Alan Moore

[fantastic_four]

Alan Moore takes great pride in innovating storytelling methods that are unique to the comics medium. Yes, you can't translate directly many of his specific techniques over to film, but does that mean his stories, characters, and plots can't be converted? Clearly, no, it doesn't. He doesn't like the idea of film because he mourns the loss of his innovative uses of the static panel-with-text format of comics...he believes that to be more valuable and unique than the actual stories he tells. He might be right, but the vast majority of his fans really don't care as much as he does about his technical innovation.

 

You can respect him (which I do), and perhaps even blindly agree with the reasons he doesn't like his content transferred to film, but it's mostly bias and arrogance that leads he and his hardcore fans to mourn what is lost in a film translation. Moore was looking for a place to make a mark and found that he had very little competition who took the comics medium seriously. He could do his own work to translate his storytelling mechanisms over to similarly-innovative film techniques, but he appears to have no interest at all in that, probably either because he didn't go to film school or he knows there is a ton more competition in visual film techniques than he had in the comics world, so he isn't even interested in trying. Ah well. It's possible the entire idea of filmmaking just doesn't appeal to him--the commercial nature of it, the collaborative effort required to organize it as compared to the solitary and individual effort of writing a novel or comic -script, or the perhaps he doesn't like the "newness" of film as compared to writing. I don't really know, those are all just guesses based upon other artists I've read opinions from who have an ego like his.

 

Throughout history, egotistical artists have considered older, more established media to be superior to newer ones. When novels first surfaced a few hundred years ago, they were considered immature and amateurish--"real" authors wrote poems and plays. In today's world, the most popular form of media snobbery is to believe that visual media such as film--or perhaps comics--are inferior to novels. Moore is that kind of egotist...he was originally interested in literature, saw an easier path to make a mark in comics than is possible in literature due to hundreds of years of authors innovating that medium, but now he's switched back to writing novels, the older, more established, "legitimate" medium (that itself was considered illegitimate when they were first developed). I haven't read his post-comics novels--has anyone else read them? They may be quite good--I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.

[aggr1103]

I think Moore has probably turned down more money making opportunities in this industry than anyone who's ever been a part of it.

 

It's hard to believe he's turned down much at all considering the body of work he did for Rob Liefeld of all people.

[gcstomp]

I think Alan has bled the comic industry for his own gain (some may say fair enough), but there is SO much more he could have added if he was not up his own - IMO

 

Its fine that people want to shoot one liners, but would be nice if people watched the available online content of his interviews, or better yet watched the dvd, the Mindscape of Alan Moore.

 

The man is brilliant, lives beyond modestly, for him an entire day of splurging may be a cup of hot tea and a scone. He comes from dire poverty. He has been against any of his work being made into movies, with well articulated arguments for his reasons, as well as turning every penny of the many millions of dollars offered his way down for his collaboration in developing the projects into films. He does not even want his name on the credits in any way for the movies.

 

Yet people seem to need to cast diametrical falsehoods as if trying to pack as much wrong in a sentence as possible about Moore, like a twisted game show challenge.

[silverbagel-migration]

A.M. is great, a genius, an icon, and a... blah blah blah.

He's a human being. A creative and genius one. Genius can be a bit overwhelming to some people. Genius doesn't make him special in any real way, it just means he's operating on a different frequency than most people. The two themes that are working against him:

 

1. He is brutally honest.

In a world where honesty is taboo, the fact that Moore lays it all out there for us to analyze is refreshing. It is reflective of a mind that wants to share the interesting experience of life with other minds. This world is no longer honest (assuming it ever was). Honesty is considered a weakness and brutally exploited by certain groups in the world. He played an honest game in a dishonest sport -- and lost. He's seen that the game is rigged and the only way to fight back is to play an entirely different game. Check out his new projects.

 

2. His sense of humor is one of intense sarcasm.

Sarcasm requires an expansive understanding of cultural history and cultural functioning. A certain skewed outlook of the world also helps to interpret sarcasm correctly. The digital age is extremely limited with its snippets of information and soundbites quickly digested and just as quickly discarded. He's suffering from a Rip Van Winkle effect; not his fault. People judge instantly based on the smallest fragments of information. Honesty and sarcasm do not play well with this type of attention deficit system.

 

Honest Sarcasm. or Sarcastic Honesty.

What you will.

[Bronty]

Alan Moore takes great pride in innovating storytelling methods that are unique to the comics medium. Yes, you can't translate directly many of his specific techniques over to film, but does that mean his stories, characters, and plots can't be converted? Clearly, no, it doesn't. He doesn't like the idea of film because he mourns the loss of his innovative uses of the static panel-with-text format of comics...he believes that to be more valuable and unique than the actual stories he tells. He might be right, but the vast majority of his fans really don't care as much as he does about his technical innovation.

 

You can respect him (which I do), and perhaps even blindly agree with the reasons he doesn't like his content transferred to film, but it's mostly bias and arrogance that leads he and his hardcore fans to mourn what is lost in a film translation. Moore was looking for a place to make a mark and found that he had very little competition who took the comics medium seriously. He could do his own work to translate his storytelling mechanisms over to similarly-innovative film techniques, but he appears to have no interest at all in that, probably either because he didn't go to film school or he knows there is a ton more competition in visual film techniques than he had in the comics world, so he isn't even interested in trying. Ah well. It's possible the entire idea of filmmaking just doesn't appeal to him--the commercial nature of it, the collaborative effort required to organize it as compared to the solitary and individual effort of writing a novel or comic -script, or the perhaps he doesn't like the "newness" of film as compared to writing. I don't really know, those are all just guesses based upon other artists I've read opinions from who have an ego like his.

 

Throughout history, egotistical artists have considered older, more established media to be superior to newer ones. When novels first surfaced a few hundred years ago, they were considered immature and amateurish--"real" authors wrote poems and plays. In today's world, the most popular form of media snobbery is to believe that visual media such as film--or perhaps comics--are inferior to novels. Moore is that kind of egotist...he was originally interested in literature, saw an easier path to make a mark in comics than is possible in literature due to hundreds of years of authors innovating that medium, but now he's switched back to writing novels, the older, more established, "legitimate" medium (that itself was considered illegitimate when they were first developed). I haven't read his post-comics novels--has anyone else read them? They may be quite good--I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.

 

I think that's reading an awful lot into things, unless you're aware of some information that isn't on this thread or in the interview.

 

In the interview he makes it pretty clear that he doesn't like the idea of his films being made, or editors who are frankly not on his level editing his comics work, because of a loss of control.

 

Its hard to blame him for being unwilling to yield control when its no doubt one of the very aspects that makes him such a good writer in the first place.

 

He also states in the interview quite candidly that he was taking a gamble he thought he'd win - free option money on movies that would never get made. Oops.

 

He got a little greedy and ended up giving up the thing he least likes giving up, control over his projects, but he's refreshingly honest about it. Brutally honest as another person said.