Viewpoint: V for Vendetta and the rise of Anonymous
Alan Moore On Anonymous and V’s Mask…
‘Without wishing to overstate my case, everything in the observable universe definitely has its origins in Northamptonshire, and the adoption of the V for Vendetta mask as a multipurpose icon by the emerging global protest movements is no exception.’
Source: momentofmoore
I’m sort of at a loss when it comes to explaining what Alan Moore has done that makes so many fans quick to mock and criticize him. If you feel like you’ve been poorly treated, how is it a bad thing to say so in forthright fashion?
[…]
One gets the feeling that Moore’s biggest crime in the eyes of many is his failure to be properly appreciative of the money made on his behalf. Note this places the moneymaking itself squarely on the business partner facilitating the product rather than the creative person making it, which is already dubious to my mind. The absolute and frequently expressed inability of people from comics fans to fellow comics creators who should know better to realize that a creator might not hold making as much money as is possible the ultimate goal of art is astonishing to me, and distressing.
Comixtime: Gives Me FEELINGS Special Edition
So, this is happening. And Alan Moore isn’t happy about it.
Basically, Moore is in the right here. I don’t know how anyone can say otherwise, unless they straight out say “screw Alan Moore, I want more Rorschach beating up criminals”. That would at least be honest.
American superhero comics is a medium based on taking others’ ideas and running with them. And there have been many instances of creators not getting the credit they deserve; see Siegel and Shuster and Jack Kirby. So why is this different? Well, it isn’t - which is precisely why it’s so depressing. Why are the rights of creators still in such a shitty state? The 2011 Kirby lawsuit judgement has gone down as a breaking point for a number of people. It’s confirmation that these companies that have made millions off other people’s ideas can’t make even a token acknowledgement of that fact.
And while Superman and Batman in their original incarnations were meant as serial stories - you have the set-up (super-strong alien or wealthy vigilante) to apply to any new plot - Watchmen was ALWAYS intended to be a single self-contained story. From the first to the final image, there’s not a single panel that needs to be added to explain or clarify anything. DC’s intellectual bankruptcy to the extent that they need a 6-month sales bump off a 26-year-old limited series is … depressing. And I find the insistence of the creators that they’ve in fact found things that must be added to the story specious at best, and insulting at worst.
And it’s been stated enough times that Moore and Gibbons’ contracts stated that Watchmen would revert back to them once the story had been out of print for a year:
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, meanwhile, created Watchmen under the impression that the rights would be returned them eventually. Within a year after it was concluded, in fact. That’s not my opinion. That’s a fact. It’s public knowledge. Due to the nature of the deal that had been agreed upon by Moore, Gibbons and DC Comics, it was widely discussed. It was a genuine victory for creators’ rights.
But then the book was kept in print forever, and the rights to Watchmen never reverted back to Moore and Gibbons.
And people wonder why Alan Moore felt betrayed.
A company having the legal right to exploit someone’s work does not translate to a moral right. It doesn’t translate to the certainty (or even the possibility) of good art. I enjoy Darwyn Cooke and Brian Azzarello’s work, but I wouldn’t put them on par with Moore. And this is before you get into the company-man bullshit-shovelling and passive-aggressive denigration of the guy who actually created the work that this brains trust is going to play around with.
There is a curious phenomenon at work here; creators who feel a need to attack Alan Moore, even though he’s never addressed them himself. The team behind Watchmen 2: The Legend Of Nixon’s Gold may be perfectly at ease with profiting off Moore’s characters and story, but there’s something odd with the way the interviews contain a pre-emptive lashing out.
I don’t begrudge anyone buying or enjoying the Watchmen prequel comics. I’d much rather not have to worry about the moral consequences of my tastes in my entertainment. But Marvel could have acknowledged the debt they owe to Kirby within his lifetime, and compensated him accordingly. They could have admitted to his family that they made a mistake, and awarded them something by way of recompense. DC could have done the same for Siegel and Shuster, and they could have left Watchmen alone as a stand-alone work and reliable bestseller.
Instead, we’re seeing the worst aspects of modern comics culture. And it’s the fact that they work towards the corporate-led status quo that makes stuff like this possible. If you have fans that side with corporations over creators, and creators working for these corporations that will throw their predecessors under the bus for a chance to play with the toys, the whole thing will play out just as before, right down to Visionary Director(tm) Zak Snyder bringing Watchmen Babies to the big screen, and Rorschach action figures all the way down…
…And I don’t want any part of it.
Pretty sure a thousand people have beat me to this already, but here you go
He may be cranky, but he’s still a genius in my book (a mad one).
“I would prefer a two-state solution. My basic premise is that human beings are amphibious, in the etymological sense of ‘two lives’. We have one life in the solid material world that is most perfectly measured by science. Science is the most exquisite tool that we’ve developed for measuring that hard, physical, material world. Then there is the world of ideas which is inside our head. I would say that both of these worlds are equally real - they’re just real in different ways. The concept of a world of ideas, yes it’s intangible, it can’t be repeated in a laboratory, but pretty much the evidence for it is all around us. In that, every detail of our clothing, our mindsets, of the buildings and the streets and cities that surround us - that started life as an idea in someone’s head.”
-Alan Moore
via Boing Boing
Source: infectedworldmind
It was the American humorist Henry Mencken (1880-1956) who said that ‘Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one,’ words that are if anything more true today and they were then, surrounded as we are by giant media empires and secretive leaders who increasingly prefer to operate behind the handy screen of ‘national security.’ What Mencken meant, loosely translated, is that if you want to have a voice and be heard on the subjects that concern and outrage you, then you might be better off not trusting Rupert Murdoch and his global circus of tits and atrocity to be your spokesman.
(via momentofmoore)
Source: musicistheart
I found that if you can write to a suitable cadence, the audience would be very giving even if the poem itself wasn’t actually saying anything. Later I realized that it might be a good idea to use the same rhythmic technique but with actual material with importance or relevance, and this didn’t just apply to spoken word. When the reader is engaged with a printed text, they are creating a rhythm in their heads, if there is a rhythm there. So all of my stuff has paid probably too much attention to the actual rhythm of the words.
