Jason Aaron says "fuck you Alan Moore"

[JasonF]

I've read some of Moore's stuff over the years and its good, not amazing.  Just good. 

He has from time to time bitched about creators today not creating new properties but to my knowledge everything he's written, with the exception of V for Vendetta (haven't read it so I don't know if it's based off of characters someone else created), uses either established characters, public domain or otherwise, or has characters based on established characters like the Watchmen.  If I'm wrong correct me but everything I've ever heard of that he's written wasn't based on characters that he created.

That's probably an overstatement -- Moore's done a lot of wholly original stuff, from Big Numbers to Promethea to Top Ten.  That said, your larger point is correct.  Moore has done a very large chunk of his work over the years on characters created by others, including Watchmen.  That's what I find most funny about this whole thing.  Moore is incensed that instead of creating new characters, DC wants creators to work on a rip-off of the characters that Moore ... ripped off from Charlton.  Where is the outrage exactly?

[Julian Lytle]

That's great... How about the phrase - "actions speak louder than words"?

His actions through teaching could go a lot further than his words.  Seriously, what comic book creator in training wouldn't want to learn from a master? 



The Tiki

His actions does speak, he makes work. They (other writers) can learn from teachers, books, other material.
They can get some dope collaborators too.

That's probably an overstatement -- Moore's done a lot of wholly original stuff, from Big Numbers to Promethea to Top Ten.  That said, your larger point is correct.  Moore has done a very large chunk of his work over the years on characters created by others, including Watchmen.  That's what I find most funny about this whole thing.  Moore is incensed that instead of creating new characters, DC wants creators to work on a rip-off of the characters that Moore ... ripped off from Charlton.  Where is the outrage exactly?

Well really he took the archetypes, and did something new with them. They weren't really the Charlton characters. It's not that he's incensed about no new characters it's that they aren't doing anything fresh with their concepts.

And wait nobody else is noticing this? For me the biggest flaw of the current era of superhero books is it's over reliance on the 80s. All the top creators are really just doing stuff like they read when they were kids.

[Scott C.]

He doesn't HAVE to do it.  I am just commenting on a line of actions that would have been more productive for his cause. 

His cause?  His cause wasn't about the current crop of writers at Marvel and DC.  His cause was about how DC used his stories and his friends to try and put pressure on him.

[JasonF]

Well really he took the archetypes, and did something new with them. They weren't really the Charlton characters. It's not that he's incensed about no new characters it's that they aren't doing anything fresh with their concepts.

It sounds like we disagree on just how much Rorschach owes to the Question, Ozymandias owes to Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, and so on, but I think we probably do agree that Moore started with a baseline of the Charlton heroes and built from there.  Just like he built on Mick Anglo's Marvelman (which was built on C.C. Beck's Captain Marvel), built on Wein and Wrightson's Swamp Thing, built on the pre-existing Captain Britain stuff, built on Liefeld's Supreme and the Silver Age Superman stories, built on early marvel for 1963, built on Baum, Carroll, and Barrie for Lost Girls, built on decades of Batman and Joker stories for Killing Joke, and so on.

Now, in each of these cases, Moore used what already existed to build something creative, unique, and worthwhile.  I certainly don't mean to suggest that any schmuck could take a couple of pre-existing characters like Superman and Mongul and spit out For the Man Who Has Everything.  Moore did great things with those pre-existing characters.  But who is to say that Jason Aaron (for example) couldn't take Nite Owl and Silk Spectre and all the rest and do something great with them?  You say Moore is incensed that publishers aren't doing anything fresh with their concepts.  Maybe Aaron's take on Dr. Manhattan would be as fresh as Moore's take on Swamp Thing.

