Alan Moore -The Legend, The Myth pt 1 of 2

From page 1 of Absolute Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons 

Recently, a lot of stuff is being said about Alan Moore's latest addition to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen opus (Century 2009), and how it has a Harry Potter type character in it. After reading his comments about it and the latest round of Before Watchmen books, I thought I would take a wider look at Alan Moore's works. I have already read a lot of the graphic novels he has written and like millions of other fans I love Watchmen, From Hell and being a Socialist I love V for Vendetta.

From Absolute Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

Alan Moore, no doubt is a true legend, but it seems even though he doesn't read current comic books he continues to put down his contemporaries. Thats his issue/opinion, I have nothing against his opinions. I am sure writers like Grant Morrison and other big name Comic Industry persons have theirs about him. But what his very well publicised opinions fulfill is a comic fanbase nightmare. On the one hand fans who view Moore as a comic god, and therefore anything he says or creates is accepted as the divine word. On the flip side of the same coin you get a fanbase that totally ignores Moore and takes what he says with a 'pinch of salt' and just enjoys what he creates. Then you have the third group which gets in arms over Moore's rants about other industry writers and creators.

From Absolute Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

With the recent releases of Before Watchmen, which has some great names in the creative teams behind the several mini-series in the line, it seems its just the type of thing that gives ammunition to Moore 'to spit the dummy at', as we say down here in little old New Zealand (a colloquialism for attention seeking). Moore has always been adamant that the original work should not be messed with. But the prequels are going to do exactly that. We will see and learn things that happened before Watchmen and this will affect how we end up as fans whether we want it to or not, since they are being reinterpreted by the creatives teams. 

Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre -Darwyn Cooke writer, Amanda Connor -artist

Watchmen the movie, created a publicity frenzy about  Watchmen graphic novels. Sales of the DVD alone exceeded expectations and DC Comics obviously made the big decision to bank on the sudden increased awareness of the graphic novel through said publicity. Before Watchmen will pay big dividends. With the DC New 52  grabbing market share again for the company, Before Watchmen more than likely keep the company raking in the comic dollars, despite Moore's disapproval, given his decades long battle with DC Comics. 

Before Watchmen: Comedian -Brian Azzarello -writer, JG Jones -artists

Alan Moore has been very protective of his creations, as a comic book fan and as well as a creative person I can understand his feelings on the matter which has been fraught with verbal and written battle of words between himself and others in the comic industry. But in the last few years I have had a change of heart when it comes to Moore and his views of the comic industry and his own creative works. The concept of Before Watchmen got me thinking; 'if Moore holds his creations so tenderly why then has he produced works with characters that have been created by others, and messing around with what are highly adored books?'

One such work is Moore's three volume comic book series Lost Girls. I read the series back in 2007 through the Auckland City Library, here in New Zealand, I was surprised that the library actually had them. Of course, they were held behind the counter and not out on the shelves in the open with the rest of the Adult Graphic Novel section. Can you imagine a young teenager or younger person flicking through the pages?! I had no idea it existed and only came across it while searching the library's online database. I checked it out and was very surprised at the content.  Its not the lighthearted. 

Before Watchmen: Nite Owl -J. Michael Strachzynski -writer, Joe & Andy Kubert  -artists

Lost Girls vol. 1 Alan Moore  -writer& Melinda Gebbie -artist

Moore's Lost Girls, is a re-imagining of characters that have for generations given children hope and a chance to dream of fantastical places to escape to. Lost Girls consists of characters such as, Wendy from Peter Pan, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Alice from Alice in Wonderland. With the series he has removed the characters from the safety of the beloved children's books surroundings and placed them in an adult world. In this world they now appear in the most lewd and pornographic manner. Here we see these three beloved heroines and characters from other children's bedtime stories put through what can only be described as a liberal use of unadulterated use of rape, child sexuality and homosexuality. Don't get me wrong, I am as liberal as neo-pagan heathen can be. And I am far from being a prude by anyone's standard but I found it mind-numbing trying to come to terms with my love of the characters and their new adult life as depicted in Moore's world.

Without the use of the above mentioned children's characters, (there are others in the series), the book would have been fine. But here we see a middle-aged man, play with characters he obviously knew well as a child, take apart these gems of the English writers and with his skill as a writer make them into something despicable. Taken at face value, it can be classed as adult fantasy graphic novels and that was Moore's aim. Financially he succeeded, raking in 100s of thousands of dollars in profit. With US$75 a set, 45000 copies were sold by the end of 2007, earning $3375000.00 for the publisher.

Moore has been somewhat callous with other peoples works while at the same time bemoaning his own creations in the hands of filmmakers, writers and artists. Moore receives royalties to this day for his graphic novels such as V For Vendetta and Watchmen. Of course he protested at the production of the two well-received movies, which only heightened the sale of the graphic novels. 

 The film version of V For Vendetta grossed $131,411,035 at the end of 2006. The movie was released in 2005. It has a current IMDB.COM rating of 8.2. According to The Numbers the DVD sales for 14 weeks was $53,312,838. It is important to note that Vendetta uses themes from history in the real life character of Guy Fawkes. 

Watchmen film banked $185,258,983 on Box Office sales alone. Prior to the release of the Zack Snyder movie, news of which gave significant rise to the sale of the Watchmen graphic novel with an average of 2000 sold on reorder per month. The previous year had seen only half that number in sales according to Comic Book Resources. It has been said Moore earns US8% in royalties.

Before Watchmen: Ozymandias -Len Wein -writer, Jae Lee -artist

But as far as Before Watchmen, for which Moore is entitled to royalties, he has said to New York Times, "I don't want money. I want this not to happen." He has been anti-Before Watchmen from the beginning. But you see this is the Comic Industry, there will always be sequels, prequels, retcons and settings in other fictional universes. DC Comics has always had the right to do as they please without touching the original Watchmen graphic novel. They can produce cartoons, musicals and more movies. Moore can't do anything about it but voice he opinion.

To be concluded next week.

(ARU), Aruneshwar has a Bachelors Degree in Digital Media -Digital Film-making. He took a semester of Multimedia earlier last year which kind of set him up for comictrade.co.nz, a New Zealand  online comic store. On the creative side, Aru is writing and illustrating a graphic novel about the 30yrs of Institutionalised Slavery of Indians in Fiji from 1885 -1915. He is a prolific script writer and writes in all comicbook genres which include several graphic novels for his own company,Rising Sun Comics. Aru also uploads a digital comic series on Facebook called, Zero as well as completing his first crime-noir graphic novel, The Circle. He is also trying to finishing off coloring and lettering a superhero comic book mini-series he co-created with Mike Burbeck called, Incredi-Girl.