Alan Moore

If you checked out the video linked in the last post it seems that Alan Moore gets a rough deal? When you are dealing with a lot of people with egos then add in certain comic publishers who jump on board with Moore-bashing as it makes them look good...things are always going to be bad for someone.

No, do not panic! CBO has not been taken over. I am still in charge but I do not say  things are "black and white" -there are grey areas and although I have disagreed with some of Moore's statements in the past I tend to think (a lot) about what goes on in comics. I have seen the nasty side of the comic book industry and community and I have even been the target of the maggots (I apologise to maggots). 

Alan Moore has always written solid scripts/stories from Future Shocks, Watchmen and so on.  Speculation that Moore is "a complete and utter nut job screwing with comics" is something that no one can really announce because no one knows the full facts or knows what Moore is thinking. Is he a pain wanting to control his characters/stories? I think the story of the Mangaka and her suspected suicide over the problems she had shows that a lot goes on that the comic buyer does not see or hear. And, after all, none of the collaborators with Moore suffered financially and he even  took no money but made sure his collaborators were okay.  

For the 1963 series Moore gets a lot of blame but the real problem appears to be with others -as we know, Jim Lee was far from the "amiable nice guy" that gets pushed out top fandom and he rarely gets any negative press. 

As a personal example; I created a character and story that was drawn by an artist and one day I hear from someone that the artist had said they could publish that character and when I saw the emails "I think he is still contactable" -the fella was in touch with me weekly...he also took full credit for the character. His idea of a good deal was that I, as the publisher, would let the person he was in contact with (who wanted to exploit merchandise sales and not new comic work) use the character name and likeness for 7 years and I must not use that character and remove him from about six stories I had already published. After 7 years the exploiter would decide what, if anything (that was made clear) we would get as payment. Basically, "I don't want to give you money"/"I'll give you a dollar". I severed my connection with the artist and withdrew the books already published but still retain copyright. And that was not the only instance of that happening.

So you have to balance things out and look at two things; the body of work Moore created and the back-stabbing nature of the comic industry and those in it. The quality of Moore's work cannot be questioned and he has worked with some fine, if problematic, artists. Moore has said that he has not had a good experience in the field of comics and unless you sit him down and he pours out everything that has happened then you will never know what went on and the fact that Moore does not want to do interviews all over the internet or in any publication going makes him, in peoples' eyes a grumpy old git. But why should he sit down and waste his life moaning about the bad stuff? We get one life and Moore probably wants to get on with other projects.

His rivalries? I do not care. I care about the stories, the comics and if they are enjoyable -and they are.  Let Moore get on with what he wants and stop speculating -sadly, the internet and You Tube thrives on this stuff so it will go on.

There. Written.