More Industry Laundry-Airing...
WetRats
Posts: 6,314
{Renamed the thread after discovering the second link}
GMo vs AMo
Wow. Fascinating.
A blurb I particularly enjoyed:
"And if I may untangle the logic behind so much of his hectoring: Moore constantly reiterates the idea that all modern comics are copied from stuff he did in the ’80s – and they’re all rubbish!
Is he genuinely saying that his influence has been entirely malignant? If he actually believed that, I’d almost feel sorry for him. I see my own influence all over the place and I’m quite chuffed."
Also:
"These days, if I aim a barb at Moore, and I sometimes do, it’s generally as revenge for having my attention drawn to some latest interview or other. I know there’s a lot more to him than the contemptuous, patronising Scorpionic mask – we’re all just people and we all do the same daft people shit and all that – but it’s the face I’ve been exposed to more often than not, so I’m afraid my view of Alan Moore has a somewhat negative bias that deepens every time he opens his mouth to preach hellfire and damnation on the comics business and its benighted labour force.
Having said that, I learned long ago to separate my antipathy toward the man’s expressed opinions from my enjoyment of his work and I’ve been very complimentary about that work over the decades. Conversely, I can guarantee you will search in vain for a single positive comment about me or my work coming from Alan Moore’s direction – in spite of our obvious shared areas of interest."
GMo vs AMo
Wow. Fascinating.
A blurb I particularly enjoyed:
"And if I may untangle the logic behind so much of his hectoring: Moore constantly reiterates the idea that all modern comics are copied from stuff he did in the ’80s – and they’re all rubbish!
Is he genuinely saying that his influence has been entirely malignant? If he actually believed that, I’d almost feel sorry for him. I see my own influence all over the place and I’m quite chuffed."
Also:
"These days, if I aim a barb at Moore, and I sometimes do, it’s generally as revenge for having my attention drawn to some latest interview or other. I know there’s a lot more to him than the contemptuous, patronising Scorpionic mask – we’re all just people and we all do the same daft people shit and all that – but it’s the face I’ve been exposed to more often than not, so I’m afraid my view of Alan Moore has a somewhat negative bias that deepens every time he opens his mouth to preach hellfire and damnation on the comics business and its benighted labour force.
Having said that, I learned long ago to separate my antipathy toward the man’s expressed opinions from my enjoyment of his work and I’ve been very complimentary about that work over the decades. Conversely, I can guarantee you will search in vain for a single positive comment about me or my work coming from Alan Moore’s direction – in spite of our obvious shared areas of interest."
Comments
not that there is anybody with any amount of credibility that moore would respect on these points.
I'm not sure if the ghost of jack kirby coming back from the grave and talking to moore would get a different result.
This amused me mightily...
"As he carefully chronicles the rise of the generation that formed Image, his research fails him time and again. For example, Rob Liefeld was drawing the Hawk & Dove miniseries for DC, as editor Mike Carlin tried to carefully art direct the enthusiastic and artistically limited young man. During this time, Bob Harras blew enough smoke up Rob’s ass to lure him to Marvel where any attempt at training and improving him was abandoned. DC even offered at least one project to Todd McFarlane (who got his start there with Infinity Inc., where he cleverly decorated his pages to hide his drawing flaws) to write when it was clear he wanted to stretch as a creator. It was a movie adaptation, a chance to train him how to write before moving on to big projects but Marvel just gave him the keys to the Webslinger and lived to regret it."
Seriously, I own both the trade of the original AND the New 52 one they brought Liefeld back for. Okay now that you're done going "Good Lord man...WHY!??!"* it's interesting to hold them side by side and look at how the guy has almost de-volved. You can see a real potential in the first book - give the man credit, he came up with the idea to give the female Dove hair and not cover it with a skullcap - and after reading that blurb I can only wonder what might have been if Carlin had had time to really give Rob direction.
* I love Hawk & Dove. I'll read them pretty much regardless of the creative team on them.
I know I've mentioned it before, but that just irks the hell out of me.
Re: Blowing smoke...
Great line, but...
Jack was someone who loved anyone who was creative or trying new things. He based "The Hairies" in his Jimmy Olsen comics on a bunch of motorcycle guys who drove around at all hours near his house. The story I heard was that he went to where they were to complain about the noise and spent a couple hours talking with them about who they were, why they did what they did and such and put it into Jimmy Olsen.
Mark Evanier has told the story about how when people came up to him and said they were so happy to be working on his older characters, he'd be polite and wish them well, but he'd also tell them to make their own characters to tell their own stories. Moore has said he spoke to Kirby a couple of times and they both ad very similar ideas on where stories came from, as well as how much respect Moore had for his work.
If I had a time machine, I'd probably go listen to THOSE conversations. Then, if I still had fuel, I'd do something less important like kill Hitler or buy Apple stock when it was first issued.
"It's all bottoms with you lot, isn't it?"