Alan Moore on Hard Talk

[-MikeD-]

No idea if it's been mentioned, but there's a very revealing interview with Alan Moore currently on the iPlayer...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... re_Writer/

It's probably also on YouTube by now.

[tony ingram]

Interesting. As always, he comes across as both intelligent and articulate, but I suspect he'll still be branded as a 'bitter old man' by certain elements of comics fandom for daring to criticize the industry's "gangster ethics"...

[stevezodiac]

He definitely needs to go to the barbers. Good interview though.

[starscape]

I disagree completely with his 'stealing characters is honorouable, unless they're in comics'. It's exactly the same. The medium changes nothing. The only difference is length of time they've been around.

Also, his falling-outs with artists over sometimes the most trivial of issues is simply ridiculous. Dave Gibbons didn't deserve that. He was put in a total bind trying to do the right thing via Alan.

[philcom55]

I don't recall hearing Dave Gibbons say that he had any hard feelings about Alan's stance on Watchmen. Nor have I ever heard Alan criticize Dave in any way. As I understand it Moore's argument was solely with DC Comics and Time Warner.

- Phil R.

[Raven]

I don't recall hearing Dave Gibbons say that he had any hard feelings about Alan's stance on Watchmen. Nor have I ever heard Alan criticize Dave in any way. As I understand it Moore's argument was solely with DC Comics and Time Warner.

- Phil R.

No, he's broken off all contact with Dave Gibbons:

http://www.seraphemera.org/seraphemera_ ... Page1.html

[philcom55]

Thanks Raven, I hadn't seen that. Alan's a talented chap but he certainly seems to find his friendships and principles increasingly hard to reconcile.

I haven't had chance to read it yet but I'll be interested to see how Millar and Gibbons' Secret Service matches up to Watchmen. (Though I must admit I've almost zero interest in DC's upcoming Watchmen prequels)

- Phil Rushton

[tony ingram]

I did like his comment about a lot of editors these days "having a hard time with the concept of editing".

[Shaqui]

Quite!

[Anorak783]

Is it just me, or can anyone else recall that DC said the Watchmen Graphic Novel would be kept in print indefinitely even before the comics were released?

In the clouds of my memory, I'm sure I read that in the late Martin Skidmore's "FA" fanzine donkey's years ago, but I could be wrong...

[Raven]

Is it just me, or can anyone else recall that DC said the Watchmen Graphic Novel would be kept in print indefinitely even before the comics were released?

I don't think they'd have said before having a clue how well it was going to sell. What if the comics had bombed?

[Anorak783]

Alan Moore (along with Frank Miller) was the golden boy of the American comics industry at that time. Watchmen would have had to be absolute tripe for it to have bombed, and DC would have known that.

[Digifiend]

If you didn't catch it before, Alan Moore's HardTalk episode was just on the news channel an hour ago. It should therefore be active on iPlayer again.