Alan Moore

[ukdane]

What is Alan Moore's current relationship with 2000ad and Rebellion at the moment?

Are they on talking terms?
Would he ever work for 2000ad again?
Is he too expensive?

(I'm sure this came up in conversation about the new Halo Jones books, that Gibson wants to do, but I don't recall the details.)

[Art]

Probably not.
Not very likely for a variety of reasons.
It probbaly just wouldn't interest him.

[The Amstor Computer]

He discusses this in "The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore":

Every four or five years, there will be a change of editorship at 2000AD and I'll get a phone call. "Is there any way that you can come back and work for us?". And I'll sort of stay with "Give me back Halo Jones. Give Halo Jones back to me and Ian Gibson." And then, in the past, I would have been prepared to actually do a new book of Halo Jones and to let 2000AD publish it. But they're never going to give me back Halo Jones, because if they did that, then they'd have to give Pat Mills and John Wagner Judge Dredd. And if they did that, then they'd just be a bunch of largely talentless chancers who happened to find themselves in possession of all these other people's famous characters and wouldn't have any market or characters any more. So it's never going to happen. It's a waste of my time to even consider it. And even if they did offer me Halo Jones back now, I don't want to ever do anything for 2000AD again. It's sort of... they've burned that one.

[Richmond Clements]

That'd be a 'no' then.

[VampiraJen]

hasn;t he cut off ties with dc aswell?

[ukdane]

Cheers.

So, If you owned 2000ad, would you give him and Ian Halo Jones?

or is it really too much of a can of worms?

(Although giving back some characters to their creators would be a blessing)

Would it be possible to reach a medium ground, whereby the creator has exclusive rights to a character, and gets all the relevant royalties and monies, BUT the creator has to ensure that the character's adventures are always EXCLUSIVE to 2000ad, and can only be reprinted elsewhere by another company after x years (although 2000ad could offer a reprint at anytime)?

[ukdane]

I knew about DC ties being cut, and also was under the impression that he had announced his retirement from comics writing, but that was at least a year ago, if not longer.

[Steve Green]

Seems so according to this link.

I think it's funny that he makes a big deal over this when he's been freely using other authors' creations in LOEG.

- Steve

Link: http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg&article=2153" target="_blank">http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg&article=2153

[ukdane]

I think you'll find that all the author's whose characters he uses are long dead, and that the books, and characters have long since fallen out f any form of copyright (which is why you can download the original books as ebooks for free from the net....
... I might be wrong mind.

[Richmond Clements]

No, I think you're right Dane.
The characters he uses are all Public Domain.

[ukdane]

Public Domain, yup that's the chappie!

What other great characters are now in Public Domain?

[Mr C]

Doc Savage, The Shadow and numerous other pulp characters. I used to have a link to a site that had all of their stories on text. Was a while ago so I don't know if that's still the case. I believe DC or Image or somebody did a Savage/Shadow series. So it's anyone's guess!
Mind you, they could belong to Michael Jackson. Like The Beatles.
"John Lennon, I have your soul! Shamone!"

[Noisybast]

Doubt he'll be back. He's retired from mainstram comics in general, and 2000AD is one of the many companies he's severed all ties with.

He's said in interviews (and I'm paraphrasing here - probably badly) that every few years, 2000AD changes hands, and he gets a nervous phone call from the new management asking him if he'd consider coming back. He asks can he have the rights to Halo Jones, and then doesn't hear from 2000AD again until the next change of management. AFAIK, he didn't specify whether Rebellion have ever contacted him.

I think he's also said he wouldn't come back now even if he was offered the rights to Halo Jones.

[ukdane]

Noisy: really?

Your paraphrasing leaves a little to be desired mind, check above ;-)

[Steve Green]

Yeah, I know they're public domain

(although he seemed to have run into problems with Fu Manchu, as he's just called the Devil Doctor in LOEG, and some vague copyright issues arose when the Invisible Man had to have a namechange for the movie)

They were still created by someone else though, and he doesn't give any credit to the creators at all (OK, most are obvious, but there are a ton of obscure characters in there)

There's also Albion

http://www.thealienonline.net/ao_030.asp?tid=1&scid=5&iid=2568

It just seems a bit hypocritical banging on about creators' rights, unless he's donating some profits from Albion to creators of these characters or their surviving family.

- Steve