Alan Moore!

I am a terrible comics fan because I either had no idea or had completely forgotten about it (though tbh I rarely pay any attention to what comics creators say about each other)

whole thing was pretty lol but man yeah his bitterness/vitriol is very OTT

otoh I have no idea what works Morrison is supposed to have ripped off of Moore - the Invisibles? Animal Man? Batman Inc.? idgi

remember 50% of it is ripped off from Michael Moorcock

this older article gives Morrison's side of things (as told to the infamous Laura Sneddon)
http://comicsbeat.com/the-strange-case-of-grant-morrison-and-alan-moore-as-told-by-grant-morrison/

I get that Moorcock was pissed (and considered suing?) over the Gideon Stargrave thing but even that was just a minor part of the Invisibles. idk everything seems so blown out of proportion.

I wish both those guys would take this to the astral plane Ditko-Dr. Strange style and duke it out up there psychedelically rather than insisting we all listen to this bitchiness. I used to love reading Moore interviews but that may be the last one I can deal with.

rather than insisting we all listen to this bitchiness

c'mon this is hilarious though

feel like morrison has been waiting to straight up cast moore as a batman villain, surprised that hasn't happened yet

xp yeah it is so OTT it can be funny. I liked how Morrison turned it around by coming up with ways Moore could have ripped HIM off.
I guess Moore means so much to me that it's painful watching him
- insist that everything that happened in comics over past 30 years directly derives from him
- continue to be completely blind to the fact that practically everything he does is a very clever revision of some past property
- every day add to his enemies list of people he will no longer talk to (I think at this point it's down to Kev O'Neill and his wife who he'll speak with)
- ride the high high horse of him being some infinite paragon of virtue in a fallen world surrounded by thieves and liars

feel like morrison has been waiting to straight up cast moore as a batman villain, surprised that hasn't happened yet

Seven Soldiers was nine years ago man!

continue to be completely blind to the fact that practically everything he does is a very clever revision of some past property

yeah this is pretty weird. made weirder when he complains about the comics industry endlessly recycling stuff.

V for Vendetta the lone(?) exception

There was a bunch of stuff in the early days (Bojeffries, D.R. & Quinch, etc) but not much the last 25 years.

was excited to get back my issues of Dalgoda recently, cuz they had Bojeffries in the back. many lolz.

Top Shelf is reissuing the Complete Bojeffries Saga next month.

From Hell remains my favorite Moore.

This new 'interview' was worth it for the a+ burn when he says (I'm paraphrasing) that grant was four or five years younger than him "at the time" but that the age gap has mysteriously grown larger since then.

Yes lots of it comes from moorcock anyway but surely even more from Ballard!

yeah this is pretty weird. made weirder when he complains about the comics industry endlessly recycling stuff.

See? He of all people should be charitable even when he suspects that something's gone beyond 'influenced by' to 'derivative of'. And besides in comics everything IS derivative of everything else, it's how the industry survived. And to top it off in some cases the properties Moore revised were themselves copies of copies of copies.

If you get a chance read the Twilight proposal though, it's pretty prescient and I'm sure a bunch of that was remembered and used. If I was a DC editor at the time I know I would have taken a lot of it on board.

So he wants it both ways: to be seen as the man who *really* provided all the ideas for other people's current success, AND he also wants to wash his hands of the industry, and say he's grown out of it, the industry as it stands is for the mentally challenged or arrested or whatever. He could just say 'godspeed, enjoy building on my past success, I've moved on, have fun' he's determined to demand even more recognition ... from people he despises? I dunno.

Never meet yr idols, I guess!

i honestly never read 7 soldiers. should i?

if you like Morrison doing complicated and thrill-powered superheroes and having Alan Moore joeks

but not much the last 25 years.

Big Numbers, The Birth Caul, Voice Of The Fire, The Moon And Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre Of Marvels, Act Of Faith, A Small Killing, Dodgem Logic, Top Ten, The Highbury Working, Astounding Weird Penises, Madame October, Promethea, Jimmy's End, Snakes & Ladders, Candid Chit-Chats With Cartoon Kit-Cats [ok yeah but it includes one of his own], Unearthing, This Is Information, Outbreaks Of Violets, Angel Passage, Unearthing, p much every poem I can think of except for The Mirror Of Love (which was '88, so all minor ones, but still), From Hell...

i honestly never read 7 soldiers. should i?

YES

I knew pretty much nothing about the DC continuity he was playing with and I thought the whole thing was wonderful

From Hell is derivative as fuck (as historical fiction is, by definition), and half of those are adaptations he made from other works of his or that he didn't have much to do with (Eddie did a lot of heavy lifting). I did overlook Promethea and Top 10, which was in error. Still, no matter how you parse it, the vast majority of pages he's produced have been derivative of other people's work.

i haven't heard of like 90% of that list

I don't know how much exposure Moore had had to Charles Addams' cartoons and the Addams Family/Munsters shows, but even Bojeffries seems derivative to me. Hilarious and an improvement in some ways, but still derivative.

Astounding Weird Penises

uh.jpg

I'm assuming that's either the worst or best thing he's ever written.

iirc it's his tumblr

Bojeffries allegedly quite similar to Henry Kuttner's 'Hogben' short stories, tho' I've never read the latter

in comics everything IS derivative of everything else

Not sure why this is more true of comics than any other form, and am v. sure it's not entirely accurate, either.

i should t0rrent 7 soldiers sometime... unless someone here has a cbr/cbz they'd like to hook a fella up with?

I like 7 Soldiers a lot altho there is some typical Gmoz inscrutability/handwaviness of various details

Not sure why this is more true of comics than any other form, and am v. sure it's not entirely accurate, either.