[Dave A]

It sounds like we disagree on just how much Rorschach owes to the Question, Ozymandias owes to Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, and so on, but I think we probably do agree that Moore started with a baseline of the Charlton heroes and built from there.  Just like he built on Mick Anglo's Marvelman (which was built on C.C. Beck's Captain Marvel), built on Wein and Wrightson's Swamp Thing, built on the pre-existing Captain Britain stuff, built on Liefeld's Supreme and the Silver Age Superman stories, built on early marvel for 1963, built on Baum, Carroll, and Barrie for Lost Girls, built on decades of Batman and Joker stories for Killing Joke, and so on.

Now, in each of these cases, Moore used what already existed to build something creative, unique, and worthwhile.  I certainly don't mean to suggest that any schmuck could take a couple of pre-existing characters like Superman and Mongul and spit out For the Man Who Has Everything.  Moore did great things with those pre-existing characters.  But who is to say that Jason Aaron (for example) couldn't take Nite Owl and Silk Spectre and all the rest and do something great with them?  You say Moore is incensed that publishers aren't doing anything fresh with their concepts.  Maybe Aaron's take on Dr. Manhattan would be as fresh as Moore's take on Swamp Thing.

Mmm... I think Moore's reinvisioning of those old characters is the least of his achievements, though it's the thing he gets the most credit for, and it's the quality of his that's influenced the most writers to follow. I don't think he necessarily set out to revolutionize these old characters so much as just give them a bit of character... remember that when Moore started out, most comic book characters weren't terribly deep in the personality department. It wasn't too difficult to write a Miracleman deeper than Anglo's, or a Dr. Manhattan deeper than Captain Atom.

So, what most people seem to take away from something like Watchmen is the depth of the characters and the superhero deconstruction, but what really makes it a great achievement in my mind is in the use of the medium to tell the story. That work does things with comics that hadn't really been done before, and haven't often even been attempted since... modern writers tend to glom onto the surface qualities of Moore's characterizations and try to recreate that with all superheroes, rather than doing interesting and exciting things with the storytelling (which I believe was the point).

I have no doubt today's writers could tell an interesting story with the Watchmen characters... but those characters were such a small part of what made Watchmen the achievement it is, that I'd wonder what the point would be.

[JasonF]

I have no doubt today's writers could tell an interesting story with the Watchmen characters... but those characters were such a small part of what made Watchmen the achievement it is, that I'd wonder what the point would be.

What was the point of what Moore did with Swamp Thing?  What was the point of Killing Joke?  What was the point of For the Man Who Has Everything?  Or, to take it away from Moore, what was the point of Kraven's Last Hunt, the Dark Knight Returns, Walt Simonson's Orion series, or whatever other series based on a pre-existing property you want to name?  Like it or not, the comics medium -- at least in the U.S. -- has evolved on a business model where new creators return to old characters to tell new stories.  I don't see why the Watchmen characters should be any different in that respect.  There are a lot of people who want to see the next story with those characters just as surely as they want to see the next story with Captain America or Wonder Woman.

And yeah, probably nobody will ever do as good a story with Nite Owl as Moore and Gibbons did, even if the character becomes as ubiquitous as Wolverine and Batman combined.  But so what?  Quite frankly, I would rather have a million crappy stories with those characters plus one really good story than no more stories at all with those characters.  Moore and Gibbons' work will always be there, no matter what.  If there's a chance to get a second good work out of those characters, why not let some creator go for it?

[DarkKnightJared]

That's probably an overstatement -- Moore's done a lot of wholly original stuff, from Big Numbers to Promethea to Top Ten.  That said, your larger point is correct.  Moore has done a very large chunk of his work over the years on characters created by others, including Watchmen.  That's what I find most funny about this whole thing.  Moore is incensed that instead of creating new characters, DC wants creators to work on a rip-off of the characters that Moore ... ripped off from Charlton.  Where is the outrage exactly?

I've never read Big Numbers, but Promethea was basically Moore's version of Wonder Woman, and Top Ten was Moore doing a mix of superheroes and Law & Order.

