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Do you guys think Alan Moore regrets writing Watchmen?
- Thread starter ThousandEyes
- Start date
I prefer Grant Morrison's approach to comic book superheroes in that they are modern secular versions of mythic heroes of the past. Morrison has created some weird and dark stuff but he also penned the likes of All Star Superman.
I mean, you could have Moore's misery in which superheroes embody the worst of humanity or you could have this little gem from Morrison: "You have given them an ideal to aspire to, embodied their highest aspirations. They will race, and stumble, and fall and crawl... and curse... and finally... They will join you in the sun, Kal-El."
I mean, you could have Moore's misery in which superheroes embody the worst of humanity or you could have this little gem from Morrison: "You have given them an ideal to aspire to, embodied their highest aspirations. They will race, and stumble, and fall and crawl... and curse... and finally... They will join you in the sun, Kal-El."
This is why there's a Morrison-Moore war
A war of powerful magic that will tear apart the fabric of comics itself
It was a zeitgeist thing that was coming regardless of what Moore or Miller did. Certainly superhero comics didn't flip towards relentless optimism just because Moore put out Tom Strong.
The last I heard is that Morrison really doesn't like Moore co-opting "magic", something that has been a part of Morrison's life for decades, and treating it like a joke. The idea of symbolic magic affecting the world is likely why Morrison writes superheroes as he does.
I haven't finished it yet but the white supremacists (whose propaganda papers he reads) loved him in the original Watchmen as well.
I mean, he's certainly regrets doing it at/for DC. And rightly.
Haven't read it, see.
Haven't read it, see.
Did he ever weigh in on Watchmen Babies? I'm legitimately curious to hear what he thought of that.
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you guys are probably right in that he hates the reaction to Watchmen instead of the product its self
I thought Moore is an actual occultist but interesting but yeah I watched a documentary years ago and Morrison does take it seriously and he has used comics as some sort of rituals
It's a part of an ongoing conflict in which the two of them accuse the other of ripping them off. But Morrison has been involved in the occult long before Moore went public about it in the early 90s with Morrison's parents and uncle introducing him to various ideas. But because Morrison's most occult titles came out after Moore went public I imagine the latter thinks negatively of the former and considers him to be retreading his own work.
Those who read it took the wrong lessons from it, and now we've got Trump. Thanks a lot.
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Morrison was also one of the first big critics of Watchmen when it came out, he's not really a fan of it at all
Garth Ennis hates Superheroes more than anyone else on the planet
That's why I like Warren Ellis so much. He's on record as hating the genre as much as Moore or Ennis but when he does have to write them he either makes brilliant satire or even better (thinking planetary here) he recontexualizes and reinvents the genre, leaving stories and myths that instead of tearing down ultimately uplift and inspire hope.
he probably regrets doing business a certain way with certain people, sure. for good and bad the watchmen was clearly meant to be a one off thing but here we are
Maybe, but I feel like it's more of him believing that he was KILLING the superhero genre in favor of more enlightened work.
And then ten years later he created yet another superhero comic imprint.
Alan Moore would definitely have a heart attack knowing you had people like him:
working on a film adaptation of your project.
working on a film adaptation of your project.
Renegade Cut did a great video on how Watchmen was an actual deconstructionist superhero comic but it inspired copycats that didn't understand postmodernism or deconstructionism and were self-aware for no deeper purpose. So yeah, Moore regrets the influence it had on comics.
Much like how Nolan might regret the movie industry taking the wrong lessons from his Batman films to just make darker versions of well known properties with no rhyme or reason. Or even how Inception trailer music inspired the worst excesses in film trailers after it. Or how Greengrass Bourne films inspired the worst excesses in shaky cam action after it.
Moore should know that after or with postmodernism comes late-stage capitalism, where any and every virtue is eventually turned into a commodity to be sold. Watchmen started as a critique and a statement, but it is now an aesthetic to be bought and traded. NWA started as counter-culture music, but it is now an aesthetic to be packaged and sold. Assimilation is inevitable, and I'm sure Alan Moore knows that -- he's too well-read not to -- so he's probably not as angry as we all imagine he is.
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Comic books don't have the best writing, but they're good fantasy fodder. They stirred the imagination then, and they still do it now, just like mythlore has for the last several millennia. Are they supposed to do something else? What would that be, and why?
Yes... That would be ridiculous. I don't even understand what this part is trying to say. They're fantasy stories, they're not real, they're not supposed to resemble reality.
It seems like he sat around in a room sniffing his own farts, thinking he was going to transcend the medium, and is mad that everyone else just sees the comic book he wrote as a comic book.
I read him describe Rorschach as a a right wing nutjob, which he definitely wasn't in the comic. Maybe he should have done a better job of conveying his intentions, instead of pretending other people are too stupid to understand them.
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He has notable exceptions like Superman and Spiderman, but this man has a raging hate boner for anything involving superheroes, organised religion, and zombies. Its not even edgy in its dislike its pure loathing.
The world is littered with people who thought that their artistic work could break that cycle, in spite of everything saying to the contrary. I assume Alan Moore is no different. And perhaps it still will, but probably not within his lifetime.
As well he should.
Moore can do or say anything because, as far as I am concerned, he has the greatest body of work in the medium. And in From Hell he created something that both transcended and recontextualised that medium.
Shame about the shitty movie. If I had written that and had Hollywood butcher it in that way, I'd be pretty bitter too.
I mean, he's pretty blatantly a right-wing nutjob in the comic itself (i.e. end-times preacher when not on the job, reads right-wing tabloid trash, excuses American excess domestically and abroad incl. the Comedian and his actions, has blatantly awful views on women and LGBTQ individuals, etc).
I feel like if Alan Moore could go back in time and stop his mother and father from conceiving him, he probably would.
"People took the wrong lessons from my birth, it was an absolute mistake."
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I don't know. It has been really difficult to read (as in ascertain what he's been thinking from one month to another) Moore over the years. I doubt it would even be helpful to ask him. His answer might leave even more questions.
The man did write some great comics though.
The man did write some great comics though.