To be fair, this was not based off his work, this was based off the previous author's stuff.

Alan Moore did not create the character Swamp Thing, he did make him more awesome though.

(it was a joke)

quote:

Originally posted by Furious:
(it was a joke)

.....yet one more on the pile of "sarcasm is hard to interpret or translate with text"....*goes off to grumble*

well well well what do we have here? a nice little agressive chat room? I like it!!! continue...

watches intently from a distance in a bush

Still watching

Who watches the perv watching us from the bushes?

Me.

*watches*

oh I see what you did there! *clap clap clap*

Much as I like Alan Moore, I do find it a bit rich that the author of 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' is complaining about his characters being used by someone else.

Re-reading Game Wizard's sig, I just realized that Cave Johnson and J. Jonah Jameson from the recent Spider-Man movies are the same guy.

*mind blown*

Really? You just now realized that?

J.K. Simmons is the name of the actor who does those characters in case you wish to know.

@Murphy - The characters Alan Moore used though were all Public-Domain characters which means anyone can do anything with them now without fear of copy right infringement or ruining the integrity of the character. Where as the characters in Watchmen are his own creation, they were archetypes based off other characters sure, but their backstory and all that are entirely of his own design.

Also the authors of all the characters for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are long since dead too so they can't complain anyway where Moore is very much alive and cranky.

@Game Wizard: See, that's the thing. The issue of copyright. DC owns the copyright and all rights to those characters and their world, so legally they can do this.

Many of the authors' works that Alan Moore uses either were made before copyright was invented or theirs expired a long time ago. So legally, he can use those characters as well: though I know before their copyright on Peter Pan expired, Moore had some disagreement with the Great Ormond Street Hospital over Lost Girls when their rights hadn't expired yet.

Do I think that this is right? What DC and Moore are doing is legal. But personally, that is an entirely different issue. As a creator myself, I do think that they should have given Moore the rights to his own characters. I also believe that Watchmen sequels or prequels should only be made by him or those with his permission.

However, Moore is not willing to make anymore of Watchmen beyond what it is, and back when he did or at least was considering it, it didn't happen because they wouldn't let him tell the stories he wanted to: or felt that he could.

Copyright, from my understanding of it, is an interesting and controversial thing. Before it existed, literature always borrowed from everywhere with impunity. The problem is that people also took credit for things that they did not make and the people who did make them did not get the credit or the monetary value they deserved. But copyright, especially generational copyright, can limit the growth of something and keep it from growing, or prevent the creation of something new from happening with established material ... or even preventing something old (like Miracleman) from ever seeing the light of day again: which from what I understand didn't happen in the past ... or at least not as much.

So basically it is this struggle between creativity or art, ego, and money. No new thing in the grand scheme of things.

I do think what's happening with Watchmen is a natural thing to happen, but not in the way I would have really liked: as a creator and as a fan. At the same time, I would also to add that I don't think this Project will take away or "ruin the integrity" of any of the characters. People will have the option or reading or not reading it after all. But I've already said as much anyway. And I really, like I said before, would have loved to see an Alan Moore created Minutemen with vignettes of Hooded Justice, the Silhouette and others.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mythos,

You are right D.C. does own the rights to Watchmen. Alan Moore does get credit for his work and recognition but unless he had it conditioned in any contract for the project he does not get a say in how D.C. or any comic book company does with his work/material. Same thing with Marvel happened with many artists not being fairly compensated for their work such as royalties when their work is adapted into other mediums or continued onward from their end point.


Perfect example would be H.P. Lovecraft and his whole Cthulhu mythos. Sure he started it but because he didn't take legal actions to ensure that he alone could write the stories or make sure that he was compensated if someone else should make their own stories.

Because of that the mythos was greatly expanded and he died a very poor man.

quote:

Originally posted by Game Wizard:
Really? You just now realized that?

J.K. Simmons is the name of the actor who does those characters in case you wish to know.

I know! And I call myself a geek! I should be ashamed of myself...

*guilts*

... okay I'm over it.

quote:

Originally posted by Game Wizard:
You are right D.C. does own the rights to Watchmen. Alan Moore does get credit for his work and recognition but unless he had it conditioned in any contract for the project he does not get a say in how D.C. or any comic book company does with his work/material. Same thing with Marvel happened with many artists not being fairly compensated for their work such as royalties when their work is adapted into other mediums or continued onward from their end point.

Perfect example would be H.P. Lovecraft and his whole Cthulhu mythos. Sure he started it but because he didn't take legal actions to ensure that he alone could write the stories or make sure that he was compensated if someone else should make their own stories.

Because of that the mythos was greatly expanded and he died a very poor man.

As an example of this from a prose fiction standpoint, Lovecraft didn't have--as far as I know--copyright on his work, but the irony is he would have died a poor man one way or another because his work only started to become influential more or less after he died. It happens a lot to creators. One culture doesn't really understand them and the next one somehow changes to the point where their work becomes very important to them or their spirit of the times. I also know there are some issues of canon with regards to some of his successors as well.

I can't even begin to imagine how many people and works his stories influenced: both in the expansion of his mythos--accepted or otherwise--and in the people whose own writing was informed by his own: if only in literary allusions. Like Alan Moore, for instance.

Good point. I'm sure just from a horror genre standpoint alone think how many books or films would not have been made were it not for Lovecraft.

Then there is music too. Metallica themselves has a song called "Call of Ktulu". They said they changed the spelling of it since saying or writing the real name brings the beast closer,

I suppose you are right, Lovecraft was much like Edgar Allan Poe. Both brilliant writers in the horror genre but both didn't achieve their fame till like you said after they died.

Lovecraft was an excessively purple writer, and a blatant and virulent racist, and it's been my experience that he wrote very little you could meaningfully call, "horror." He wasn't even an especially unique writer, if you've read the writers from around his time. The one thing he did that they didn't is that he created a mythos instead of one-off stories.