I didn't mean to say YOU equated Moore's and Byrne's situation, or even equated Moore to Byrne, just that the columnist sounded a "little" like you, in his chastising of Moore, read the quote from the column again it starts out...

"I also hope Mr. Moore, if he is going to continue complaining and denouncing it, will at least plan on actually READING the things he’s denouncing..."

Sorry if I wasn't clear before, I thought the quote made it obvious.

But I -- respectfully -- disagree that Moore needs to read BEFORE WATCHMEN before he denounces it.

I wonder if Byrne would see it differently though. Would he see his work on Marvel properties such as FF and The Avengers akin to Moore's on Watchmen, and feel that his movie ire was on the same level?

I just thought it was odd that the columnist would use such similar phrasing, appropriate in Byrne's case, but oddly inappropriate in Moore's case.

A former media specialist & campaign ad writer

That's the thing. The market's flooded now and there's no more money to be made with the Watchmen TPB. That's why DC offered him the rights back, apparently in exchange for clear legal title on the characters. BW could very well be contestable,and DC knows this. They're banking on Moore's not wanting the hassle of taking the case any further than the court of public opinion.

Meanwhile, I saw Stan Lee quoted in a news story today, saying he absolutely loves the Avengers movie, it blew his mind, it's the sort of magic they never expected movies to be able to pull off back when he and Jack Kirby were cranking out those early comics.

I figure Lee's proprietary concern on the Avengers must outweigh Byrne's by a factor of 10.

Watchmen has a basically unending, evergreen market potential.

"It seems a bit desperate to go after a book famous for its artistic integrity," Moore told Fast Company. "It’s a finite series. 'Watchmen' was said to actually provide an alternative to the superhero story as an endless soap opera. To turn that into just another superhero comic that goes on forever demonstrates exactly why I feel the way I do about the comics industry. It’s mostly about franchises. Comic shops these days barely sell comics. It’s mostly spin-offs and toys"

“I thought about it for a while--I could perhaps sue, although I suspect DC would be very comfortable with that,” Moore adds. “They have a whole battery of lawyers who could continue to fight this case for decades. And it’s not like I’m after money. It’s always been about the dignity and integrity of the work. I just want them not to do something. There’s no point in wasting resources for decades, when effectively, if there’s a legal case, I’d be prohibited from speaking about it, which DC is more worried about.”

Moore’s viewpoint may spring as much from a cultural as a philosophical clash, given that, in Europe, the concept of artistic integrity is inherent enough to merit legal standing in creative ownership.

“With these types of companies--meaning companies who deal extensively in creative product--much of a company’s value is based upon the intellectual property in hand, so they need to do everything they can to secure and protect those assets,” says Michael Lovitz, a Beverly Hills intellectual property attorney specializing in the comic book, gaming, and graphic-novel industries. “However, the concept of a creator retaining certain moral rights to their work is a very European perspective. That’s why they have a droit moral (moral rights) segment of the copyright law that grants the creator certain moral rights to their work with respect to artistic integrity and reputation, to not have things done to or with their work that they don’t want done. In Europe, even if you transfer all of your IP rights, you cannot transfer your moral rights. That is not something that is well-known or widely recognized in the U.S., and in fact was excluded from the revised U.S. Copyright Law, and thus does not have quite the same weight in the U.S. that it seems to have with European creators.”

I mean, I certainly shan't be taking legal action against these comics because it's pretty much stitched up. If they've got clauses in the contract that say that they can actually get an attorney to sign contracts--that the comics company has got power of attorney--then there's not much chance.


And also, of course, they're a huge corporation. They've got lots of lawyers and infinite amounts of money that they can keep people in court. They can keep me, and my descendants, in court fruitlessly for decades. And, I wouldn't wish that upon my kids or grandkids. And anyway, of course, if I was involved in a legal situation, I wouldn't be able to comment upon it, would I?

I still get a royalty--not a very big royalty, but the kind that the comic industry was offering in the 1980s. Yes, I still get a little bit of the money that I consider myself to be owed for these things.

Whereas Byrne's attitude, though not as justifiable as Lee would be, seems to me to be more proprietary in nature. I know Paul would say something like I'm probably totally off base here, and maybe I am but Byrne's negative remarks just give me that feeling about him.