We all knew Alan Moore wouldn’t be happy about the upcoming seven-issue prequel to Watchmen.
Moore recently spoke about the upcoming series, calling it “evil” on the part of DC.
Moore is upset that DC is taking his creations and using his characters. Moore was asked how this situation was different that what he did with his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which brought together several literary characters in one comic book.
“In literature, I would say that it’s different. I would say, and it might be splitting hairs, but I’m not adapting these characters. I’m not doing an adaptation of Dracula or King Solomon’s Mines. What I am doing is stealing them. There is a difference between doing an adaptation, which is evil, and actually stealing the characters, which, as long as everybody’s dead or you don’t mention the names, is perfectly alright by me. I’m not trying to be glib here, I genuinely do feel that in literature you’ve got a tradition that goes back to Jason and the Argonauts of combining literary characters,” he says. “It’s just irresistible to do these fictional mash-ups. They’ve been going on for hundreds of years and I feel I’m a part of a proud literary tradition in doing that. With taking comic characters that have been created by cheated old men, I feel that that is different […] and that’s my take on the subject.”
Chavalier says
I just love the whacky. 🙂
JBaeza says
I think that in spite of him being a great writer, Alan Moore tends to react bitterly every time someone messes with “his” creations. That is understandable when you see crappy movies like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen being done.
On the other hand, however, I find what he did with League’s graphic novel A LOT more like stealing than anything else.
Live and let live, old man. That’s all I’m trying to say.