Does anyone else here think that Alan Moore is criminally overrated...

Nobody buys Snyder's bullshit here, go back to /tv/

But a giant psychic squid is just fine?

Of course, if you've actually read the comic and get what was the point of it, both thematically and as a metatextual reference.

I'm sure you did user, you're very smart.

I realized a few days ago that I'll never reread Jerusalem, ever. I thought it was pretty great when I finished it, but I don't think I'll ever want to go through it again.

You don't need to be very smart to get it, actually. I'm always baffled by retards who think that Manhattan not only is better (missing the point of the squid) but that it also makes more sense plot wise (which it doesn't, and it renders a bunch of the shit Snyder decided to keep in the movie pretty much pointless, since a lot of elements of the plot are intrinsically related to the squid, and if you remove the squid you'd have to change those or remove them as well).
If there's something nobody can take away from Moore is that he builds his plots very meticulously and pretty much every little plot element present in his comics is there for a reason.

The squid serves the same purpose as Doctor Manhattan: uniting the world against a common enemy. It's also a perfectly reasonable threat for a superhero comic, which is what Watchmen was dealing with. It wouldn't be out of place in Avengers or Justice League at all.

The fact that Snyder had to replace the squid, and that his fanboys prefer Watchmen without it, betrays their manchild aspirations of wanting their grown men in long underwear to be perceived as "serious art."

He is extremely overrated and a hypocrite.
>was originally going to use characters for Watchmen that already existed that DC recently purchased from another comic company
>DC said he can't since they have other plans for those characters
>Moore decides to make pastiches of those characters instead
>then claims ownership of them

>It wouldn't be out of place in Avengers or Justice League at all.
Well, it's an obvious callback to the very first villain that the Justice League fought together, which was a mind-controlling giant space starfish. Which also helps to make the point that for all his supposed smarts, Ozymandias was just as trapped in the childish and immature superhero mentality as the rest of the characters, despite him feeling above them. The masterplan from the smartest man in the world was nothing but a silver-age comic book villain plan.

Besides that, plot-wise it makes more sense since the whole point was creating an alien menace that would bring mankind together (Manhattan was widely identified as an American symbol, and even if American cities were "attacked" by him, the country would still be seen as responsible by the rest of the world and would only bring more animosity, not world peace). Also, taking the squid out renders the presence of Bubastis as nonsensical and superficial, gives no good reason for the whole island subplot and therefore makes absolutely no sense that The Comedian goes insane, which kicks off the very plot of the film.
I mean, why would he go insane because Ozy was about to use Manhattan as a weapon, when that's what America had been doing all along, with The Comedian being a part of it?

>Moore
>claiming ownership of anything

He won't even allow studios who adapt his comics to pay him royalties, you're lying out of your anus.

>Moore wanted to use pre-existing characters
>He's told he can't
>He creates new characters, which become highly iconic, moreso than any of the originals he intended to use, and most of them keep only the slighters resemblance to the originals

But yeah, he's crazy to claim that some characters he actually created belong to him, right?
And you know that's not really why he was pissed off at DC (he did other works for them but he never claimed ownership for that. Case in point, John Constantine), but that he was promised something and then DC did some legal trickery to avoid keeping their word. That's what pissed him off.

And after this, this "hypocrite" refused to be credited in any further adaptation of this comic and doesn't accept any of the money they try to give him to buy his good faith. And we're talking about a shitload of money.

yes, his stuff is both interesting and well written, but nothing thats worth thinking about once its over.

>He won't even allow studios who adapt his comics to pay him royalties
Because he hates those adaptions, you daffy shit. He complained about DC not giving him a cut of those Watchmen buttons they sold.

You're lying again. First of all, it's illegal for "Watchmen buttons" to be sold anywhere outside the US because The Smiley Company owns the rights to the trademark. Second of all, Moore is famous for turning down merchandising cuts at every chance he gets.

>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.

