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Alan Moore Pulls LOEG From DC Comics
Mark Andrich writes "In its return from a sabbatical, Lying In The Gutters reports that Alan Moore, author of the V For Vendetta comic, has publically disassociated himself from the movie of the same name, and disputes claims of support made by Joel Silver. As a result, he has also pulled the League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic book series from Warner owned DC Comics, and is handing it to two small press publishers in the US and the UK. And in the subsequent mood of elation, has announced his engagement to long term partner Melinda Gebbie."
really acted since Leon (at age 12), I for one am glad that Moore is pulling support. Personally, I didn't want this movie made either. I had finally decided that this year I would be V for Halloween (I like being obscure people for Halloween) and then I heard about the movie being released on November 5th... and changed my mind.
Go, Alan!
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
Alan Moore has had at least three movies made from his work recently, and he has seemed relatively okay with having details and stories changed around. I wonder what specifically now has made him change his mind.
The main complaint about Hollywood is that they are taking the edginess out of his works and producing "pulp" thrillers. But Alan Moore's own works recently have been less focused on being all edgy and underground and more on being fun...witness the "Tom Strong" series. So is this an issue of commercialization?
Or was "Hellblazer" just that bad?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
As I understand, only a big name like Alan Moore can get the kind of contracts where retention of ownership is even possible. At least, that's the case when dealing with big houses like DC/WB.
Back when Image first debuted their line of comics, they trumpeted how the creative elements actually got to keep their creations. Popular titles like Spawn, The Maxx, Gen13, and Witchblade soon followed. Made pretty good money, as I recall.
I think Image died recently though, didn't they? If not in name then in spirit? Gotta look that up. I'm not in the scene anymore...
http://www.thesuperficial.com/image.php?path=/arch ives/np1.JPG
I think that Moore has a reason to be angry. Since I first heard about this movie, I went out and got the graphic novel. This was quite strange, seeing as I had never read a comic before that. I was surprised at the amount of intellectual stimulation I was able to get out of it. It also helped that I was into distopian literature; fans of 1984 will love it.
But key parts started to be changed. It was inevitable, considering the length of the novel. For example, the fictional British-fascist movement called Norsefire comes to power in a somewhat complex manner. In the movie, they just decided that they would have the Nazis win WWII. Everybody hates the Nazis right, and nobody wants to go see a movie based on a political comic book.
The moral status of the main character, V, is also ambivalent, which made the novel even more thought-provoking. V wears a disguise, papier mache mask included, that bears the likeness of Guy Fawkes (check wikipedia if you're not familiar; basically, he once tried to blow up parliament). It is never obvious whethere he is a terrorist or freedom fighter. He blows stuff up, and often kills civilians to get his point accross. I suppose the easy way to categorize him would be as an antihero. My only fear is that the movie will take this all away and make him another run of the mill masked crusader.
So in conclusion, just read the graphic novel, in case the movie blows.
P.S.: The teaser poster says "remember, remember the 5th of november." This is NOT necessarily the date it will be coming out. (Warning: those of english decent will hate me for pointing out the obvious). It comes from a popular rhyme recited on Bonfire day (again, wikipedia for those who don't know) that tells the fate of Guy Fawkes:
Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot...
Sorry if you knew all this already.
A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
No, Image is still around. Nothing notable business wise from them in a while. Many of the original creators have stoped doing their own work (Erik Larsen the main exception), but the company is still putting out books regularly.
The irony is that while most of the founders stopped doing work, many have other people working for them under contracts that are not all that much better than the contracts the founders rebelled against.
One of Todd McFarlane's companies recently declared bankruptcy but, like many big companies, the main creditors for that company were other McFarlane subsidiaries...
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why are studios paying everyone so little? From the article it looks like the people who did "V for Vendetta" are only getting 8K each? WTF? 8K while everyone gets 6 figures? Shit I don't think the cameraman gets that little.
Thats sad when the people who make the genius work get paid so little. Strong IP laws indeed. Maybe the little IP owners should make do something about it. Sounds like to me some collectiv bargaining (and no I don't mean union here) needs to be done.
sri
Hard to think of Image Comics as a success story. It's a husk of it's former self (if it even exists...haven't read comics in a few years), abandoned by the same forces that created the once-vibrant label.
The books were never EVER on time, and were mostly flash after the first year or so. Remember Deathmate? Deathmate Red was like 6 months late!
Image started as a bunch of kids telling the big two (Marvel and DC) to screw off, then each and every one of those founders started their own imprints and started to do the very things they left the big two for (you reading, Todd McFarlane?).
If the Image artists had 'stayed true to their roots' then they would still be relevant AND profitable. Individually, some of them are still going strong, but the whole idea got kicked to the side as soon as they made their first big paycheck. Good thing Alan Moore knows who butters his bread. He's always been a class act.
bonus trivia: what does I.M.A.G.E. stand for?
Thank you Dave Raggett
THey make a distinction between economic rights and "moral rights". Creators can only sell the economic rights, so they maintain the moral rights which often include the abilty to stop bad uses
Fight Club, while an excellent film, did bomb, and infuriated Ruppert Murdoch.
A film like Fight Club, simply would not be produced today... well not in Hollywood at least. From Wikipedia:Speaking as one who has read comics since the early 70's, Alan Moore hasn't done work worth Jack Shit since Swamp Thing in the early 80's. The Watchmen is the most overrated comic/graphic novel of all time. And what you never hear is that he's pissed off DC too. The Watchmen were all based on the old Charlton Comics characters (Captain Atom, The Peacemaker, etc), which DC had just aquired when Moore was writing The Watchmen. The conclusion of the story would basically make some of those characters unusuable in the future, so Dick Giordano (editor in chief at the time at DC) withdrew permission to use them. Moore simply made thinly veiled copies of the characters (The Question = Rorschatz, for example). While Moore's fans trumpeted the series as the first comics that made the medium "serious" because of storytelling that involved the humanity of the heroes (including fear, doubt, guilt, etc), this is, to put it none too mildly, Bullshit. Moore was breaking no new ground here. Stan Lee basically built the modern Marvel Comics in the 60's on those themes. Peter Parker was nervous, shy, and vulnerable. The Thing hated himself. Tony Stark had a heart condition. For Moore's fans to claim he blazed this trail is disengenuous. Stan Lee, Doug Moench, and a host of others did it first, and mostly did it better.
Better than Chris Claremont's work with the X-Men, especially from 80 to 90? Are you high? All of Alan Moore's work put together isn't as good as the classic Days of Future Past storyline from Claremont and Byrne. Same for Just about any Wolfman/Perez story from the early 80's.
Moore is just a plain pain in the ass. His talent has nothing to do with it, and that's exagerated as well. He used to be a good writer, but he's living off of his reputation. Quit pretending he's Shakespeare on the four color page.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel