Browse content similar to Alan Moore - Writer. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
with him representing British companies, hoping to speak to their | :00:03. | :00:06. | |
Japanese counterparts. We will bring you the latest on that as we | :00:06. | :00:16. | |
get it. Now it is time for HARDtalk. Alan Moore is the man behind the | :00:16. | :00:19. | |
mask, the mask worn by computer hackers and Occupy protestors the | :00:19. | :00:22. | |
world over. But he's no typical insurgent, rather a graphic | :00:22. | :00:25. | |
novelist. It was he who dreamt up the anarchist superhero with the | :00:25. | :00:28. | |
ghostly, bearded mask, whose face has now become perhaps the symbol | :00:28. | :00:35. | |
for subversion. Alan Moore has, in the past, championed graphic novels | :00:35. | :00:39. | |
(book-length comics) for their effect on politics and culture. Why, | :00:39. | :00:49. | |
:00:49. | :01:11. | ||
in that case, is he now becoming disillusioned? Welcome to HARDtalk, | :01:12. | :01:19. | |
Alan Moore. Thank you. I have described you as a writer of that | :01:19. | :01:24. | |
graphic novels, but in the past you have said that the term comics | :01:24. | :01:28. | |
would do just as well. But these are not the types of comets that | :01:28. | :01:35. | |
most people think of. In the 1990s there were a few comics handling | :01:35. | :01:40. | |
more adult material, not in terms of sexual violence, but more | :01:40. | :01:47. | |
intelligent ideas. The comics industry seized upon them hand came | :01:47. | :01:54. | |
up with the phrase, graphic novels. But with the best women the world a | :01:54. | :02:00. | |
note of collected Spiderman stories is not a novel. Some of the work it | :02:00. | :02:05. | |
you have put out six more happily under the title novel rather than | :02:05. | :02:14. | |
comic. Times literary puts one of your novels, Watchmen, on the list | :02:14. | :02:21. | |
of its greatest novels ever. No wonder whether the literary | :02:21. | :02:27. | |
establishment was cross about that? I was not sure about that time | :02:27. | :02:35. | |
magazine poll. For a few weeks it was at the top of the list. The top | :02:35. | :02:42. | |
of the hundred books list. I can easily think of 100 great American | :02:42. | :02:50. | |
novels that would deserve to be there rather than me. It was number | :02:50. | :02:57. | |
five. Watchmen is a gunshot super heroes who are not in your normal | :02:57. | :03:04. | |
super hero mould. They are raddled, slightly degenerate, damaged | :03:04. | :03:12. | |
individuals. You are trying to subvert the genre. When I did it I | :03:12. | :03:15. | |
was trying to think what these fairly ridiculous characters would | :03:15. | :03:20. | |
be like if they existed in the real world. In the real world we have | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
lots of traumatised children but very few of them go on to become | :03:25. | :03:31. | |
vigilantes. So I thought, if you were to put on a costume and fight | :03:31. | :03:36. | |
crime, it would probably for all sorts of complex and probably | :03:36. | :03:43. | |
unpleasant reasons. They are pathetic, are they? The one who | :03:43. | :03:47. | |
gets his Cape court in the revolving door of a bank and is | :03:47. | :03:53. | |
shot by one of the armed robbers use trying to protect customers | :03:53. | :03:58. | |
against. It is sub version, isn't it? Once again we took the standard | :03:58. | :04:03. | |
backman image - the person compulsively dedicated to | :04:03. | :04:07. | |
eradicating eradicatingout that and the real world, it seemed | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
that such a person would be a lonely, paranoid vigilante with | :04:12. | :04:17. | |
terrible hygiene and no friends. This seemed to be to be feasible | :04:18. | :04:24. | |
reality, rather than living in a mansion. One of your most | :04:24. | :04:30. | |
celebrated characters has been appropriated by Occupy protesters, | :04:30. | :04:37. | |
computer hackers across the world. This is the image from your book V | :04:37. | :04:43. | |
for Vendetta, back in the 1980s. This is a superhero who is an | :04:43. | :04:47. | |
anarchist terrorist trying to fight the forces of fascism and | :04:47. | :04:55. | |
repression. Is this character at he wrote to you? We call the very | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
first episode the villain because there was an ambiguity that I | :04:58. | :05:04. | |
