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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."
Kindly refer to them as LOEG brand toy bricks.
My journey to the Nerd Side is complete. I actually knew what the article was about.
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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...
Problem is, many innovators (especially in the arts) don't have the skills to take their products to a wide audience on their own. There's a reason beyond just "cashing in" that someone would choose to option their idea to a corporation-- Marketing, publishing and distribution are difficult and daunting tasks. And it's easy to say "go with an indie film company-publishing-record label-whatever", but these companies' abilities to actually sell product vary wildly.
So yeah, up-and-coming artists, writers etc. should realize the value of their ideas and protect themselves from being screwed in the future. They should enter every business deal with a good lawyer, and consider working with reputable "indie" companies rather than a big name giants. And most importantly, those who have "made it" should look out for the little guy and do what they can to fight for creator's rights.
It's not arrogance when you actually are a brilliant and skilled creator in your field. Alan Moore is, in his medium, probably the best living writer. Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis are good, but they also split their focus a bit in other mediums. Alan Moore has, for over 25 years, consistently produced the best work in comics.
In that same period, he's also gotten screwed over many times by publishers going back on their word. DC (owned by Time Warner)in particular has time and time again done things he feels are breaches of their "good word", not to mention outright breaches of contract. I get the sense Alan is a man of his word, and gets particularly peeved when he doesn't get the same respect in return. People of high standards and not a small bit of genius often tend to be a bit short-tempered when they feel disrespected.
Oh, and "COMIC BOOKS" are real books nowadays, you know. Go to a bookstore sometime, they probably have several shelves full of highly respected works of graphic fiction... not to mention some very fun works of complete escapist fluff too.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
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
The odd spoiler follows.
In an interview I read recently, Moore says something along the lines that he doesn't think there will ever be a market for a film where the hero is an anarchist terrorist. Obviously we don't know whats in the film, but even though its been made I sort of share his skepticism. One wonders if V really does remain a terrorist who goes around blowing up public buildings in the film for no other reason than to make people think and feel freely...seems a little unlikely "in the current climate". My money is on them twisting that element to make it the struggle of the lone hero against the repressive regime, but the subtlety in what V's aims actually are, and the moral ambivalence, will be long gone (if you take out the motivation than V is undiscernable from say Rambo, both blow lots of things up to fight Bad Guys(tm) ). Also, is it really going to begin with the attempted rape of a underage prostitute by the secret police? And can we really trust Elrond to keep the damn mask on all the way through? A flashback (yes, yes, but look how its drawn) or an unmasking would ruin the whole thing. I can't think of many Hollywood stars who'd be prepared to do that as a leading actor (David Prowse will of course always be the exception, but he wasn't as such a Hollywood star, he was the Green Cross Code man!)
As to Hollywood getting England wrong, we are so well used to that, to be honest it barely registers anymore. It was going on long before any of us were born. One sort of grows up realising theres a special mythological England with bizarre Ye Olde customs and behaviour that exists in films and the one you actually live in. But then thats probably true for everyone across the world to some extent. And being the sinister villains rather than the lantern jawed hero is fine with me as well, they always have the best lines anyway. Our accents (e.g., the woman in Frasier...wtf?), our culture and our history are regularly and comprehensively pissed all over in the name of the North American market, but heh, as the Voice of Fate would say:
England Prevails.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
its bonfire night (not day) but bravo for even caring enough to mention it. V's costume is based on Guy Fawkes, who as part of a conspiracy attempted to blow up the houses of parliament by placing a large quantity of gunpowder in a cellar underneath them. This was to be ignited on the 5th of November, killing James the 1st as he officially opened that session of parliament. The aim was to incite a Catholic rebellion.
But Fawkes and the conspirators were captured (they tipped off a friend not to go the House on that day but the letter was intercepted) and tortured and, having confessed, were hung, drawn and quartered. On bonfire night its traditional to get a bonfire together and burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes upon it (and have fireworks and so on as well). For those interested in such things theres a number of conspiracy theories about the nature of conspiracy but I won't go into it here.
I mention this only to point out the sort of post-modernist (urgh, sorry) games Moore is playing by having V dress as Guy Fawkes and, well, blow up buildings. He's sort of dressed as the national villain but he's the hero. Only he's a terrorist, which confuses things even more because when V for Vendetta was written England was quite often being attacked by Catholic terrorists intent on murdering us with bombs and incendiary devices, so he had balls of iron in pulling it off really. The further point here being the Englishness of it is central to the understanding the character and the plot. If you try to make it less foreign to non-English people than you run the risk of missing the point, which may or may not be the case in the forthcoming film. Which is why "eggy breakfast" or whatever it is feels like a bad omen.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
I taught Watchmen as the grand finale to an honors college course on apocalyptic literature. The response was outstanding.
Little pictures of people in funny costumes do not an immature genre make. Not in Moore's case, not by a long shot.
Keep in mind that he's not dissasociating himself from the movie because he's seen it and disliked it. He's just fed up with worrying about movie adaptations of his works, and had declared in advance he didn't want his name attached to them in the future. The problem here is that they claimed he'd approved of the movie, when he had specificly declined involvement on any level. None of this reflects on the actual quality of the movie.