I recently belatedly saw the movie of Moore/_____'s V FOR VENDETTA . years after having read the graphic novel (which I , therefore , have forgotten some of the details about now :-( ) .The recent boom here in the US in the " OCCUPY ______" protests/encampments have brought use of the mask by the Occupiers and their allies to the forefront ( Though , of course , I grant that it was the movie that " really " made the whole enchilada well-known . ) .
Will DC put out a deluxe - Or , fitting the Occupiers , populist-ly priced ? - new issue of VfV ?
Hey ~ Time Warner is certiainly see-able as part of " The Man " - maybe they're afraid it'll arouse the masses too much !!!!!!!!!!! Yeah , right .
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...Now , quite some while ago , well before anything in America was " Occupied " beyond Iraq...? - I had seen use of the Guy Fawkes mask prominently featured in VfV as a stunt by Kids Of To-Day , Man...In San Francisco I saw some what could be termed as " art student types " wearing Fawkes to pull a graffiti stunt and hide their identity (from the organization whose - thang - they were graf-ing) and knew , then , that it had made its mark...( What they were graffiti-ing upo request . )
The movie , I suppose , added some contemporary Hollywood points/structural elements not present in Moore's work .
Did Alan 100% return the money ?
He did remove his name from the credits , only " Illustrated By ____ ____ " was present and accounted for .
What's the ownership situation with VfV ? Is it , as with WATCHMEN , " If DC WOULD put it out of print I could get it back !!! Aagghh , those Yanks !!! " ?
I think the masks came to the Occupy movement via the Anonymous Anti-Scientology demonstrations.
Scientologists are notorous for for ruthlessly going after individuals that they identify as hostile to them, so the masks were felt to be nessecary, and the Anonymous people must have liked V's panache.
Also, Moore's book suggested that the point about V was that he could be anybody, although Moore teased a little who he might be. (His strength was his anonymity) The movie's big difference to the book was to make this very literal - everybody becomes V and the state can't control all those massed people the same way it terrorised individuals to keep in power.
That difference is problematic in some ways, as Moore's V was about the individual standing up to the state, and V believed passionately in anarchy, for good or bad, whereas the movie had him inspire a quasi-fascist army of identical followers.
But perhaps the movie, being made 20 years later, shows a modern take on how revolutions work these days. The mass of people have to identify with each other and stand shoulder to shoulder against the powers they disagree with, rather than each stand alone against the state, as V did.
As far as I know, Moore either refused all the movie royalties outright, or insisted that David Lloyd, the artist, receive the writer's share.
So strange that DC ended up controlling/owning the property. It was created as a creator-owned indie strip for the UK Warrior magazine... It seems DC must have insisted on owning it completely in order to pay Moore and Lloyd to complete the series. "Those Yanks!!!" indeed! :-)
All this 'raging against the machine' is probably something Time Warner as an insititution aren't happy about, but no doubt they can console themselves with the $15 a pop that all the 'revolutionaries' pay for the mask... :-)
George Poague said:
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Now , I realize that a character/concept can be given new meaning , even 100% opposed ..Guy Fawkes simply wanted to replace the Anglican king w/a Catholic...um , monarch ? ( Mary , Queen of Scots or any immediate descendants she may have had ? ) Did Guy want this new Rome-approved King to not even have as much of a check on monarchiel power as Parliement would have provided to the C-O-E king at that time ????????? I.e. , he didn't want the pictured Catholic Restoration King to have any Parlement ? ( Spellin'...)
Now , I realize that something can develop into/have " assigned " a 100% opposite meaning to what it had , over the years...
An amusing observation. I've never traced back the conspirators exact long-term political and theological plans, but I'm sure there was a large element of 'keep kicking us like that, and we'll kick you back!!' in what Fawkes and co did. A very simple human response, and we don't have to go all the way back to the 17th century to see it in action. The alternative was just to lie down and take their mistreatment. Which all good Christian gentlemen would have done, of course. The other cheek and all that.
Anyway, I dug up thread to link to this interniew with Moore himself regarding the masks:
Through contacts in the comics industry, he explains, he has heard ...