wanted to preserve. One reason we used the character was because in | :05:04. | :05:13. | |
Britain we have quite a tradition of making heroes out of criminals | :05:13. | :05:15. | |
or people who work in other centuries would have been regarded | :05:15. | :05:21. | |
as too rests was strong so I decided to play with that. To date | :05:21. | :05:26. | |
someone who, in the context of the society in which he is existing, | :05:26. | :05:34. | |
would be seen as a tourist. He does employ terrorist tactics. Yes, he | :05:34. | :05:39. | |
employs the symbol of Anarchy, whereas the Ablett characters in | :05:39. | :05:47. | |
the book - the totalitarian state - are symbols of patriotism. I saw | :05:47. | :05:53. | |
them as the two poles. You have been described yourself as an | :05:53. | :05:59. | |
anarchist, so presumably you be at more toward his view of life. But I | :05:59. | :06:08. | |
am talking about his tactics. You would not attack the Houses of | :06:08. | :06:15. | |
Parliament or the Royal Courts of Justice as he does, but uses | :06:15. | :06:21. | |
violence for a purpose. Of course not. I believe this was not | :06:21. | :06:26. | |
expanded upon in the films. But in the book we took a great deal of | :06:26. | :06:36. | |
:06:36. | :06:36. | ||
trouble to examine the fact that - this guy is the titular hero. Is it | :06:36. | :06:42. | |
OK for him to kill people just because he is the euro? In book | :06:42. | :06:47. | |
three it is finally decided that it is not OK. That killing people is | :06:47. | :06:56. | |
always wrong and at that point the initial hero stands down and let's | :06:56. | :07:06. | |
:07:06. | :07:06. | ||
again non-violent person take over. So, it was an exploration of ideas. | :07:06. | :07:11. | |
I think your term was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but you said if we | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
took out all the leaders tomorrow it and put them up against the wall | :07:16. | :07:20. | |
and shot them, society would probably collapse because people | :07:20. | :07:27. | |
have become so conditioned to being led. Nonetheless, there is they | :07:27. | :07:34. | |
pointed side to that. I suppose that coming from Northampton, which | :07:34. | :07:42. | |
during the 17th century we were pretty much at the centre of the | :07:42. | :07:52. | |
:07:52. | :07:52. | ||
civil war and feelings did run high. We opposed Cromwell of -- we | :07:52. | :07:57. | |
supported Cromwell and as a result we had our Castle pulled it down | :07:57. | :08:05. | |
when Charles the Second ascended to the throne. It is fun to talk about | :08:05. | :08:09. | |
that in the context of the similarities between the current | :08:09. | :08:15. | |
financial situation and the civil war. Or how do you feel about the | :08:15. | :08:24. | |
fact that now - you spoke about the civil war, 40 years ago - Your man | :08:24. | :08:27. | |
with the mask has been appropriated now for protesters around the | :08:27. | :08:33. | |
world? I have absolutely no problem with the protesters appropriating | :08:34. | :08:39. | |
it, because the original V for Vendetta narrative was appropriated | :08:39. | :08:44. | |
from the 30 years ago by the company he published it. I do not | :08:44. | :08:50. | |
own that narrative or those characters. So, it irks you | :08:50. | :08:54. | |
slightly that the money spent on these masks ends up going to Time- | :08:54. | :09:01. | |
Warner. 80s. I find that more funny than irksome. The idea that a | :09:02. | :09:07. | |
corporation like Time-Warner should be enabling the anti- Corporate | :09:07. | :09:12. | |
movement like Occupy or like a non miss. Is it appropriate that your | :09:12. | :09:20. | |
character was fighting in a fascist dystopia. People protesting about a | :09:20. | :09:24. | |
financial crisis or too much surveillance from the government. | :09:24. | :09:31. | |
It does not ring absolutely true. That is, for our current | :09:31. | :09:38. | |
circumstances, fascism. Our currents circumstances history | :09:38. | :09:43. | |
policing to lead to fascism. You have only to look at Germany during | :09:43. | :09:50. | |
the 20s and 30s. In these kind of conditions you would tend to get | :09:50. | :09:58. | |
far-right groups able to scoop up a lot more disenfranchised people who | :09:58. | :10:06. | |
option. You have explored sexual politics in a confrontational way | :10:06. | :10:11. | |
in some of the word you have done. I am thinking in particular of a | :10:11. | :10:19. | |
book called the Lost girl's, which explored the central figures from | :10:19. | :10:27. | |
Children's literature - Alice, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and a | :10:27. | :10:32. | |
character from Peter Pan. You put them in very explicit scenes in | :10:32. | :10:38. | |
your book. Were you trying to shock? No. The original thing | :10:38. | :10:46. | |
behind lost girls with myself and thinking | :10:46. | :10:51. | |
thinking that it seems strange that almost every other subject in the | :10:51. | :10:55. | |
human world is considered fit for writing literature about will | :10:55. | :11:02. | |
creating art around. Whereas sex and sexuality, which is something | :11:02. | :11:08. | |
that concerns all of us, the an Lee Johnson or which talks about it is | :11:08. | :11:14. | |
this fairly despicable under the counter type which has absolutely | :11:14. | :11:19. | |
no standards. These are characters you plucked out of Children's | :11:19. | :11:26. | |
literature. That is what shocks. You put them in situations which | :11:26. | :11:31. | |
are incestuous and showed children as young as 14 having sex. It is | :11:31. | :11:35. | |
not us day's celebration of sex it is also pushing the boundaries of | :11:35. | :11:45. | |
:11:45. | :11:47. | ||
what is deemed to be acceptable. pornography in the traditional | :11:47. | :11:49. | |
sense which addressed all the problems that people have with | :11:49. | :11:54. | |
pornography. It is interesting that use the word pornography because | :11:54. | :12:00. | |
people do draw the distinction between erotica and pornography. | :12:00. | :12:05. | |
You said that pornography is something that degrades. I was very | :12:05. | :12:11. | |
careful to use the word pornography through the 18 years it took us to | :12:11. | :12:18. | |
complete those books. Erotica means pertaining to lock up. Most of it, | :12:18. | :12:24. | |
as thorough a viscountcy, is about sex. There is not a great deal of | :12:24. | :12:31. | |
love in erotica. Whereas pornography means drawings or | :12:31. | :12:40. | |
writings of up one turns. There is also be class element. -- wanton | :12:40. | :12:50. | |
:12:50. | :12:50. | ||
people. There is also are the class element. If you are upper class, | :12:50. | :12:56. | |
you can be reading erotica. But my dad would be reading pornography. | :12:56. | :13:01. | |
You are sounding coolly analytical about this, but you were drawing | :13:01. | :13:08. | |
images of children. We wanted to be as comprehensive about the human | :13:08. | :13:15. | |
sexual nature as possible. I would point out that the word drawing is | :13:15. | :13:24. | |
quite a crucial one. photographic images. These are not | :13:24. | :13:29. | |
real people. There are exactly as old as the paper they are drawn on. | :13:29. | :13:36. | |
One of the points we wanted to make is that Victorians had a different | :13:36. | :13:41. | |
attitude to pornography than in America. I am talking about places | :13:41. | :13:49. | |
like Spain and the Netherlands. They do not see it is a stigma to | :13:49. | :13:57. | |
be reading pornography etc they see it as normal human cause of action. | :13:57. | :14:02. | |
In those countries that have less sex crimes and particularly those | :14:02. | :14:11. | |
here. That tends to suggest that our attitude towards sex, | :14:11. | :14:15. | |
pornography, writings or drawings about sex, are keeping the lid on a | :14:15. | :14:25. | |
:14:25. | :14:27. | ||
pressure cooker which can sometimes So you have attempted to be radical | :14:27. | :14:33. | |
in your work, but the movie adaptations which were made of your | :14:33. | :14:38. | |
work, a regionally you were happy to accept money for that. But then | :14:38. | :14:43. | |
what happened? Well, or regionally, are was under the illusion that the | :14:43. | :14:49. | |
way that films work is that you have a lot of auction of money, and | :14:49. | :14:53. | |
then after a couple of years, they decided that they weren't going to | :14:53. | :14:56. | |
make the film. Which was a perfect result. You got the money but the | :14:56. | :15:01. | |
film didn't get made. Then they actually made a couple of films out | :15:01. | :15:05. | |
of my works, and at that point I decided I would just distance | :15:05. | :15:10. | |
myself from them as much as possible. Why? Are because the | :15:10. | :15:14. | |
films have nothing to do with my books. The books were written to | :15:14. | :15:19. | |
show off what the medium of comics can do. Then why did you saw the | :15:19. | :15:23. | |
film rights in the first place? the case of The League of | :15:23. | :15:26. | |
Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell, this was basically sold on | :15:26. | :15:31. | |
the assumption that the films probably would not get made. So you | :15:31. | :15:37. | |
were trying to get money? But you can hardly complain when they then | :15:37. | :15:42. | |
make the films. Well, I can complain about how those films | :15:42. | :15:48. | |
turned out. I was originally trying to take the position of, all right, | :15:48. | :15:53. | |
I will not be going to see these films, but I wish them well. Then | :15:53. | :15:58. | |
when I actually heard about them, I kind of realised that these were | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
absolutely nothing to do with my books. Just to be clear, you have | :16:02. | :16:08. | |
never seen these films? How can you pass judgement on them? Well, I do | :16:08. | :16:12. | |
prefer to criticise things from a position of ignorance. But I also | :16:12. | :16:15. | |
have a lot of friends who have seen these films and to laugh familiar | :16:15. | :16:22. | |
but the books and they assure me that there is only a cover | :16:22. | :16:26. | |
incidental resemblance. -- are familiar with the books. So I | :16:27. | :16:30. | |
decided that if in future people were going to be making films of my | :16:30. | :16:35. | |
work - and remember, most of my work I do not own, so I do not have | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
a say in whether these films are made or not - but I decided that | :16:39. | :16:43. | |
been the case of watch men or V for Vendetta, but if they were going to | :16:43. | :16:48. | |
be making films with those characters, but I would give all of | :16:48. | :16:51. | |
my money to the artists and in return would have my name taken off | :16:51. | :16:57. | |
the film. What is the problem with we imagining your work? You did | :16:57. | :17:02. | |
that with Lost girls and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. You | :17:02. | :17:06. | |
take other people's work, in this case literature, and rework it for | :17:06. | :17:09. | |
your own imagination. What is the problem with Hollywood doing the | :17:09. | :17:15. | |
same thing? There is no problem for anybody other than me. So it is a | :17:15. | :17:21. | |
personal problem. It is a personal problem. Also, I would say it is a | :17:21. | :17:26. | |
problem of trying to adapt from one medium to another. I believe it | :17:26. | :17:34. | |
very seldom works and I would also say that the films which I actually | :17:34. | :17:38. | |
enjoyed were genuinely written as films. I am not really fond of | :17:38. | :17:45. | |
adaption from one medium to another in general. In the case of, say, | :17:45. | :17:49. | |
the characters in Lost girls and The League of Extraordinary | :17:49. | :17:53. | |
Gentlemen, we're talking about characters who live in her public | :17:53. | :17:58. | |
domain, and that is in a literary area where these authors have been | :17:59. | :18:05. | |
playing with each other's characters for centuries. I believe | :18:05. | :18:11. | |
Jules Verne wrote a sequence for Edgar Allan Poe. It is more of a | :18:11. | :18:14. | |
literary game in those circumstances. I am wondering if it | :18:14. | :18:19. | |
is also just a small measure of obsession on your part. You said | :18:19. | :18:24. | |
yourself, if there is. At one of my sentences, it will be there in the | :18:24. | :18:30. | |
finished comic unless something has corner while the wrong. You might | :18:30. | :18:36. | |
retain iron control. Absolute there, and it is not going to be that bad. | :18:36. | :18:41. | |
Is it slightly precious? probably is. But then again, given | :18:42. | :18:45. | |
the alternatives in be, comedian, to being precious, which is to | :18:45. | :18:50. | |
simply about all of your heart and your writing to be altered, at the | :18:50. | :18:54. | |
whim of an editor, when most of the editors in comics, quite frankly, | :18:54. | :19:00. | |
would probably struggle giving you a definition of the word added. | :19:00. | :19:04. | |
presumably you're not delighted with the idea of DC Comics coming | :19:04. | :19:10. | |
out with prequels to Watchmen. than delighted. This is something | :19:10. | :19:15. | |
where we were originally told that we could embark upon a watch men | :19:15. | :19:22. | |
because they knew that we wanted to own our own staff. -- Watchmen. And | :19:22. | :19:25. | |