>Moore has a complicated relationship with money. "Pure voodoo," he says now. "Only there as long as we believe in it." Challenged, during a television interview this year, about why he would sign away the movie rights to a comic such as Watchmen if he didn't ever want it to become a movie, Moore said he gave up the rights because he never expected any adaptations to happen; he called it making money for old rope. But then the films came out, and somewhere along the way Moore developed such a distaste for what he saw on the screen, and the revenue accrued from it, that he asked for his name to be taken off the credits; then he started turning down production money. Moore gave his share of the Watchmen fee to Dave Gibbons, the artist with whom he conceived the series.

Don't bother, most of these anti-Moore guys are so baffled by the fact that he actually rejects money that they try to make it about money anyway.

He's never created anything original.

Neither did Shakespeare. So?

I actually just read V for Vendetta and Watchmen for the first time a few days ago. While they're not traditional novels (durr) I found their style and execution to come pretty close. Watchmen is worlds better than V though and I think it deserves all the praises it gets: FOR A COMIC BOOK. If you're going to try and go beyond that and compare it against Dostoyevsky than yes of course Moore is overrated. Still he uses his medium better than anyone else that I'm aware of. The dang book itself even says something in the afterword about how the public thinks comics are just throwaway entertainment (which they are, more often than not). For what his works are, he deserves the praise.

Now keep in mind that I have not read Jerusalem yet so I could be totally wrong and gay.

forgot mah pic

It's supposed to be ridiculous to shock the world into uniting. I think it works way better than what the movie did. I still liked it though.

john constantine

this.

He can do some very clever shit, though. Like this kind of palindromic poem.

Symmetry becomes it.
Come to ruin our impending feast,
a presence that nourishes suffering.
All things below voice his burning name
His turmoil offers only truth in which longer moments live.
Let consciousness recapture the flicker it saw then.
Torch our continuity of thought now, until that mind evaporates.
Lust after shadows in us.
Rend that lace of promises broken and white lies.
Regard our love of wreckage;
the way our heads thunder,
approaching that warning pulse and temple
of throbbing light that is
ASMODEUS.

ASMODEUS is that light
throbbing of temple and pulse,
warning that approaching thunder heads our way.
The wreckage of love, our regard lies white and broken.
Promises of lace that rend us, in shadows, after lust evaporates.
Mind that until now thought of continuity,
our torch, then saw it flicker, the recapture:
consciousness let live moments longer,
which in truth only offers turmoil.
His name burning, his voice below things.
All suffering nourishes that presence,
a feast impending, our ruin to come.
It becomes symmetry.

There's also the Parliament of the Trees, Mogo the Living Planet, not to mention all the original comics he did for 2000 AD (D.R. and Quinch, Halo Jones, etc), or stuff like V for Vendetta, A Small Killing, etc.

The easiest way to spot a pleb

Moore isn't exactly overrated, it's just that within his chosen medium he outstrips most of his peers in terms of literary merit by leaps and bounds, yet pales in comparison to actual literary giants. He is the big fish in a small pond, and there's nothing wrong with that because when you catch him he still makes a pretty good meal but if you go down the road there's a larger pond with more big fish, some sharks, and even a few whales.

>pales in comparison to actual literary giants
Well, no shit Sherlock. So do 99% of authors.

99% of authors did not also make their name in comic books.

So? What's your point?

Pic related is the single greatest thing he has ever written (and possibly the only good thing). Prove me wrong (protip you can't).

>Pic related is the single greatest thing he has ever written

Completely agree, I love Lost Girls.

>and possibly the only good thing.

Bollocks.

At least we agree on one thing. I'll admit, I'm biased because I don't like comics as a medium. Lost Girls is literally the only comic I read and enjoyed, and I tried many. I found the rest of Alan Moore's work to be boring, pretentious dreck.

Have you read From Hell?

My point is that within the context of comics he actually isn't overrated because the standards of the medium are much lower than in literature. What was so difficult to understand about that? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy comics but the likes of Moore and Gaiman are blatant outliers compared to people like Miller or Ennis who craft stories that are great for capeshit. Their prose and exploration of themes is on another level when it comes to other capeshit writers but here they're just another author in an ocean.

