Entertainment Weekly talks with Alan Moore about the upcoming Watchmen movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century, his upcoming novel Jerusalem, and his love of The Wire and South Park:
Don’t you have the slightest curiosity about what Watchmen director Zack Snyder is doing with your work?
I would rather not know.He’s supposed to be a very nice guy.
He may very well be, but the thing is that he’s also the person who made 300. I’ve not seen any recent comic book films, but I didn’t particularly like the book 300. I had a lot of problems with it, and everything I heard or saw about the film tended to increase [those problems] rather than reduce them: [that] it was racist, it was homophobic, and above all it was sublimely stupid. I know that that’s not what people going in to see a film like 300 are thinking about but…I wasn’t impressed with that…. I talked to [director] Terry Gilliam in the ’80s, and he asked me how I would make Watchmen into a film. I said, ”Well actually, Terry, if anybody asked me, I would have said, ‘I wouldn’t.”’ And I think that Terry [who aborted his attempted adaptation of the book] eventually came to agree with me. There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can’t.
Related: Patrick Wilson (Nite Owl) says Watchmen‘s ending stays true to the comic
July 17th, 2008 at 8:32 am
I love that Alan Moore is a big fan of The Wire. That was an unexpected bit of awesome.
July 17th, 2008 at 8:47 am
God I miss Alan Moore. Come back to us!
July 17th, 2008 at 9:06 am
“I don’t want anyone who works for DC comic books to contact me ever again, or I’ll change my number”
Ouch.
July 17th, 2008 at 9:59 am
We get it… he doesn’t like comic book movies…
This is never news.
July 17th, 2008 at 11:09 am
It’s never news, yet newspapers and magazines keep asking him about it.
July 17th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
And Alan Moore shits on everything again.
Wow, I’m sure Frank Miller is pleased to hear how stupid his 300 book was.
Moore is a prick.
And hilarious.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I’m being asked to download something called “adtag”. You may want to look into that.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Rob, regardless of whether Frank Miller is “pleased to hear” it or not, 300 is still incredibly stupid when looked at from a scholarly or historical perspective.
I can’t claim to know Frank Miller, but I’d assume that given his many outspoken viewpoints he can deal with criticism, and to suggest that he’s so thin-skinned as to be upset about one man’s opinion of a project that made him a sizable amount of money regardless of merit seems to be far more of an insult to him than anything Moore said.
300 is a moderately entertaining, well-drawn comic, but the last thing the comics industry needs is it being held up as some kind of holy text above reproach. Similarly, the comics industry doesn’t need a circle-jerk mentality where someone is considered “a prick” who “shits all over everything” for having a critical opinion.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Watch your mouth, Rob. God is watching (though HE may not be logged in.)
July 17th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
We know that couldn’t possibly be the real Rob Liefeld posting above because he spelled all the words correctly.
July 17th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Right. And it sort of made sense. Sort of…
July 17th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
“…where the protagonists are attempting to create a magically produced child that is going to usher in a new era. [Protagonist] Mina and her associates are trying to stop this from happening. [...]the continuing threat of the production of a magical child who, by this time, we are fairly certain, is the Antichrist. That second book ends very badly. And they’re not having a lot of luck. The third part is set in 2008 when, basically, the League is in pieces — barely exists anymore — and this turns out to be the time at which the Antichrist project finally pays off, and this magical child finally manifests in quite a terrifying form.”
So, basically, Alan Moore is writing his own version of The Invisibles. Right. And earlier in the interview he was ranting about remakes and unoriginality.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
“And Alan Moore shits on everything again.”
Don’t be jealous, Rob. After all, you do the same. Only, instead of doing it in interviews, like Moore, you do it in your work.
July 19th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
“And Alan Moore shits on everything again.
Wow, I’m sure Frank Miller is pleased to hear how stupid his 300 book was.
Moore is a prick.
And hilarious.”
- rob liefeld
Alan doesn’t shit on everything so much as he’s very vocal about shitting on things that probably deserve it. And who cares if Frank Miller is “pleased”? The truth is, he’s produced nothing but brain-dead nonsense for years now and I personally can’t quite figure out why the comic book community would write a free pass just because he’s accumulated a cult of personality. It seems that people like Miller tend to get away with sub-standard garbage just because he’s got a loud fanbase… happens a lot in the world of comics.
And it’s pretty easy to see why he’s upset with Warner Bros. treatment of his work and why he wants to disassociate from them. Independence and a desire not to have your creative material abused for profit are big reasons why creator-owned comics are as important as they are today.
Apparently, people who stand up for themselves intellectually and ask that artwork of any medium be GOOD are “pricks”. Interesting.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:54 am
See, both Frank Miller and Alan Moore have been seriously crapped on by Hollywood. Miller wrote the scripts for Robocop 2 and 3 before they were tampered with and destroyed beyond all recognition and many key elements from the Dark Knight Returns and Year One show up in all six Batman movies in either twisted or watered-down crappy form. Moore has had more shitty adaptations of his work show up on the screen than you can shake a bargain bin copy of “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” DVD at. But the difference between these two is that after years of shunning Hollywood, Miller has finally come back to the fold after Sin City, 300 and now the upcoming “Spirit”. Moore just broods and bitches in the corner (i.e.-England) and complains about movies he’s never seen and never will see. I do agree that Miller has written alot of crap lately (have you tried to read “All-Star Batman & Robin”? Don’t.) but overall when he’s firing on all cylanders he’s up there with Moore as one the very best comics writers. Ever.