we had a contract that would enable us to have the right back when they | :19:25. | :19:29. | |
went out of print. Back at that time, there was no such thing as a | :19:29. | :19:33. | |
comic that remained in print for longer than six months. So we | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
signed these contracts, obviously without reading them very carefully, | :19:36. | :19:41. | |
because we trusted these people. Then we found out that all of this | :19:41. | :19:46. | |
stuff, no, actually, DC Comics owns it four above. But you have gone | :19:46. | :19:50. | |
beyond it in terms of being unhappy about what has happened to your | :19:50. | :19:55. | |
work. You said that graphic novels themselves may be on their way out. | :19:55. | :19:59. | |
The entire world of comics seems to be on the point of collapse. It is | :19:59. | :20:03. | |
in its death throes, I just hope it's final death rattle is not to | :20:03. | :20:07. | |
humiliating or desperate, because it is concerned. -- deserved. That | :20:07. | :20:12. | |
is pretty punishing language. in a pretty bad mood when I said | :20:12. | :20:18. | |
that. But I stick to it, yes. I would say that the comics industry, | :20:18. | :20:22. | |
and by that I pretty much mean the American comics industry, which is | :20:22. | :20:26. | |
effectively all that is left, it does not seem to have had an your | :20:26. | :20:31. | |
idea in decades. All of the genuine creators that it once had it | :20:31. | :20:37. | |
alienated. Or it drove them to embittered retirement, and finally | :20:37. | :20:42. | |
death. You have to remember, that with the comics industry, you are | :20:42. | :20:52. | |
:20:52. | :20:52. | ||
talking about something that was set up in the 1920s by American | :20:52. | :21:00. | |
entrepreneur ofs. It was set up as a cover for bootlegging. So what | :21:00. | :21:06. | |
could rescue the comics industry now? Are they new vistas it needs | :21:06. | :21:16. | |
to take over? I think the only interesting stuff that tends to be | :21:16. | :21:22. | |
happening is the stuff happening on the margins. In comics you have a | :21:22. | :21:25. | |
wonderful independent talents that are springing up. People who last | :21:25. | :21:31. | |
of publishing their own comics. They are not in the bid spotlight | :21:31. | :21:34. | |
that superhero artists and writers tend to find themselves in these | :21:34. | :21:39. | |
days. But you have turned your back on graphic novels? I mean, the | :21:39. | :21:45. | |
novel that you are now writing at the moment, 750,000 words long, it | :21:45. | :21:53. | |
is a novel. What a graphic novel. Yes, it is my second novel. My | :21:53. | :21:58. | |
first one, Voice of the Fire, was largely based around my home town | :21:58. | :22:04. | |
of Northampton. In central England. Forgive me, I don't want to be | :22:04. | :22:08. | |
brewed, but I am less interested in the subject than before. Why have | :22:08. | :22:11. | |
you decided to turn your back on graphic novels, and is it | :22:11. | :22:18. | |
permanent? I have not turned my back upon the comics medium. And | :22:18. | :22:21. | |
certainly, and number of my works will probably still be coming out | :22:21. | :22:24. | |
in the form that is traditionally known as the graphic novel. I have | :22:24. | :22:28. | |
got no problem with the comics medium at all. I will always love | :22:28. | :22:35. | |
it and I am quite good at it. just wonder if you were growing up? | :22:35. | :22:40. | |
It is not a matter of growing up. It is the fact that I can no longer | :22:40. | :22:45. | |
work within the comics industry. This is the gangster ethics that I | :22:45. | :22:50. | |
was just talking about. After seen great creators driven into their | :22:50. | :22:57. | |
grades, cheated and disillusioned,... Strong language, | :22:57. | :23:05. | |
gangster ethics. I am talking about the original gangsters. The men of | :23:05. | :23:08. | |
the 1920s. The ethics of the comics industry have not changed since | :23:08. | :23:17. | |
those days when they were cheating Gerry Segal and joke Schuster, two | :23:17. | :23:22. | |
teenagers from Cleveland who created Superman. National Comics, | :23:22. | :23:25. | |
as I belief there were called at the time, they waited until they | :23:25. | :23:29. | |
went off to fight in the Second World War. And then they told them, | :23:29. | :23:33. | |
well, we need to own the characters what you are away, but you will get | :23:33. | :23:37. |