moore and Gibbons make the series they wanted to make. What did DC do that was so "evil?" What did they do that they haven't done to every comics writer and artist in the history of comics. What have they done that Marvel hasn't done - or any corporation.

If you think about it, Stan Lee has been "treated worse" than Alan Moore, but Lee's relationship with Marvel is solid. The comics industry is a business, period. Moore wants it to be about "art," but it's not. It took Moore a while to figure this out and now he lives on the fringe of comics and is happy to be there doing his art. I'm happy for him, but I think he needs to get over himself. He's not the martyr he would like us all to think he is.

Sure. DC's move to make Watchmen prequels may be motivated by greed, but I really doubt that. If what they make turns out to be a big pile of shit, so be it. It doesn't sully or stain Moore's work. Did Star Trek V make all the trekkie's forget about Star Trek II? Did it make the fans say, "fuck this, Star Trek sucks now, it's all over." No.

The truth is, what will overshadow the original Watchmen more isn't a shitty prequel or spinoff, but a really good one. In fact, if they crank a few shitty one's out it will help put a huge nail in the coffin of a Watchmen franchise. A good one however, would likely create an opening for more and more comic byproducts.

I love Moore's early work. He was a genius. But he needs to relax and see what other talents can do with Watchmen - just like he re-invented Verne and Haggard. Not because these new artist can do better, but because they should just have the freedom to try.