The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

by **achilles** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:55 am

Timbales wrote:I wonder if the critters that live in his beard speak to him, telling him the world is out to get him.

Heh. He certainly sounds paranoid. I wonder what an official diagnosis of him would be? Apart from "batshit insane", that is... :lol:

by **Rockman** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:57 am

yeah I have a hard time with considering anyone in the comic book industry a genius. If that was the case they'd be elsewhere making millions of dollars.

by **achilles** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:58 am

LobsterJ wrote:
Why? It is irrelevant to the point I was making, that Moore is not a dick to his fans.

Er, maybe because in the rest of the quote, he IS a dick to his fans. Of course you're right, that part, since it refutes the point you were trying so hard to make, is irrelevant. :lol:

by **avengingtitan** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:58 am

achilles wrote:
Heh. He certainly sounds paranoid. I wonder what an official diagnosis of him would be? Apart from "batshit insane", that is...

Clearly all that magic he practices is warping his mind............that or the massive amounts of LSD.

by **Doc Jon** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:59 am

achilles wrote:
Yes, I've enjoyed reading the Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, Green Lantern, Hulk, Captain America and others he's created. What's that? He didn't create them? He didn't actually create all that many who even come close to those characters?

Stunning! Well, at least his Watchmen characters are entirely original, not based on any other characters or anything.

And of course he created all those characters in his other most famous work these days, LOEG. It's not like he ripped them off and then justified it by saying essentially that he's a genius, so it's allowed with him, and anyone who rips of the characters he ripped off in the first place isn't, so they're bad people.

Okay, turning off the /sarc tag, sure, he created some characters, but like I said, none of them come close to having the staying power and iconic status of so many others whose creators he dismisses because they aren't Alan Moore. Sure, he's written some nice stories, but let's face it, so have others. I'd put Gaiman's stuff against the best Moore ever did in a heartbeat for example. And I'd also say that in absolute terms, DKR was a better overall story than Watchmen. More engaging characters, and it holds up better, even though like Watchmen, it's a period piece.

Sure, he revamped some characters like Swampy, what does he want, a statue? It isn't like no other writer has ever taken a character and brought a fresh take to it that revived the character.

Strangely, I do agree with him that DC shouldn't revisit Watchmen, but not only because it was a complete story and didn't need to have anything more told about it, but also because I just don't think it was a great as it's been made out to be. And I actually have the trade and have read it a few times. It's always a nice story, not terrible inventive, but well done. Never the be all and end all of comics though. I would for example put Gaiman's Sandman over it, and Maus, and others as well.

I also do agree with him that Johns' taking his throwaway GL stories and using them wasn't a great idea. But not because I thought they were untouchable like he seems to, or that using them reflects a lack of creativity, (after all, he does the very same thing all the time by filching other people's characters----and I don't see anything wrong with that either, so long as he or anyone else does it legally), but because Johns fucked it up with his silly reducing an epic story, (The Empire of Tears for example), to debased crap. But that's Johns for you. He's not really a guy who brings the sense of awe and wonder that others can, (including Moore at his best).

Bottom line is Moore was a very good writer of comics. He wasn't the best ever. He wasn't Jules Verne or the like, as he seemed to want to imply. He was simply one of the better comic book writers, a guy who helped elevate comics as a medium beyond kid's reading. He should be happy with that, stop badmouthing everyone else, and get beyond whatever he imagines DC did to him. If he never wants to work for DC again, that's fine, I can understand that. But for his own sake, he should stop wallowing in bitterness and move on.

Creating characters that become iconic doesn't make one a great writer. It may make one a great creator, sure, but the two are not inexorably linked.

Rob Liefeld created Cable and Deadpool. They have helped define the last 2 decades of comics. You gonna tell me he's a great writer?

And Stan Lee has also had more than his fair share of crap. Ravage 2099 anyone? Because that shit was one of the worst comics I have ever read. It doesn't mean Stan isn't awesome.

