um.. well.. overstating much?

If you want overstated, hows this:



The guy is more than just a talented entertainer; he's a visionary. His work exists among those exalted few which can truly be described as "original". It compares to the greatest literature in history, and benefits from being studied as such. His take on the character of Swamp Thing redefined the very meaning of life for me, and some of his characters now have a life of their very own expressed actively in the way people think and behave every day.

Also, he's like a wizard and stuff.
Which is cool.

True

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_a ... of_Marvels

Bunch of genre writers laud other genre writer? Yeah, that means a lot, really. The man who wrote 'Lost' is a good judge of literature? He couldn't even figure out how to end his own show properly. Are people comparing him to Graham Greene or William Shakespeare or George Orwell? Dickens or Shaw or T.S. Eliot? No. They're comparing him to the other large fish in a rather small pond.

Moore may well be the best writer of comics we've ever seen (in fact, I'd argue that's the case) and his writing evokes some of the style of the great writers (I've said before his best work evokes some aspects of Hemingway, to me at least) but he's a mile away from writing 'several literary masterpieces'. The fact every single one of the films made of his works have turned out to be more or less bloody awful can't be entirely everyone else's fault. It's partly because the stuff he writes works very well as comics but doesn't translate well beyond that because it's essentially limited as being for it's medium.

When (or, at that point, more likely if) he writes a great novel, then we can consider him as you have described. Until then he's not yet done enough to deserve the title.

Jon

Ouch.
That's a pretty narrow definition of a great writer.
He might not be a great draw at something like the Hay-on-Wye, but that doesn't diminish the fact that he's produced very influential work over a few decades now.
I'm not putting him in the same frame as someone like, say, Asimov but still, the guy's got weight.

jonbwfc, I believe my opinion is more valid than yours.

Is anyone comparing him to Shakespeare? Yes - I am. And quite honestly, I think he compares favourably. Bill was prolific and did produce some good stuff, but really, some of it was rubbish.

The article did not say people were comparing him to, as you put it, a "Bunch of genre writers". It was saying he was an influence on some of the most recognisable and well respected names names of modern times. That's a very different and far greater thing. You might say that my musical style was "influenced by" Jimi Hendrix - but I can't play guitar for my life.

The fact that you don't rate the films which he distances himself from is about as relevant as not rating my school production of A Midsummer Nights Dream. I played Puck. It was pretty sh!t even for a bunch of 11 year olds, and I think that's one of old Bill's more amusing tales.

When Moore writes a great novel he will be worthy in your eyes? What a pompous load of baloney. His best GNs are far more worthy than trashy popular plays such as Romeo and Juliet.

Do you even consider Shakespeare "worthy"? To my mind, his plays were more like GNs than novels. Clearly, I'm a huge fan of the GN. They are plays delivered through the art of graphics rather than performance, and as such they are complete in and of themselves. It's a far greater leap to bring them to the live-action screen than it is a play which is conceived to be performed. They tend to work better as animations where human laws do not apply.

That may be sig worthy.

^

This.

I don't "do" comics, although I am aware of them as a literary and art form. I found the plot convoluted, and I got a bit confused with the use of real names for some of the characters. That wasn't helped by the fact some of the key lines were mumbled over loud music or sound effects.

Still, visually a stunning film, full of nice references to other art and films. It was too long, but I did enjoy the ride.

Hmm... (and just 'Jon' is fine if you're addressing me directly, no need to be formal!)


Well, I suppose the only valid comparison will come long after we've all jumped off the merry go round. If Alan Moore's name is still known in 200 years then fair enough but none of us will be around to see it.


With all due respect, I think you're over stating the case again. 'some of the most recognisable and well respected names of modern times'? One of the names you quoted has writing credits which at best contains one TV series which completely fell apart after about three series and a couple of minor films. David Mamet he is not. Josh Whedon may be a name the convention goers worship but the vast majority of the population don't know him from Ronald McDonald. Neil Gaiman is a pretty well known writer I'll give you that.