Yeah what I was thinking of there is the tendency of companies to imitate and knock off each others' characters - constantly vying for market share with similar offerings based on what whoever's currently on top is doing. The recent book on Marvel history does a great job of highlighting this.

I mean you could say sure every industry does this - electronics, automobiles, processed food, whatever - but even if it's a commonplace it should still be kept in mind, I think

Should also be kept in mind that the American superhero comic book does not equal the whole of comics

Fair point - thinking of the big stuff here

Just found the Killing Joke script - fantastic stuff tho man, he seriously needed a new printer or typewriter or something

Read the end just to see if there were any hints about the recent interpretation that Batman kills the Joker at the end. I don't get that here, but that last scene with the joke is still pretty chilling in script form.

And dear god his typewriter was awful, thank god for PCs and word processors

that could well be a 15th-generation photocopy, or a carbon.


From Hell is derivative as fuck (as historical fiction is, by definition)

ehh, I don't know that "doing lots of deliberate research on a subject" is on the same level as "filing the serial numbers off Plastic Man."

and half of those are adaptations he made from other works of his or that he didn't have much to do with

uh?

Big Numbers - conceived, written, designed and published by Moore / painted by Sienkiewicz

The Birth Caul - conceived, written and performed by Moore / music written with and performed by Perkins and J (even the CD of this one is off the desk from the performance). unless you're saying that because it's autobiographical he's being derivative of his life?

Voice Of The Fire - 100% solo by Moore, including devising an entire grammar for one chapter. 2 chapters based on real ppl iirc but again I'd call that more like "research" than "derivative" (plus one autobio sequence)

The Moon And Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre Of Marvels - conceived by Moore and J, written and performed by Moore, music written and performed by Perkins and J

Act Of Faith - written by Moore, directed by Jenkins

A Small Killing - written by Moore, painted by Zarate. again, you have to posit that the (very slight!) autobiographical elements are derivative to make this stick

Dodgem Logic - conceived and funded and published and co-edited by and written for by Moore. yeah, lots of other contributors were in it, but many if not most were directly commissioned by him.

The Highbury Working - conceived, written and performed by Moore / music written with and recorded by Perkins.

Astounding Weird Penises - written and drawn by Moore. homage elements to both undergrounds and 50s horror comics, but it's not trading on either wholesale

Madame October - no publishing credits or other detail on the CD, but it's at the very least sung by Moore, and Tom Hall's the only other credited person

Jimmy's End - written (and funded iirc?) by Moore, directed by Jenkins

Snakes & Ladders - conceived, written and performed by Moore / music written with and recorded by Perkins.

Candid Chit-Chats With Cartoon Kit-Cats - as I noted, includes parodies of existing characters, but since he also includes Maxwell, give him a partial pass? co-drawn and (at least co-)written by Moore, co-drawn by Gebbie. can't remember if the lettering looks like hers or his, or a mix.

Unearthing - uh even if you are arguing that he didn't have much to do with the adaptation, he still wrote the entirety of the original text as published. biographical though if you're arguing that.

This Is Information - is commentary on real actual events in the real world, but I think it's cheap to call that derivative. do you have specific things to call out as bring ripped off in this? (written by Moore, drawn by Gebbie, probably coloured by someone else, idrc)

Outbreaks Of Violets - the text is all by Moore, and as far as anyone seems to know he suggested or requested or gave directions for the pictures too? I don't actually have a copy obv.

Angel Passage - conceived, written and performed by Moore / music written with and recorded by Perkins.

if you think any of the poems are rip-offs or adaptations of his own work, you'll have to list them specifically - I've only been home for three days and might not get my stuff out of storage for years if I can get away with it. (I left the Moore CDs in shelves at home, hence checking on Mme Oct.)

{ah I've looked down and seen how crooked the alignment gets on some Killing Joke pages, nvm)

All I was saying was that many of those works were conceived and realized as non-comics, and that the adaptations were more on his collaborators like Eddie Campbell than on him.

But thanks for the breakdowns of what each work is - many I've never heard of let alone seen.

FYI, y'all, Marvel is finally kicking off the reprints of Moore's Marvel/Miracleman starting today.

but they can't mention Moore's name for some reason?

He asked them not to.

Yup. That old crank!

"The Original Writer"

I hope Marvel has come up with a pseudonymous writer credit that makes Moore regret being such a grump. Gumdrop McSprinkletits or somesuch.

nah it's what I said

All I was saying was that many of those works were conceived and realized as non-comics, and that the adaptations were more on his collaborators like Eddie Campbell than on him.

But thanks for the breakdowns of what each work is - many I've never heard of let alone seen.

"I've never heard of this, but it's totally derivative!"

Everything I listed was an original work from the last 25 years, not an adaptation of an earlier thing btw.

Not all of them were originally comics! That's what I've been saying. Don't be thick.

And they represent a minor percentage of his comic output over those years.

But whatever, you win.

Welcome home, by the way. Hope your months abroad were as truly wonderful as they seemed from here. An amazing thing to witness from afar.

I’m not sure derivative-ness is a problem with Moore – that presupposes a work that’s reverential (e.g. Top 10) can’t also be highly original (Top 10 again).

I think it’s only his very recent work that’s been actually derivative (e.g. LOEG after the second miniseries, the gross Cthulu stuff) in the sense that they’re clearly inferior retreads of his own work.

Also he’s suffering from the Dave Sim problem, where Alan Moore the fiction writer and Alan Moore the grumbly twat in interviews get more and more similar.

I wasn't saying that the ones that weren't originally comics were ever not comics! Part of my point is that plenty of his output, often the stuff he is most serious about, has been in prose and performance and film and other work. (Some of the prose that I didn't list mines Lovecraft, but I've not read that because zzzz.)

[& cheers, yeah, it was indeed great!]