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Not a good time for Alan Moore...


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Old 14-04-2012, 13:34
UKMikey
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Has he actually said he expects the rights to still be his? The only quote I've heard from him so far is that it's a shame DC can't move on from a book published 25 years ago.

After Joe Straczynski's last Superman run I think I'll be leaving his books on the shelf. I wonder how he'd feel about a Babylon 4 prequel being made without his involvement.

The Darwyn Cooke titles look OK though.
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Old 08-06-2012, 22:40
Dave1979
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Alan Moore has written about Alice in Alice in Wonderland having sex and other disgusting stuff involving the Mad Hatter and a banana. The guy is a perv and has silly hair.

And anyway, everyone knows John 'Judge Dredd' Wagner is the greatest comic book writer ever. Even if he is Scottish.

Still, no-one's perfect, eh?
Lost Girls is great!! Alice, Wendy and Dorothy!!

I met him at the Edinburgh Book Festival and he was such a nice guy
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Old 09-06-2012, 13:15
cultofsmack
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No Alan is Angry - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F0VALObDZs
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Old 09-06-2012, 18:19
frightlever
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He shoulda gotten a better lawyer to look over his contract then. Creatives can be super-creative, but if there's nobody there to pay for printing and distribution, amongst other things, then nobody will experience what they produce. Business is not evil.
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Old 11-06-2012, 23:52
doom&gloom
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The origin of the Watchmen / Charlton characters shown here.
Never heard that Len Lawson story before, what a maniac
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Old 12-06-2012, 03:16
OnDatKryptonite
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Has he actually said he expects the rights to still be his? The only quote I've heard from him so far is that it's a shame DC can't move on from a book published 25 years ago.

After Joe Straczynski's last Superman run I think I'll be leaving his books on the shelf. I wonder how he'd feel about a Babylon 4 prequel being made without his involvement.

The Darwyn Cooke titles look OK though.
Alan Moore was meant to get the rights back once the stories went out of print.

DC has never stopped printing them.

It's success has prevented him from getting what he expected to have within 5 years after the trade paperbacks were published.

Also Moore using characters that are now public domain in his stories is quite different from a company using characters that should have been given back to their creators. All the characters in Lost Girls, The Court Yard and Neonomicon are public domain characters anyone can use.

However heaven forbid anyone educate themselves on facts and the law before making baseless accusations based on opinions formed from nothing else but opinion.
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Old 12-06-2012, 04:35
JCR
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DC reportedly sold 1 million copies of Watchmen after the film came out; they assume every comic book fan in the world already had it, so there were potentially 1 million new customers out there to try to sell more books too. Hence Before Watchmen. (This was from an article on comicbookresources.com)

The first issue, Minutemen 1, is solid but not spectacular. Still I'm looking forward to the Brian Azzarello issues, almost in spite of myself.
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Old 16-06-2012, 20:38
frost
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Also Moore using characters that are now public domain in his stories is quite different from a company using characters that should have been given back to their creators.
If the contract for Watchmen stipulated they would only revert back to the creators if the book went out of print, and it has not yet gone out of print, why is it that they "should have been given back"? Legally DC are perfectly entitled to keep them.
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Old 17-06-2012, 10:38
knowndeserter
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Some of the characters in Lost Girls were not completely in the Public Domain at the time of publication, although this has been disputed. But there are character(s) and concepts within the final volume of LoxG that definitely are, which is why they are not named and so can be covered by the rules of fair use and satire.
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Old 18-06-2012, 13:16
TheCorinthian
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Also Moore using characters that are now public domain in his stories is quite different from a company using characters that should have been given back to their creators. All the characters in Lost Girls, The Court Yard and Neonomicon are public domain characters anyone can use.

However heaven forbid anyone educate themselves on facts and the law before making baseless accusations based on opinions formed from nothing else but opinion.
OK. Here are some facts: Peter Pan is not public domain. He is owned by Great Ormond Street Hospital. When they objected to 'Lost Girls', Moore threw a hissy fit and accused them of censorship.

H.G. Wells died in 1946. His work remains in copyright until 2016, The Invisible Man remains the property of Wells's estate - why else do you think the movie features a competely different non-Griffin Invisible Man?

Oh, and then there's [spoiler] in '2009'. His creator is alive and well, and also quite litigious. Let's see how well the law works out for Moore if she decides to sue.

And here's another fact - and a piece of law - DC owns Watchmen. Alan Moore consented to Before Watchmen when he signed his contract with DC. If he's changed his mind since then it's his problem, not DC's.
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Old 18-06-2012, 22:36
frost
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Oh, and then there's [spoiler] in '2009'. His creator is alive and well, and also quite litigious. Let's see how well the law works out for Moore if she decides to sue.
That would be fun! Still, she should get around to writing her own comic of that character!!
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Old 19-06-2012, 11:46
TheCorinthian
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That would be fun! Still, she should get around to writing her own comic of that character!!
That particular author has apparently been very careful not to license any comics rights to her character, so there is potentially room for litigation here.

