More Moore than you could ask for

For someone who doesn't want to be associated with the V for Vendetta movie, Alan Moore is getting an awful lot of press as a result of the film's debut. Brian already blogged about the New York Times interview; that's been followed up by an interview with MTV.com:

MTV: So why sell the film rights in the first place?

Moore: My position used to be: If the film is a masterpiece, that has nothing to do with my book. If the film is a disaster, that has nothing to do with my book. They're two separate entities, and people will understand that. This was very naive because most people are not bothered with whether it's adapted from a book or not. And if they do know, they assume it was a faithful adaptation. There's no need to read the book if you've seen the film, right? And how many of the audience who went to see "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" thought, "Hmmm, I've really got to go read 'The Odyssey' "?

When you're talking about things like "V for Vendetta" or "Watchmen," I don't have a choice. Those were works which DC Comics kind of tricked me out of, so they own all that stuff and it's up to them whether the film gets made or not. All I can do is say, "I want my name taken off of it and I don't want any of the money." I'd rather the money be distributed amongst the artists. But even though [the filmmakers] were aware that I'd asked that my name be taken off "V for Vendetta" and had already signed my money away to the artist, they issued a press release saying I was really excited about the film. Which was a lie. I asked for a retraction, but they weren't prepared to do that. So I announced I wouldn't be working with DC Comics anymore. I just couldn't bear to have any contact with DC Comics, Warner Bros. or any of this shark pool ever again.

Heidi over at the Beat also posted an interview with Moore this week; go check out part 1 and part 2. Moore talks, of course, about his issues with comic movies, as well as his impression on the general state of the comic industry:

There is some fantastic stuff but it is marginalized. The only things I ever get asked about are generally related to superhero films, and even some of the other stuff in the medium at the moment. I don't know, it's probably just my tastes. But one end of it seems adolescent in its brutality and in its inexperienced adolescent approach to violence and sex. And at the other end, at the more supposedly intellectual end I see an awful lot of angst, and adolescent breast-beating. This is not a complete blanket condemnation by any means, there's people like Joe Sacco, other people who do wonderful work that is not mainly concerned with them, and their fears of mortality or whatever it is. Or feelings of emptiness. This is not really what I wanted for the comics medium. That's fair enough. There's no reason why it should be the kind of medium that I wanted. But at the same time—I don't know. I think that my, kind of, contempt for the way that the major companies have handled things since their inception, they've only ever changed when there've been absolutely forced to at gunpoint. Otherwise the industry for all of the great claims it makes for itself these days—we're kind of post modern, we're hip, you know, we're sort of a major star accessory—the industry still seems to be based upon a gangster ethic that was around when it was founded. It's been modified slightly to sort of super times. But it's nothing I'm happy with.

EDIT, 3/18: The Minneapolis Star Tribune also has an article up on Moore, where they talk to one of Moore's collaborators, Zander Cannon:

Cannon, a founder of the Minneapolis illustration studio Big Time Attic, got to know Moore well while they collaborated on the comic series "Top Ten" and "Smax" from 1999 to 2003.

"Everything that Alan does is a genre story in a way -- a horror story, a superhero story, an action story," Cannon said. "I think people see that, but they don't see the special thing he brings to it. They just get an action director and action actors and make an action movie.

"If he had been doing novels that were this successful for this long, they'd probably take more care with making movies out of his products. But it's only comics, you know?"