If you want to go with non-capeshit Watterson, Schultz, and Sims have all created works which have good depth but as far as I know they all stayed primarily in their medium.

But you compared him to "literature giants" which even literature authors can't stand against. And I think Moore's writing is better than plenty of modern day so-called literates which are considered so merely for the fact that they write novels, which is pretty much the only type of prose that the academia and mainstream literary journalism consider literature. Some of his comics are much more rich and complex that some contemporary shit they've made me read in college.

This is Veeky Forums, where many consider genre fiction to be utter shit and most of the authors we've read are the cliffnotes of Pynchon, Joyce, and DFW to fit in.

But seriously, this is a topic on whether Moore is overrated or not. Keep in mind when I say this I have not read Jerusalem yet. He is undeniably a good if not great writer. He's got the sense of prose, artistry, and story that can make for a great novelist.

So let's say Jerusalem is a decent enough book, which from reports I've heard of it it's not phenomenal but not terrible either. You're going to get his comics fans reading the book because of his name and nothing more who then say he's the best writer ever. In that sense he's overrated; he most likely is not a better writer than say Nabokov, Pynchon, or Flaubert.

But he is still better than your run of the mill dimestore author, which is obvious. And from the topic, I don't think anyone is trying to compare Moore to some unknown self-pubbed trash but to the literary giants that we all take for granted around here.

>he most likely is not a better writer than say Nabokov, Pynchon, or Flaubert.
I haven't seen anybody claim otherwise. I think he's fairly rated since the consensus seems to be that he's among the very best comic book writers and a decent writer all around.

I'll always love this style whatever you faggotinos think

that's pretty cool

From Hell is so underrated.

No, even people who don't read have learned to repeat that it's his major work in comics

>Not Promethea

It's just standard Moore "start out as genrefiction, develope into complex character study full of imagery, symbolism and psychedelia." Also, none of his work is underrated, under appreciated sure but using the term underrated is not appropriate except for maybe the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which triggered Potterfags.

can you provide a few examples of what movie elements are pointless without the squid?

>Triggered Potterfags

More on this?

Alan Moore was making a map of how art and culture continued to deteriorate in the 20th century, he referenced a lot of pop culture/mainstream art events in League. Well Harry Potter to Moore is the Antichrist in terms of how much the culture has gone downhill. He literally made Harry an antichrist who shoots magic beams out of his penis. The shit is more wild when you read it. At first glance people pretty much disregard all the cultural criticism of Moore as if he really is a senile old hobo that hasn't caught up with the time but he's right of course.
Here's Moore talking about it a bit.
youtu.be/RpajFQECzAk?t=11m1s

I haven't read the League series yet but I imagine Moore was probably also a little pissed about the blatant similarities between Potter and the protagonist of Books of Magic. Which wasn't by Moore but it was still in his industry.

I'm going to have to revisit From Hell, because I wasn't quite hooked by it. It was a fascinating look at the Ripper but I've never been a huge fan of these serial killers so perhaps it was just the subject matter that didn't appeal to me.

>pissed about the blatant similarities between Potter and the protagonist of Books of Magic. Which wasn't by Moore but it was still in his industry.
I doubt it. The similarities are blatant but superficial, and he isn't protective of "his industry" in that way.

See

>I'm going to have to revisit From Hell
Just be patient and read it all the way through, the epilogue is fucking brilliant but you need to have read the whole thing to appreciate it.

I don't really agree that Promethea being similar to his other works makes it underrated. If anything there is a potential to be underrated or under appreciated as you put it

Haha, no.

Ahhhh, I've only read the first and second volumes, when the others came out there were copyright issues in Britain so I couldn't get my hands on them, and by the time it was resolved I'd stopped reading comics. I might get back on it and read the rest.

I'd say to persevere and continue with Jerusalem. It is one of the most original works I've read in years. All writers are inspired by someone. If you think he's trying to be like Pynchon then it could be a lot worse.

Grant Morrison > Alan Moore.

I find Moore fascinating. He isn't my favourite author but he is my favourite to watch in interview, thanks for that.

