Tag: Alan Moore

The landmark legacy of “Watchmen” and the intriguing future of  “Before Watchmen” will be center stage at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, with an on-stage Q&A featuring DC Entertainment co-publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio as well as a rare big-screen presentation of the director’s cut of Zack Snyder’s 2009 film “Watchmen.” “Watchmen” was the 12-issue series (1986-1987) by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons that arguably redefined the ambitions and literary stature of the American comic book. DC is returning to that universe with the ”Before Watchmen” project, which will launch a series of separate, multi-issue prequels – a bold move considering that Moore has publicly criticized the concept and will not be participating. Hero Complex lead writer Geoff Boucher will moderate the discussion with Lee and DiDio. The discussion is set for 1 p.m. on April 21 in USC’s ...

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. One of the fastest-rising stars in comics is Scott Snyder, who won over plenty of fans with his bloody, epic sprawl of the ongoing series “American Vampire” and his especially cerebral Gotham City duty in “Detective Comics.” The horror-loving writer will be teaching a class on comic books to students in the graduate writing program at Sarah Lawrence College and, more importantly, he has been handed the keys to two revered titles under the new DC re-launch: “Batman” and “Swamp Thing.” Hero Complex contributor Travis Walecka caught up with Snyder to chat about his dark plans. This is part one of the interview. TW: Talk a bit about your thought process while writing comic books, particularly when you have the challenge of incorporating horror and fantasy elements into ...

I’m headed over to see a "Watchmen" screening Tuesday and then Wednesday it’s on to the press junket at the Four Seasons. It’s exciting to see this movie reaching the final leg of its long and tortured marathon to the silver screen and I’m eager to see what Zack Snyder has accomplished with his quest to film the unfilmable movie. Alan Moore has made it clear that he won’t be going to see the film and if you were holding out hope (I know I was) that he might change his mind, well, I think that’s just a pipe dream now. Why? Well, this new crush of tie-in merchandise is staggering and each item — from the doomsday ball-caps and Dr. Manhattan lunch boxes to the coffee mugs, wall pennants and booze flasks — will be like a sharp jab ...

On the page, one of the most gripping aspects of "Watchmen" was the story-within-a-story of "Tales of the Black Freighter," the gruesome maritime yarn about a sailor watching the world around him tumble into dark madness. "Freighter" brought such story symmetry and symbolism value to "Watchmen" that many people (including Alan Moore) often cite it when they declare the comic-book epic to be simply "unfilmable." "Watchmen" the film hits theaters on March 6, and while the running-time restraints of Hollywood make the secondary tale completely impractical, director Zack Snyder  has been outspoken in his desire stay aboard the "Black Freighter" in some fashion. Here’s his solution…. This animated adaptation from Warner Premiere of the grim pirate tale will be sold on DVD ($27.95) and BluRay ($35.99) and hits stores on March 24. "Freighter," which is R-rated, features the voice of ...

Welcome to your Tuesday morning edition of Everyday Hero, the roundup of handpicked headlines from across the fanboy universe. ALAN MOORE SAYS ‘BWAH-HA-HA-HA!’: Well, not really, but I just love posting this photograph of him  any chance I get and I do suspect that he would express some glee about the ugly corporate feud that has raised doubts about the planned release of "Watchman," the big Warner Bros. adaptation of Moore’s epic. I would call Moore and ask him directly, but the last time we spoke he made it quite clear that he was done talking about the film and Hollywood in general because he more or less loathes the film industry. A judge’s surprise ruling last week has created the very real possibility that "Watchmen" might not hit theaters in March — a shocking development but, now that I ...

EXCLUSIVE: The second installment of our three-part interview with Neil Gaiman finds the writer musing on the “British Invasion” in comics, describing his love for “mythology mash-ups” and wondering if maybe he pulled off the impossible with sustained excellence of “The Sandman” (Read Part One and Part Three) GB: How would you describe Morpheus, your flawed Lord of Dreams, to someone who was coming to the tale for the first time? NG: He’s a lot like me, only with an immortal’s superpowers and no sense of humor of any kind. Hmm. So in fact, he isn’t anything like me at all but he does have very messy hair. [Laughs] That was a great point of correspondence between me and the character. He’s much paler than I am too. No, really, with the character, it was an idea of trying to ...

For the record, Alan Moore has not softened his view on Hollywood nor its plan to bring his classic graphic novel “Watchmen” to the screen next March. “I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying,” Moore told me during an hour-long phone call from his home in England. “It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The ‘Watchmen’ film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can’t we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change.” Moore is often described as a recluse but, really, I think it’s more precise to say he is simply too ...

For those who have wondered what Alan Moore is thinking, not just on the upcoming "Watchmen" movie (only 195 days left!), but "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and other titles, then "The Mindscape of Alan Moore" is probably for you. We say probably because we haven’t seen it.  But we have seen this: Wow. Do we really want to be inside the mind of Alan Moore?  Could we handle it?  Sites like Comic Book Bin have put out the word that the Shadowsnake Film DVD is coming Sept. 30, and they are excited about it. The documentary won a special recognition award for creative achievement in documentary filmmaking at the San Francisco World Film Festival.  The film’s website is not up yet, but you can be sure it’ll get traffic once it’s functional. Those who aren’t heavily into comic books ...

I just got a copy of "The Darker Mask" in the mail, and I’m really looking forward to checking it out this week when I hop on a flight to Florida. The book is part of percolating subgenre right now: Comics-inspired tales that tell their stories without pictures. So it’s pure prose, but the spirit is out of the four-color cousins with the word balloons. This is hardly a new idea, of course. "Hellboy: Odd Jobs," an anthology of short stories about Big Red, came out eight years ago, and waaay back in 1990 was "Words Without Pictures" (a hard-to-find book now), which was edited by Steve Niles and had wonderful work in it by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Jon J. Muth others. Those are just two I can see sitting on my bookshelf from where I’m sitting. Anyway, ...

Down at Comic-Con International, Paul Levitz told us about a major new print run for the "Watchmen" graphic novel and I see in a short item in the New York Times that it’s still going gangbusters: The film trailer for “Watchmen” is proving to be a considerable boost to sales of the graphic novel the movie is based on. “As far as we can tell from our conversations with the book industry people, there has never been a trailer that did this,” said Paul Levitz, the president and publisher of DC Comics, which has printed 900,000 additional paperback copies of the novel since the trailer began running in mid-July. The book, about a conspiracy to discredit and murder a group of superheroes, was written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, and has been on the best-seller lists of ...