What I don't think you realize is that without Moore, I don't know that stuff like Vertigo would have EVER existed. People like Gaiman would have never had that audience for their work.

It's not an overstatement when people say that Watchmen was when comics "grew up." It showed publishers that there was an adult audience out there that was ready for something more than what they were publishing.

To dismiss him (which is what you are doing) is something you can do because you grew up in the wake of what he helped create. Few creators (very very few) have had the impact Moore has had. He's earned his right to state his opinion. He certainly earned it more than the fanboys who eagerly jump into articles written about him in order to tell him to shut up...

by **Doc Jon** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:01 am

Rockman wrote:yeah I have a hard time with considering anyone in the comic book industry a genius. If that was the case they'd be elsewhere making millions of dollars.

Physicists don't make a whole hell of a lot of money. The term genius can be applied to many of them...

by **LobsterJ** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:01 am

achilles wrote:

Er, maybe because in the rest of the quote, he IS a dick to his fans. Of course you're right, that part, since it refutes the point you were trying so hard to make, is irrelevant.

Saying he'd prefer his fans not to buy a book is not being a dick to them. Mazzuchelli just said the same thing about a Year One reissue coming out soon.

by **habitual** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:01 am

Rockman wrote:yeah I have a hard time with considering anyone in the comic book industry a genius. If that was the case they'd be elsewhere making millions of dollars.

That's a bit ridiculous.

There are guys in the industry pulling down a considerable amount of money.

Hab

by **avengingtitan** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:03 am

Rockman wrote:yeah I have a hard time with considering anyone in the comic book industry a genius. If that was the case they'd be elsewhere making millions of dollars.

Oh really?

by **e_galston** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:05 am

LobsterJ wrote:
Saying he'd prefer his fans not to buy a book is not being a dick to them. Mazzuchelli just said the same thing about a Year One reissue coming out soon.

But Mazzuchelli said not to buy the reissue because its not the way the story was meant to be and DC changed things.. he's not telling fans to not buy his books if they think differently than him.

by **Rockman** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:08 am

Doc Jon wrote:
Physicists don't make a whole hell of a lot of money. The term genius can be applied to many of them...

I don't think anyone ever compared Moore to an intellectual genius, and I'm not trying to either.

They'd say he was a creative genius, I'd say he was just excellent in a field of mediocrity.

by **Doc Jon** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:09 am

Sitebreaker wrote:
But Mazzuchelli said not to buy the reissue because its not the way the story was meant to be and DC changed things.. he's not telling fans to not buy his books if they think differently than him.

I really don't see the big deal. Moore has also stood up for his principles with regards to money. He has not taken money for films like Watchmen and V. In a consumer society, it's really the way to speak loudest.

by **Rockman** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:09 am

avengingtitan wrote:Oh really?

Yeah Comic books are his hobby now. He was good enough to branch out and become a respected author, screen writer and producer.

by **Rockman** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:12 am

habitual wrote:
That's a bit ridiculous.

There are guys in the industry pulling down a considerable amount of money.

Hab

oh yeah I'm sure you can make a good living there.

I just don't think comic books in general should be regarded the same as novels, or even films. They are a limited field.

by **Doc Jon** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:14 am

Rockman wrote:
I don't think anyone ever compared Moore to an intellectual genius, and I'm not trying to either.

They'd say he was a creative genius, I'd say he was just excellent in a field of mediocrity.

I think he's a comics savant.

There's a reason why literature courses have been studying Watchmen for decades at this point. It's not just the comic world that likes or appreciates the book. If anything, it's the comic audience that least appreciates it at this point.

In a world where the story and tone have been copied and used ad nauseum, comic fans forget the impact the story originally had. Again, there were very few series like Watchmen when it came out, yet achilles can name apparently a thousand that existed in such format. What he's really referring to is to what happened AFTER Watchmen came out. The impact literally changed the industry. You (not you specifically) may think that the book is mediocre or whatever, but there is no denying its impact and Moore's.

Few people have changed the industry. Moore is one of them.