That's the problem I have with Moore--he has every reason to be pissed off at the Big Two, but the whole "I don't think there's even a bottom-tier of talent in the industry nowadays" thing and the "why can't these people make something better than my work from 30 years ago" thing just screams the fact that he's bought into his own hype. From what he's telling us, I think he believe he's the best writer on the planet and none can compare to him--which makes sense, when you think about it; why else would he write a book about nothing but being raped by tentacles if he thought that he couldn't get away with it by name alone?

[Dave A]

What was the point of what Moore did with Swamp Thing?  What was the point of Killing Joke?  What was the point of For the Man Who Has Everything?  Or, to take it away from Moore, what was the point of Kraven's Last Hunt, the Dark Knight Returns, Walt Simonson's Orion series, or whatever other series based on a pre-existing property you want to name?  Like it or not, the comics medium -- at least in the U.S. -- has evolved on a business model where new creators return to old characters to tell new stories.  I don't see why the Watchmen characters should be any different in that respect.  There are a lot of people who want to see the next story with those characters just as surely as they want to see the next story with Captain America or Wonder Woman.

And yeah, probably nobody will ever do as good a story with Nite Owl as Moore and Gibbons did, even if the character becomes as ubiquitous as Wolverine and Batman combined.  But so what?  Quite frankly, I would rather have a million crappy stories with those characters plus one really good story than no more stories at all with those characters.  Moore and Gibbons' work will always be there, no matter what.  If there's a chance to get a second good work out of those characters, why not let some creator go for it?

Well, the point I was making though is that the characters in that particular work aren't the reason to read it. If a reader finishes Watchmen and all he gets out of it is that Rorschach is cool, I'd argue that he completely missed the point.

Not that they aren't fun characters, but, like you said yourself, they're all based on old Charlton characters -- which DC owns. So if you have the perfect Rorschach story, why not tell it with the Question? Etc.

It's not that Moore's characters are too precious to touch after he's done with them, it's that the characters aren't the point of Watchmen and don't merit further exploration. They're means to an end, storytelling devices. Taken out of the context of Watchmen, there's no point to them, really.

[BurlIves]

Like it or not, the comics medium -- at least in the U.S. -- has evolved on a business model where new creators return to old characters to tell new stories.  I don't see why the Watchmen characters should be any different in that respect.  There are a lot of people who want to see the next story with those characters just as surely as they want to see the next story with Captain America or Wonder Woman.

One great thing Moore did for those characters that people won't do with a typical superhero is give them a concrete beginning, middle, and end.  He told their whole story, and in doing so spared them from the never ending samsara that is comics continuity; personally I'd rather not see them dropped back in to it.  

[JimN]

It's not that Moore's characters are too precious to touch after he's done with them, it's that the characters aren't the point of Watchmen and don't merit further exploration. They're means to an end, storytelling devices. Taken out of the context of Watchmen, there's no point to them, really.

I agree with your point about the characters in Watchmen being storytelling devices but I think JasonF makes a valid point as well. Those characters might merit further exploration in the right hands. I don't really want to see them used again and I don't really want to see a Watchmen sequel but it's certainly possible that someone could tell a great story and say something new (and worth saying) with them. Moore did that himself with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The characters and concepts he's used in that series certainly weren't characters that needed to be used again. Their stories had been told and finished but Moore and O'Neill used them to create something new, interesting and worth reading.

Jim

[BurlIves]

I'm a big proponent of great characters and stories being reused and retold, it's how we find out whats universal and mythic.  But Joss Whedon said something recently regarding plans to reboot Buffy.  He assumed people would continue to retell Buffy's story, but that it would happen after he was dead (clumsy paraphrase).  Certainly Watchmen is a strong enough story that it can be retold too, but to a great extent we're still in the world that Moore helped build comics-wise.  Wait till the medium shifts it's paradigm again, and retell them in that light. 