If it was the odd occasion I'd agree with you. But he's had, what, five stories made into films now? And none of them are actually very good. If five things fail one after another you look at the common factors between them. Undoubtedly there are several common factors -the attitude of studios, the kind of directors those kind of films get etc. but to say that five films based on his works have all failed and that's nothing to do with him isn't logical or sustainable, IMO.


Whether you like it nor not, the measure of a writer is to write in the long form. That's what the vast majority of people consider a ' writer' to be.


Well his plays were the blockbuster cinema of their day, certainly. They were written to be performed for and to please mass audiences. But the simple fact those plays are still being performed and enjoyed by millions of people hundreds of years after he died.. If you can come up with a better idea of how you demonstrate something's literary value, I'm open to suggestions.


I agree with this actually. I don't think there's ever been a 'comic book film' which I would consider to be a really good piece of cinema - some of them have been very entertaining definitely but they've all been fairly shallow. That may possibly be down to studio prejudice - they make dumbed down films of comic books because they believe that's what the audiences who are going to go to comic book films want, rather than really trying to do justice to the material. There are probably a few comic books where this attitude is pretty much impossible to take but equally I doubt they will ever therefore get made into films. 'Maus' is the example that immediately pops into my head. That could be done as animation they could be done to a smaller budget and therefore there would be less interference by people more bothered about the bottom line than the quality of the product. 'Maus' is probably a stronger contender for the 'graphic novel as literature' idea than any of Moore's work to be honest. And I've just realised that in mentioned Maus I may have indirectly Godwined this discussion...

Just out of interest, what did you think of Ang Lee's The Hulk? If ever there was a simplistic comic (at least when I read it) that was it, yet it seems to have under-performed at the box office because of Ang Lee's direction and the fact that it wasn't just a smash-it-up superhero film, more a study of the consequences of bad parenting.

Getting back to Alan Moore, I went to a lecture he gave at the Tate Gallery some years ago on the subject of Gothic Art and Romanticism and there's no doubt he's a clever and well-read man and it sometimes seems at odds with this persona that he writes superhero comics. As mentioned earlier, it shouldn't be that difficult for any half-decent writer to stand out in the comics world, and Moore has said this himself. Amongst the recent stuff, Top 10 is quite good but if anyone is really interested in what Moore can do (aside from Watchmen) you'd need to look at his run on Swamp Thing back in the 80's and From Hell and compare them to the rest of the crap that was being published at the time.

Ironically, I think there's a really good film in there struggling to get out . I did enjoy it and it has more depth than most adaptions do but it massively chickens out in the last act and turns into 'a smash it up superhero film'. If anything, it's a great example how interference stops adaptions from being great films, because it has 'interference by the studio who can't cope with the idea that a superhero movie might not be based mostly around big explosions' figuratively written across it in massive letters.


I wasn't meaning to imply that Moore was somehow a hack or untalented. It's simply that JJ's assertion that he's one of the greatest writers of modern history is, to me, bordering on hyperbole.

Jon

I think you're right. He's a great writer in the world of comics but with only one novel under his belt (and another shortly to be published) he's yet to make his mark in a literary sense. Then again, many would argue the same about Stephen King's work which must really keep him awake at night. Like Moore, I don't think King cares about being accepted as a real writer anyway.

Interestingly, most adaptations of King's work are pretty hopeless too.

With regards to The Hulk's ending, even that was resolved in an abstract manner which certainly had me puzzled.

I'd argue he has made an impact all ready, just because his body of work/medium is not a traditional novel. His work has explored serious multi layered themes and help changed a medium perceived purely for kids (in the west) to one that can be enjoyed by adults and elevated beyond the pulp/trashy style it had become moribund.



I think they do care about being accepted as writers, they just don't care about the type of people that disregard them purely based on the medium they choose to show their skill in. Moore certainly cares about his work, that's why he insist his name is taken out of any adaptations of his work because he knows that his vision of how they should be presented will be distorted and ruined by Studios only caring about the money and trying to make a blockbuster.