I don't think she would sue though. I don't think there are legal grounds for it. The point here is simply that the Alan Moore's Flying Monkey Brigade defence of "he only uses public domain characters" has just been very publically shredded.

Btw, the movie rights to said character are owned by Warner Bros, whose parent company Time-Warner also owns DC. So if they were in an ironic mood, they could threaten to sue and demand the intellectual property rights for 'Watchmen' in perpetuity from Moore as part of the settlement.
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Old 20-06-2012, 22:25
Residents Fan
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H.G. Wells died in 1946. His work remains in copyright until 2016, The Invisible Man remains the property of Wells's estate - why else do you think the movie features a competely different non-Griffin Invisible Man?
I'm sure "The Invisible Man" novel is in the public
domain in the USA-which may be why the
LOEG comic uses him, since it was first published
by the US company DC/Wildstorm. I think part
of the reason he was changed for the
LOEG movie was conflict with the 1933
Universal film of "The Invisible Man".

Oh, and then there's [spoiler] in '2009'. His creator is alive and well, and also quite litigious. Let's see how well the law works out for Moore if she decides to sue.

.
Isn't [spoiler] in "2009" a parody version, though?
As knowndeserter pointed out, parodies have legal protection, otherwise Julian Fellows
could sue "Private Eye" over "Downturn Abbey".
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Old 22-06-2012, 21:55
frost
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Originally Posted by Residents Fan;58974964
Isn't [SPOILER
in "2009" a parody version, though?
I'm not convinced from what little I have seen.
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Old 25-06-2012, 20:33
JCR
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Still I'm looking forward to the Brian Azzarello issues, almost in spite of myself.
Meh, I read Comedian 1 and while I suppose there's nothing really wrong with it on the face of it, I can't escape the feeling reading it that the comic is entirely pointless. Having JFK say "go **** yourself" seems like an attempt to create some $ from controversy, in fact the whole thing feels like that.
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Old 26-06-2012, 00:07
JCR
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Comic Book Resources dotcom says League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 2009 is "arguably one of the greatest comics of all time."

Maybe Moore is having a good time after all!

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...review&id=4891
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Old 26-06-2012, 01:09
doom&gloom
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I thought they were Victorian characters, surely they'd be long dead by 2009, or have they got Well's Time Machine as well?
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Old 26-06-2012, 20:45
Residents Fan
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Meh, I read Comedian 1 and while I suppose there's nothing really wrong with it on the face of it, I can't escape the feeling reading it that the comic is entirely pointless. Having JFK say "go **** yourself" seems like an attempt to create some $ from controversy, in fact the whole thing feels like that.
I have to say, the only aspect of this that I personally
am interested in is the new "Tales of the Black Freighter"
story. How's the new TotBF story shaping up?
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Old 27-06-2012, 05:56
JCR
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I have to say, the only aspect of this that I personally
am interested in is the new "Tales of the Black Freighter"
story. How's the new TotBF story shaping up?
There's only been 6 pages of it so far, so not much to go on, the art is good though.
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Old 27-06-2012, 16:53
JCR
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OK. Here are some facts: Peter Pan is not public domain. He is owned by Great Ormond Street Hospital. When they objected to 'Lost Girls', Moore threw a hissy fit and accused them of censorship.

H.G. Wells died in 1946. His work remains in copyright until 2016, The Invisible Man remains the property of Wells's estate - why else do you think the movie features a competely different non-Griffin Invisible Man?

Oh, and then there's [spoiler] in '2009'. His creator is alive and well, and also quite litigious. Let's see how well the law works out for Moore if she decides to sue.

And here's another fact - and a piece of law - DC owns Watchmen. Alan Moore consented to Before Watchmen when he signed his contract with DC. If he's changed his mind since then it's his problem, not DC's.
Potter's not really in 2009, there's a parody of the platform 9 and 3 quarters idea and the magic school, but I don't think you could claim the antichrist character, a bald giant with eyeballs all over his body, is Harry Potter.

(I would add I agree with you about Watchmen though)
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Old 29-06-2012, 08:16
Rolnikov
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I thought they were Victorian characters, surely they'd be long dead by 2009, or have they got Well's Time Machine as well?
Mina Harker was bitten by a vampire, Orlando has lived for centuries already, and I think Allan Quatermain attends the same beauty parlour as She.

Brilliant comic, by the way. Superb ending.

I suppose logically the next volume would be set in the future... Might get a bit harder to find years when everyone was active at the same time, but would love to see what they would do with Kirk, Avon, Barbarella, Logan, etc.
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Old 30-06-2012, 17:24
cultofsmack
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Here's the first part of my short film, a factually accurate account fo what happened between Alan Moore and DC comics.

http://youtu.be/5F0VALObDZs

Apologies for diving in to advertise it, but I hope you enjoy it.
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Old 30-06-2012, 19:00
knowndeserter
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Here's the first part of my short film, a factually accurate account of what happened between Alan Moore and DC comics.

http://youtu.be/5F0VALObDZs

Apologies for diving in to advertise it, but I hope you enjoy it.
I saw part 1 and was quite Taken with it.
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