I also think conflating what Moore does with LoEG and Lost Girls, etc. with resurrecting the Watchmen characters to be a little off the mark.  What Moore does there has nothing to do with writing prequels or any established continuity.  It's not even really a team-up or crossover in the Big 2 sense.  Wait a hundred years, then take Rorschach, along with Lara Croft, Jack Ryan, and throw them on Monster Island, with a subtext of Neo-Post Environmental criticism (or whatever other literary model we can come up with in a century).  Then you're getting closer to the mark.

Going back to make Watchmen prequels and sequels is more analogous to George Lucas prequel trilogy syndrome.  Yes we get to see the characters do new and (potentially) interesting things, but it doesn't tell us anything worthwhile that wasn't already in the original films.  What people really want is to see the original trilogy reinterpreted, and that will happen, but in it's own time. 

[Dave A]

I'm a big proponent of great characters and stories being reused and retold, it's how we find out whats universal and mythic.  But Joss Whedon said something recently regarding plans to reboot Buffy.  He assumed people would continue to retell Buffy's story, but that it would happen after he was dead (clumsy paraphrase).  Certainly Watchmen is a strong enough story that it can be retold too, but to a great extent we're still in the world that Moore helped build comics-wise.  Wait till the medium shifts it's paradigm again, and retell them in that light. 

I also think conflating what Moore does with LoEG and Lost Girls, etc. with resurrecting the Watchmen characters to be a little off the mark.  What Moore does there has nothing to do with writing prequels or any established continuity.  It's not even really a team-up or crossover in the Big 2 sense.  Wait a hundred years, then take Rorschach, along with Lara Croft, Jack Ryan, and throw them on Monster Island, with a subtext of Neo-Post Environmental criticism (or whatever other literary model we can come up with in a century).  Then you're getting closer to the mark.

Going back to make Watchmen prequels and sequels is more analogous to George Lucas prequel trilogy syndrome.  Yes we get to see the characters do new and (potentially) interesting things, but it doesn't tell us anything worthwhile that wasn't already in the original films.  What people really want is to see the original trilogy reinterpreted, and that will happen, but in it's own time. 

I was going to type all this in response to Jim's point, but you did it for me, and much better. Karma

[JimN]

I'm a big proponent of great characters and stories being reused and retold, it's how we find out whats universal and mythic.  But Joss Whedon said something recently regarding plans to reboot Buffy.  He assumed people would continue to retell Buffy's story, but that it would happen after he was dead (clumsy paraphrase).  Certainly Watchmen is a strong enough story that it can be retold too, but to a great extent we're still in the world that Moore helped build comics-wise. Wait till the medium shifts it's paradigm again, and retell them in that light. 

I think the medium has probably undergone at least a couple of major shifts since Watchmen was originally published.

I also think conflating what Moore does with LoEG and Lost Girls, etc. with resurrecting the Watchmen characters to be a little off the mark.  What Moore does there has nothing to do with writing prequels or any established continuity.  It's not even really a team-up or crossover in the Big 2 sense.  Wait a hundred years, then take Rorschach, along with Lara Croft, Jack Ryan, and throw them on Monster Island, with a subtext of Neo-Post Environmental criticism (or whatever other literary model we can come up with in a century).  Then you're getting closer to the mark.

Nevertheless, he's taking existing characters from older stories and re-using them to do something new. Time and distance from the original are factors but non-essential factors in making new stories work. Swamp Thing certainly wasn't 100 years old when Moore/Bissette and company re-invented it.

Going back to make Watchmen prequels and sequels is more analogous to George Lucas prequel trilogy syndrome.  Yes we get to see the characters do new and (potentially) interesting things, but it doesn't tell us anything worthwhile that wasn't already in the original films. 

What people really want is to see the original trilogy reinterpreted, and that will happen, but in it's own time.

Ugh. That's certainly not what I want to see. Frankly, I think what people wanted was for the sequels and prequels to be really good and unfortunately, they weren't.