Morrison has some good work, but much of it falls flat for me. Certainly, when I enjoy his work I feel like I'm reading a very good comic, with Moore it often feels like he transcends his genre.

What version of Watchmen to get? American trade paperback (original colors) or International Edition (modern color version)

Original colors.

>Which comics would you rate over Watchmen?
Preacher is way above, I would say both Sandman and Transmetropolian holds their ground against watchmen.

swamp thing is his greatest work

Black Hole, Epileptic, Blankets. I even liked Scott Pilgrim more than Watchmen, but only after I'd read it.

Watchmen is fine for what it is, but a lot of the time its fans are cape fans who want to give it the same place in relation to all fiction that it has to that genre.

so American trade paperback.
Gotcha bro.

Moore can pick his fucking artists. All his books look fucking stunning.

>I mean, why would he go insane because Ozy was about to use Manhattan as a weapon, when that's what America had been doing all along, with The Comedian being a part of it?

I thought Comedian went crazy because of the sheer volume of people to get slaughtered. Also they were Americans, so he's job as a superhero would've been to stop the plan. But he knew that by stopping it he would impose the human race to a far worse fate. If I recall it was the moral relativism that he couldn't handle not so much as the alien.

But I don't know it has been years since I read it.

First of all, Watchmen transcended the boundaries of genre fiction and all its praise of "this is the best comic ever" came from mainstream audience and media, not from cape fans. So it's very much disingenuous and delusional to say it's just a piece of genre fiction and only/mostly fans of the local genre praise it.
Second, none of the comics you've listed come close to the technical brilliance of the craftsmanship of Watchmen. You could argue that ideas/themes/story/characters of the books you listed are better but the storytelling and technical marvel of Watchmen is untouchable. That's not an opinion, that's a fact.

Morrison's comics never have anything interesting to say though. They're just playful metanarratives with very little substance.

Wtf, I didn't know Watchmen had been recolored.

>I even liked Scott Pilgrim more than Watchmen
I won't argue about the rest but this is sad.

It's a lot of things, but the main thing about it is that The Comedian got his name from being able to see the absurd even in the most horrible situations, and Ozy's plan was so absurd that he doesn't know how to react to it. He drops his mask, his character.
And of course, there's the whole telepatic waves the squid is releasing.

None of that makes any sense if you remove the squid and not replace it with something that would fill those gaps. Manhattan certainly doesn't.

On a purely conceptual and symbolic level,the squid signified the great unknowable other. It's irrational, uncompromising entity like a Lovecraftian horror looming over the head of every living being. People acknowledge that it's out there and only collectivist society has best chance of facing such a threat. In contrast, Manhattan is not some great other, he's just some accident created freak who has come into this great power, a being that people can understand on some level. Sooner or later they will start asking questions of why and what and the whole structure would fall on its face.
You also have to understand the part journal plays and it's implications in the context of the ending. The journal that Rorschach wrote in the book had nothing substantial, just theories of a crazy right wing nutjob. It was Moore's comment on how humanity itself can not let the formation of objective truth be realized and also a comment on right wing media and politics. In the movie Rorschach does sort of tie Adrian to the catastrophe. The whole of context and implications very much change due to this little detail as well. This is where the lack of understanding of Snyder in relation to source material comes with the metallic sounds of 70s rock and roll. This guy is no Moore, he can not comprehend complexities, he's just a hack director with a very tired visual style gimmick.

The squid works on mutiple levels. I was merely referring to the biggest plot issue that the removal of the squid brings, and that somehow is ignored by all fans of the movie.
Everything you've said is right though, and Snyder is a glorified commercial/music video director that can't do anything but the simplest references and the most basic level symbolism that those forms (the commercial and the music video) require, but he can't deal with actual narration. Not even at the simplest level of a fucking superhero film (Batman v Superman).

>I even liked Scott Pilgrim more than Watchmen
Awful taste

I did read the whole thing, I was on a Moore binge at the time. Read Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Miracleman, and From Hell in the space of a week, it's just that From Hell didn't quite click with me in the way the others did. Not a knock on the book but I didn't 'get' it. But, sometimes a work requires a second read to appreciate it better.

