Alan Moore says that if you buy Before Watchmen, "just stop buying my other books".

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

“I have to say that if you are a reader that just wanted your favorite characters on tap forever, and never cared about the creators, then actually you’re probably not the kind of reader that I was looking for. I have a huge respect for my audience. On the occasions when I meet them, they seem, I like to think, to be intelligent and scrupulous people. If people do want to go out and buy these Watchmen prequels, they would be doing me an enormous favor if they would just stop buying my other books. When I think of my audience, I like to have good thoughts and think about how lucky I am to have one that is as intelligent as mine and as moral as mine. [...] The kind of readers who are prepared to turn a blind eye when the people who create their favorite reading material, their favorite characters, are marginalized or put to the wall — that’s not the kind of readers I want. So, even if it means a huge drop in sales upon my other work, I would prefer it that way. I mean, there’s no way I can police this, of course. But, I would hope that you wouldn’t want to buy a book knowing that its author actually had complete contempt for you. So, I’m hoping that will be enough.” - Alan Moore from the interview found here:

http://www.seraphemera.org/seraphemera_books/Alan_Moore_Interview.html

This comes a couple of weeks after David Mazzucchelli asked readers to not buy the new edition of Batman: Year One after all of the extra work he put into creating the "definitive" edition has been dumped for new printings.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Philip Portelli said:

Moore, and his sympathizers, feel that if the creator/s are dead, then it's okay to do whatever he wants to their characters whether it be twisted or brilliant.

ClarkKent_DC said:

What difference does it make if the creators are alive or dead?

Philip Portelli said:

Because he's not taking anything away from them. They are not writing about their characters anymore (being deceased) so he can use them anyway he sees fit.

I'm sorry, but I can't see that the creator(s) being alive or dead has any bearing on the rightness or wrongness of some other creators using those characters. If it's "wrong" when they're alive, why isn't it "wrong" when they're dead?

[Mickey McLaurin]

I just don't buy much of anything new these days.  When I saw the BWpreviews, I thought maybe the Darwin Cooke books looked interesting, but nothing to get me off my chair and pick 'em up. 

Figserello said:

Why had you decided not to buy the BW books, Mickey? 

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

I dunno I seem have read the same Alan Moore interview for 10+ years now. It is just longer.

feel that the industry employees who are actually working upon this book--I had only heard of about three of them--but I'm certainly not interested in seeing any of their work.  But, I'm unlikely to because I don't read comics anymore and they're never going to do anything outside of comics.

Yes, unfortunately JMS has never had any work outside of the comic book industry. Nor Len Wein. Plus, plenty of people are perfectly content to work in the field. They chose to, ya know.

I'm against adaptation in general--and this is perhaps a different subject--but generally, and there are exceptions, I don't think it works when you adapt one story to another medium.

Did he talk to his own daughter about her adaptations on Dracula and Alice in Wonderland?

KA:  Is it safe to say that this is the last word from you on Before Watchmen?

AM:  It probably is.  There's not a lot of point in saying anything else.  I'll just let nature take its course.

I've heard that before.

[The Baron]

Here's what I think:

 

I don't know any of the people inovlved, but:

 

1)Is it possible that the people running a given company are more interested in making money than in artistic integrity? Yes, it is possible.

 

2)Is it possible that a given creator might be just a wee bit full of themselves?  Yes, it is possible.

 

But, I couldn't say if any of it was certain.

[Chris Fluit]

His choice.  Your choice. Azerello and co's choice to take part in a project whose very existence can only be interpreted by Mr Moore (and many many others) as contempt for him.

You contradict yourself, Figs.  If Moore can choose to have contempt for readers of Before Watchmen or for the creators who work on it then, by extension, Moore can also choose not to have to contempt for those readers and creators.  To say that the existence of the project "can only be interpreted" "as contempt" is false. The project can be interpreted in any number of ways.  Moore is the one who chose to view it as contempt.  That tells me more about Moore than it does about the readers or the project itself. 

[Philip Portelli]

Besides there's nothing that any of the Before Watchmen books can do to lessen Watchmen's importance or make me go "It just hit me! Watchmen sucked!"

And while we are on the subject of Alan Moore's feelings and views, what about Dave Gibbons? I read the article and it seems like as co-creator, he has as much of a right to profit from it, to expand it and reimagine it as much as Moore refuses a dime, keep it seperate and ultimately let it lie fallow.

[Philip Portelli]

Because they can't argue about it? Or complain about it? Or sue you for it?
 
ClarkKent_DC said:

Philip Portelli said:

Moore, and his sympathizers, feel that if the creator/s are dead, then it's okay to do whatever he wants to their characters whether it be twisted or brilliant.

ClarkKent_DC said:

What difference does it make if the creators are alive or dead?

Philip Portelli said:

Because he's not taking anything away from them. They are not writing about their characters anymore (being deceased) so he can use them anyway he sees fit.

I'm sorry, but I can't see that the creator(s) being alive or dead has any bearing on the rightness or wrongness of some other creators using those characters. If it's "wrong" when they're alive, why isn't it "wrong" when they're dead?

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

I was then offered by an increasingly frantic-sounding Dave Gibbons an unspecified but really, really large sum of money to just give my blessing for them to do these sequels and prequels... and that he had been offered something in the region of a quarter of a million dollars to oversee the project -- that it would be handled by the top talent in the industry, to which I said some quite intemperate things... So yeah, I was angry and I said some things which I still stand behind. And, that was the end of it. And, that was the end of my friendship with Dave Gibbons. - Alan Moore

[Mickey McLaurin]

If Moore had only argued "I don't think it is right because DC treated me unfairly over ownership and rights to Watchmen," great, he's got a point, no problem.

It's the attacking of the other creators involved, and the attempted justification of his use of others' characters as opposed to "his own" characters being used by others, that totally loses me...

[Chris Fluit]

I agree.  If this is about respect for creators, then publicly disrespecting other creators does a real disservice to your argument.

[Figserello]

He's mad at DC and expresses that. The contempt thing made me laugh on the bus.

I don't see how Moore has any responsibility to spare the feelings of those he sees as complicit in a long ongoing insult to him.

The creators concerned knew that they'd be incurring his displeasure. JMS came out arguing against some position Moore has never stated straight out of the gate.

DC are producing Before Watchmen in the teeth of the displeasure of their most highly respected creator of the last 30 years. They and those involved just have to put up with that and forge ahead. Maybe they will produce 35 astounding comics that will render every criticism mute!

[Figserello]

Doc's quote about Gibbons above is fascinating. When the project was announced Gibbons' imprimateur of this project seemed somewhat muted and 'hands off' to me.

One interpretation is that DC did not give him the allegedly fantasticly lucrative 'creative oversight' role because he was not able to bring Moore on board. Amazing to see all the different forms of leverage DC have been using to bring Moore to heel.