As for applying your Star Wars analogy to Watchmen: there's no way to know if a sequel or prequel would tell us anything worthwhile that wasn't in the original until someone makes one. As I said above, I don't really want to see the characters in Watchmen revisited and if it was my work, I definitely wouldn't want to see it revisited but that doesn't mean someone can't do it and do it well, perhaps even exceptionally well.

Jim

[Dave Faust]

Nevertheless, he's taking existing characters from older stories and re-using them to do something new. Time and distance from the original are factors but non-essential factors in making new stories work. Swamp Thing certainly wasn't 100 years old when Moore/Bissette and company re-invented it.

Swamp Thing wasn't really a re-invention, at least not in the way that Miracleman or LOEG was. Moore picked it up at issue #20 and continued the story, even returning to storylines from previous issues (the town of vampires that got flooded in issue #3 turning up again in #38). Sure, Moore expanded a lot on Swamp Thing's origin, but that's always been pretty commonplace in comics. I guess the only difference is that Moore's changes stuck.

[BurlIves]

I think the medium has probably undergone at least a couple of major shifts since Watchmen was originally published.

I'd say a couple of minor shifts maybe, if your talking about mainstream superhero books nothing of the magnitude that Moore and his contemporaries brought (I don't believe Moore was alone in this by any means).  I do think we're about due for another one if the genre is to remain vital, though.

Nevertheless, he's taking existing characters from older stories and re-using them to do something new. Time and distance from the original are factors but non-essential factors in making new stories work. Swamp Thing certainly wasn't 100 years old when Moore/Bissette and company re-invented it.

Swamp Thing was an ongoing serial that Moore took over on an ongoing basis, not a finite story with beginning , middle, and end like Watchmen.  And as you say, he wasn't just filling in prequel details, he turned the whole thing inside out.

It's more than just time I'm talking about, it's the totality of context, both intrinsic and extrinsic to the story.  LoEG made no attempts to be Dracula 2 (Galvanic Boogaloo), or an Invisible Man Prequel.  It was a new thing entirely, that happened to reuse those characters.

Ugh. That's certainly not what I want to see. Frankly, I think what people wanted was for the sequels and prequels to be really good and unfortunately, they weren't.

Even if the prequels had been well executed, anything compelling to the SW story had already been told to us in the original trilogy.  That's implicit in the scope of the story. We'd already played the prequel in our heads (and it was probably better off left there).  

I agree with you in principle that someone can come along and do a new and wonderful take on Watchmen, reimagine it for a new generation.  But I think to do so would require revisiting the work as a whole, not dusting off the characters to fill in places in the original that Moore (perhaps intentionally) left blank or ambiguous.

[JimN]

Swamp Thing wasn't really a re-invention, at least not in the way that Miracleman or LOEG was. Moore picked it up at issue #20 and continued the story, even returning to storylines from previous issues (the town of vampires that got flooded in issue #3 turning up again in #38). Sure, Moore expanded a lot on Swamp Thing's origin, but that's always been pretty commonplace in comics. I guess the only difference is that Moore's changes stuck.

Reinvention or not, the point is he took the character/series and ran with it, re-shaping it thematically and ultimately creating something unique, original, engaging and quite different from the Wein/Wrightson version. There's no reason someone couldn't do the same thing with the characters in Watchmen. I'll admit, the probable outcome of such an endeavor would be something inferior but you never know.

Jim

[BurlIves]

Reinvention or not, the point is he took the character/series and ran with it, re-shaping it thematically and ultimately creating something unique, original, engaging and quite different from the Wein/Wrightson version.

I agree on this point insofar as it's about the most perfect example of a character deconstruction to hit the medium in many, many, moons.  Take a dichotomy inherent in the character (in this case man and environment or man and nature), flip them and explore the consequences.  And doing so did fundamentally alter the nature of the character and the story.  

But again, I think the issue here is as much the format of the story as anything done to the characters.  To do anything of that magnitude with Watchmen would require revisiting the story whole cloth.