It's a hard book to get into and stylistically very different from Moore's previous works. Disregarding his novels, From Hell still remains his most inaccessible work.

It might have to do with reading it so fast. I read it very slowly, taking time to read on the notes and then read up more about the characters and the facts he referred on my own and it was a very rewarding read.

Pretty sure the metaphor of the squid is that the only thing that could have ended the cold war is out of this world, for lack of a better term.

That was Ozy's thinking, but it's not Moore's nor the books point.

He only acted like it was all a joke, then he heard the real joke and lost his shit.

I think that's fair to say considering superheros are mostly the comic equivalent of shit like Ready Player One. For comics as a whole medium, there's a lot more than Watchmen.

>Which comics would you rate over Watchmen?
For another user's 2 cents, I'd say Spiegelmen's early experimental stuff is brilliant, Victor Moscoso's work for Zap!, Chris Ware's Building Stories, Eisner's Dropsie Avenue, Daniel Clowes' Ice Haven, and Gaiman's Violent Cases.

I also like adaptations of other works, like Crumb's Book of Genesis, and Karasik & Mazzucchelli's City of Glass.

>Which comics would you rate over Watchmen?
For starters
>anything by Crumb
>anything by Spiegelman
>anything by Beauchard

I have the personal belief that you could pick any segment from a well-regarded artsy comic anthology (Zap, Arcade, Raw, Weirdo, MOME, Kramers Ergot, etc) and 90% you will get something superior to le ebin eldritch rape wizard.

Haven't read Beauchard, Spiegelman has great stuff but Crumb doesn't hold up well at all. He was groundbreaking at his time, but most of his stuff is shit.

>I have the personal belief that you could pick any segment from a well-regarded artsy comic anthology (Zap, Arcade, Raw, Weirdo, MOME, Kramers Ergot, etc) and 90% you will get something superior to le ebin eldritch rape wizard.
I doubt it very much so. Then again, you sound like a snobby bitch who writes him off simply because he wrote superhero stuff.

>Preacher is way above

Wrong

Nah, I like Watchman and Swamp Thing.
The problem I have with him (and all superhero writers in general) is that he keeps using the same gimmicks (wacky morals, crying about how Hollywood is demonic and writing Lovecraft fanfics).
It's the same with Morrison: his Animal Man and Doom Patrol are superb and superior to Moore imo but he is still writing about new age LSD faggotry and metawankery.
At least artsy writers often try to do something new instead of whining about how 80s England's politics were bad.

>and writing Lovecraft fanfics
To be fair to Moore, he outright said he did Neonomicon and Providence to pay his bills.

>The problem I have with him (and all superhero writers in general) is that he keeps using the same gimmicks
But when my man Chris Ware does this, he's the one true genius. Jesus you are a faggot. Moore moved away from le whacky morals ages ago. His From Hell was a meditation on the symbolic beginning of 20th century, League is just an extended cultural piece about 20th century and he came full circle with Providence. Next time read an author's bibliography when you criticize them for being one dimensional instead of just reading one third and acting like a psued on Taiwanese porn posting board.

Friendly reminder that the Watchmen movie fixes the fatal flaw of the comic by taking out the whole "Adrian is only a comic book genius" nonsense.
Moore tries to have his cake and eat it too- and in so doing breaks his own story.

>wacky morals, crying about how Hollywood is demonic and writing Lovecraft fanfics
Well, it seems that it's the only thing you can read because Moore has written other stuff than that. The already mentioned several times From Hell, for once, which is vastly superior to anything Crumb has ever done.

And while Neonomicon is kinda lackluster, Providence is much more interesting as in re-reading HPL much maligned personality because of his racist tendencies, even among his fans.

>"Adrian is only a comic book genius" nonsense.
Talk about missing the point.

Who do I believe? Does Morrison sometimes have interesting things to say, or does he NEVER have interesting things to say?