Alan Moore ''I don't want WATCHMEN back''.

[Mr 9.8]

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/07/alan-moore-rejects-dc-rights-offer-i-dont-want-watchmen-back/

 

Alan Moore rejects DC rights offer: 'I don't want Watchmen back'

 

Alan Moore, whose tumultuous relationship with DC Comics is legendary, claims the publisher offered this week to return the rights to his most famous creation -- in exchange for a concession.

 

“They offered me the rights to Watchmen back, if I would agree to some dopey prequels and sequels,” Moore told Underwire today. "So I just told them that if they said that 10 years ago, when I asked them for that, then yeah it might have worked. But these days I don’t want Watchmen back. Certainly, I don’t want it back under those kinds of terms."

 

Rumors circulated earlier this year that the departure of Paul Levitz as president and publisher of DC cleared any in-house obstacles to further use of the Watchmen characters. However, Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee tell Underwire the company "would only revisit these iconic characters if the creative vision of any proposed new stories matched the quality set by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons nearly 25 years ago, and our first discussion on any of this would naturally be with the creators themselves."

 

Moore, who created the groundbreaking 1986 miniseries with Gibbons, stopped working for DC in 1989 following disputes about Watchmen royalties and a proposed age-rating system. When WildStorm, which published Moore's America's Best Comics line, was sold to DC in 1998, the writer was assured of an editorial firewall protecting him from the parent company's interference. However, there were still conflicts, most infamously the pulping of The Legion of Extraordinary Gentlemen #5, which contained an authentic vintage advertisement for the Marvel-brand person_who_is_obnoxiously_self-impressed.

 

Moore, who has refused royalties from film adaptations of his work, says he no longer even has a copy of Watchmen in his house. "The comics world has lots of unpleasant connections," he tells Underwire, "when I think back over it, many of them to do with Watchmen."

[DiceX]

Yet he keeps doing what he does expecting that someday, some publisher will have the moral decorousness to honor his stories for the Shakespearean works of art that they are, and crown him king of the world.

 

...or he'll just shut up and write another funnybook story so he has something to whine about in a few more years.

 

 

[mschmidt]

Yet he keeps doing what he does expecting that someday, some publisher will have the moral decorousness to honor his stories for the Shakespearean works of art that they are, and crown him king of the world.

 

You really have no clue what Alan Moore is like, do you?

[dupont2005]

DC would gladly ruin one of the very few things they haven't ruined yet with those sequels and prequels.

[mschmidt]

Sure. And Alan Moore has zero interest in being a part of it - which should be applauded, not ridiculed.

[Bosco685]

Sure. And Alan Moore has zero interest in being a part of it - which should be applauded, not ridiculed.

[DiceX]

Yet he keeps doing what he does expecting that someday, some publisher will have the moral decorousness to honor his stories for the Shakespearean works of art that they are, and crown him king of the world.

 

You really have no clue what Alan Moore is like, do you?

 

I know exactly what he is, but you wouldn't begrudge me from poking at him, would you?

 

 

[Ares]

Alan Moore hates people messing with his creations but has no issue messing and perverting creations of others.

 

On that he is a hypocrite

[nmtg9]

Sometime he does cut off his nose to spite his face. Such a stubborn cookie.

[Mac Man]

Huh. I had no idea Jim Lee was helping run DC now. Weird.

 

And oh yeah. There's no need for more Watchmen. That's the beauty of it: It was a mini-series and it ended. Want more? Reread it.

[dupont2005]

Huh. I had no idea Jim Lee was helping run DC now. Weird.

 

And oh yeah. There's no need for more Watchmen. That's the beauty of it: It was a mini-series and it ended. Want more? Reread it.

But someone needs to be resurrected and given a mullet

[He11blazer]

At first I was like "Yeah, you wouldn't make a Hamlet 2 or a Hamlet prequel would you? lol"

 

...and then I thought, "But what about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead?" Hmm, a spin-off by another creator, using characters from and set in the same world as the original, and it's bloody good

 

Has anyone ever suggested that Tom Stoppard was diluting and destroying Shakespeare's work? Of course not. So bring on the (high quality) Watchmen spin-offs

[fantastic_four]

And oh yeah. There's no need for more Watchmen. That's the beauty of it: It was a mini-series and it ended.

 

Moore himself in that quote indicates he had more in mind at some point...but they wouldn't greenlight it when HE wanted to do it...so now he clearly wants no part of it simply to be an egotistical .

[sakaridis]

Alan Moore hates people messing with his creations but has no issue messing and perverting creations of others.

 

On that he is a hypocrite

[hulksmashdave]

“They offered me the rights to Watchmen back, if I would agree to some dopey prequels and sequels,” Moore told Underwire today.

 

Classic

[JuliusSeizure]

I assume the deal would be for Moore himself to write the "dopey prequels and sequels" - otherwise why does DC need to make a deal with him if they own the rights? Just have one of their in-house hacks write the stories.

[Annihilus]

Moore is such an odd duck, but certainly not alone in that respect in the industry. I was just reading an article on the whole Miracleman/Marvelman thing (which is a whole lot more convoluted than I realized) and at least he was cool enough to say he would donate any royalties that he might make on the first printing of any such material to Mick Anglo.

 

I had no idea that Gaiman and McFarlane were suing each other over it. Not sure what rock I've been living under

[fantastic_four]

I assume the deal would be for Moore himself to write the "dopey prequels and sequels" - otherwise why does DC need to make a deal with him if they own the rights?

 

No need to assume, there's a Jim Lee quote in the article which explicitly says that.

[Mac Man]

Moore is such an odd duck, but certainly not alone in that respect in the industry. I was just reading an article on the whole Miracleman/Marvelman thing (which is a whole lot more convoluted than I realized) and at least he was cool enough to say he would donate any royalties that he might make on the first printing of any such material to Mick Anglo.

 

I had no idea that Gaiman and McFarlane were suing each other over it. Not sure what rock I've been living under

 

They've been suing each other for a while--including some IP from when Gaiman did some guest writing early on in Spawn that eventually lead to Medieval Spawn or something like that.

 

 

[Bosco685]

Moore is such an odd duck, but certainly not alone in that respect in the industry. I was just reading an article on the whole Miracleman/Marvelman thing (which is a whole lot more convoluted than I realized) and at least he was cool enough to say he would donate any royalties that he might make on the first printing of any such material to Mick Anglo.

 

I had no idea that Gaiman and McFarlane were suing each other over it. Not sure what rock I've been living under

 

They've been suing each other for a while--including some IP from when Gaiman did some guest writing early on in Spawn that eventually lead to Medieval Spawn or something like that.

Spawn #9, with the 1st appearance of Angela, Medieval Spawn, and Cogliostro. After McFarlane had been paying Gaiman royalties for a period of time because he wanted to continue using these characters, he then decided Image owned the rights to such characters and stopped paying.

 

Ahhhhh - the joy of independent comics with creator-owned material.