[Julian Lytle]

Hey if someone wants to tell a dope atomic man story their is a pretty clean slate character of Breach sitting over in that DC toy box. Waiting. Chillin.

[JimN]

I'd say a couple of minor shifts maybe, if your talking about mainstream superhero books nothing of the magnitude that Moore and his contemporaries brought (I don't believe Moore was alone in this by any means).  I do think we're about due for another one if the genre is to remain vital, though.

Honestly, I'm not convinced Moore and his contemporaries brought about a major shift either. I know that's how it's perceived but I think comics like Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns (the two works most cited from that era of superhero comics as big game-changers) as part of a pretty gradual shift in the way superhero comics stories were told (or perhaps as the culmination of such a change).

Swamp Thing was an ongoing serial that Moore took over on an ongoing basis, not a finite story with beginning , middle, and end like Watchmen.  And as you say, he wasn't just filling in prequel details, he turned the whole thing inside out.

I don't see that distinction as terribly relevant to a discussion about whether the characters in Watchmen could be used to create something great again. If we're talking about some anal-retentive need to work them into DC continuity, team them up with Batman, have them meet the Justice league, etc. then yes, chances are some real garbage (or at least inferior work) would be produced. If we're just talking about the ability for someone else to take the ball and run with it, and perhaps do something great, I think Moore himself is a fine example of just how possible it is for that to happen. I don't see a need for it to happen but

It's more than just time I'm talking about, it's the totality of context, both intrinsic and extrinsic to the story.  LoEG made no attempts to be Dracula 2 (Galvanic Boogaloo), or an Invisible Man Prequel.  It was a new thing entirely, that happened to reuse those characters.

I see your point but I don't think it has any relevance to the potential quality of a Watchmen prequel or sequel. As far as I'm concerned, the only relevant factors would be the ability of the creators working on such a project and the quality of their collaborators (primarily the editor).

Even if the prequels had been well executed, anything compelling to the SW story had already been told to us in the original trilogy.  That's implicit in the scope of the story. We'd already played the prequel in our heads (and it was probably better off left there).  

I disagree. The prequels were intended to go beyond the scope of the original story to tell a different story. Their failures were their own but it's not as if it would have been impossible to create 3 films as compelling as the original trilogy (or even more so). I think it was a failure of concept and execution, not an impossibility.

I agree with you in principle that someone can come along and do a new and wonderful take on Watchmen, reimagine it for a new generation.  But I think to do so would require revisiting the work as a whole, not dusting off the characters to fill in places in the original that Moore (perhaps intentionally) left blank or ambiguous.

Does filling in the blanks really have to be the goal of a prequel or sequel? I realize it does in the most literal sense but it's reason for existing doesn't have to be literally serve that purpose. It can simply be a new story featuring some/all of the characters from Watchmen that takes place prior to Watchmen. It doesn't have to be a re-imagining of the original work or an effort to fill in the details. It's clear that the characters in Watchmen had eventful lives prior to the story Moore and Gibbons told. That means there's plenty of rich territory to explore with minimal reference to Watchmen itself.

I apologize if I seem obstinate. That's not my intent. As a creative person, I just choose not see the limits of what can't be done and to focus now what can be done. There's always a creative, original solution. It's just a question of finding it.

It's ironic to me that there's so much resistance to the idea of someone creatively riffing on Moore's work when he's basically built his career and immense reputation by riffing on previously existing characters and creations.

Jim

[Dave Faust]

It's ironic to me that there's so much resistance to the idea of someone creatively riffing on Moore's work when he's basically built his career and immense reputation by riffing on previously existing characters and creations.

Jim

Well, let's take it back to Shakespeare. King Lear and Hamlet and many of his other plays were old stories and had been performed for years before Shakespeare came up with his takes on them. Since then his versions have become pretty definitive. Yeah it would be possible to tell a story about a young King Lear in his prime, but what would be the point?