Damon Lindelof's Watchmen

What abuses are you referring to re: Netflix?

https://www.fastcompany.com/90250828/the-death-of-hollywoods-middle-class

(btw, since we're on the subject I guess, that shitty company I worked for never got a damn thing off the ground)

https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-and-netflix-announce-historic-contract

I'm sure that's the end of them finding ways to screw casts and crews.

idk if that's apples:apples with Netflix and Amazon there tbh

also dunno why this was even brought up except as a deflection, it has no bearing on what we were talking about afaict

xp Noted that you're hanging your "labor abuses" hat on a vague, hand-waving prediction

You were the one who brought up my fucking job. xp

Incidentally there's also the small matter of Netflix generally capping series at three seasons to keep rising compensation at bay. You can argue these are pettier abuses than Amazon, that's fair and fine, but these companies are all rotten and screw artists.

the general thrust of your argument seems to be "the world is corrupt and evil to the core, therefore whatever minor abuses I encourage or engage in are ok"

that is what I meant by weird ethics

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-16/netflix-s-reputation-for-canceling-shows-too-soon-is-overblown

to bring it back to the central issue (which I can tell you love arguing about since you keep bringing it up), every time someone points out to you how messed up it is what has happened to Watchmen as an IP, your reaction is to go "But... LOOK! Over there!"

Instead of engaging with the hard facts which are a) it was wrong what DC did to Moore over this and b) everything related to Watchmen that has been produced since has not only been ill-gotten gains, but they've also all been horribly shitty purely on an aesthetic level. These are bad things, on two separate fronts, that should not be encouraged by further patronage.

the comic book watchmen is also dumb tho

tales of the black freighter my ass

the general thrust of your argument seems to be "the world is corrupt and evil to the core, therefore whatever minor abuses I encourage or engage in are ok"

nothing is OK. I support artists I respect whenever possible and circumvent paying corrupt middlemen often, and also quite often enjoy art that is problematic on one level or another. I suspect you do, too.

re the: "all this stuff has been bad" argument, well, like it or not the emerging consensus isn't panning out that way this time it seems

Tales of the Black Freighter is great both as an EC pastiche and as an echo/foreshadowing of the main narrative imo

xp

tbh I feel bad about stinking up this thread with all this interpersonal shit cause ultimately your assumption that this will be worthless and mine that it won't be is the only real distinction of note

They’re certainly promoting it (both pics taken on a walk today)

https://i.imgur.com/0VSxl1B_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

https://i.imgur.com/QSAfO3V_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

a quick google puts his net worth at $10mil, he's gonna be OK

how the fuck do you calculate this? Watchmen is his best-selling book and he's on about a 15c royalty rate for each copy. In a great year, that's been $30,000 before tax; the year the Snyder movie came out it was about $150,000 before tax; last year (as Didio continues to trash the perennials market) it was $4,000 before tx.

his overhead is presumably low because he owns his own home and allegedly gets his weed for free, but he had to pull the plug on Dodgem Logic due to losing money, and iirc has self-funded the Jenkins films since that. also, he may have bought food once or twice (as well as his home) since 1985.

Did he have any financial participation in the V for Vendetta movie?

https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/authors/alan-moore-net-worth/

All 'celebrity net worth' sites should be scourged from the earth

That was an xp but...

Yeah, those calculations are notoriously bollocks

Not unrelatedly, Eddie Campbell wrote entertainingly about what can happen to allegedly "vast" Hollywood money here:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91cRrz-NNpL.jpg

sorry, huge image argh

Just using google for you guys.

DJI, feel free to explain the methodology that got you to agree with that citation

Did he have any financial participation in the V for Vendetta movie?

He very famously rejects all financial participation on adaptations that have been made against his will, and specifically requested that his name also be taken off the book after Joel Silver lied about him at a press conference.

hardcore

Pretty sure if a website sells advertising, everything they post has to be true, right?

I wonder if an element of shame about adapting Watchmen led them to then avoid it as much as possible.

So much shame expressed.

Shame is an unconscious drive, generally!

So my therapist tells me

LOL at that bullshit estimation of Moore's net worth, and even more bitter LOLs as using it as justification for supporting DC/Warner's continuing desecration of the work of a creative person who over the years made WAY more money for these corporate entities than the creative person themselves ever earned from their work.

I thought he very famously rejects financial participation(?)

How exactly did DC screw him & Gibbons over? I’ve read ppl alluding to it but it’s unclear to me. Their contract promised that the rights would revert when the book when out of print, and then... they kept it in print? Did it say anything about derivative works etc.?

(Lindelof comes off... not well in that Vulturr interview, btw; for a host of reasons)

I think you just answered your own question re: Moore & Gibbons.

Lindelof is by all available accounts a head case and prat

oof that interview... he's not making a great case for himself or the show, is he

What are the ethical ramifications of this even existing at all when I completely and totally side with the creator? Acknowledge that the creator has been exploited by a corporation? Now that very same corporation is basically compensating me to continue this thing.

I ask, “Is it even hypocrisy?” Then I say, as a fan, “Where would I come down on this thing if someone else was doing it? If I heard someone else was doing an HBO series called Watchmen that was not a strict adaptation of the book?” I felt that I’d be really angry about it and then I’d watch it.

xxp So is “they kept it in print” literally the sum of DC’s transgression? There must be more to it than that. Were they explicitly granted the right to do prequels, sequels, adaptations, etc.?

xxpost loooool

What are the ethical ramifications of this even existing at all when I completely and totally side with the creator? Acknowledge that the creator has been exploited by a corporation? Now that very same corporation is basically compensating me to continue this thing.

This passage in particular contains worlds.

bg, what have we said to one another about hijacking the other's thoughts

which of us is Moore and which Lindelof, I ask u

worst transporter accident ever

DC apparently told Moore and Gibbons that the copyright on Watchmen would revert to them once the graphic novel went out of print. Moore took them at their word - Gibbons I think was always more sceptical - and of course the graphic novel has always been kept in print, and DC has retained ownership. I think DC also 'promised' Alan that no other Watchmen stories would be told without his consent/participation, which of course they disregarded once their relationship with Moore broke down once and for all. Moore's position, which I support, is that Watchmen was a complete work in and of itself and doesn't require more comics by other hands, or movie adaptations by hacks like Snyder, or 'inspired by' TV series by a tosser like Lindelof.

Moore is correct inasmuch as Watchmen has (IIRC) a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Or what us storytelling wonks more commonly refer to as a three-act structure. Hope I'm not talking over y'all's heads.

I don’t understand why M&G would feel confident that their masterpiece would go out of print. But I’ve also never heard of a contract with terms like that, maybe it’s the best they could get? The comics industry is weird.

it was 1985, the market for endlessly-in-print collections of american comics basically didn't exist

and it's bitterly ironic that watchmen was one of the projects that helped create it

The history of comics is basically a series of object lessons in never believing the word of the dude who signs your paycheck. Captialists gonna capitalize.

DC were especially slow in publishing wholly creator-owned comics - Frank Miller's Ronin, for example, was jointly owned by DC and a corporation that Miller had to form specifically for the project. Watchmen's origins in the Charlton heroes (owned by DC) probably meant that it wasn't something Moore or Gibbons could ever have taken to another publisher. The one I don't understand is V for Vendetta - Alan and David Lloyd were the owners of that (possibly with Dez Skinn in the mix) but still happily conceded copyright to DC on it.

His journal doesn’t out Veidt because everything that he learns in Karnak was not in his journal. So he’s not the brightest bulb.

Huh? The point is that there's enough in the journal that, if he's killed, someone else could begin piecing it together.