UNMOORED, PART I

Alan Moore's new interview with WIRED very inconsiderately interrupts my normal course of thought, so that I now have to put aside the posts I had in mind in order to refute his quasi-assertions on (a) the nature of the superhero, and (b) what it truly means to be a liberal.

Before doing so, however, I will say this much to contextualize Moore's remarks:

Without a doubt, WIRED asked Moore for an interview because of the impending WATCHMEN movie. That's not to say that they wouldn't do an interview with Moore at any other time too, but unquestionably they wanted one now because the WATCHMEN movie is news now.

Alan Moore knew this when they asked. There's no way that he could not. He's also made no secret of his dislike for the idea of a WATCHMEN movie.

Why then did he give the interview?

One reason, of course, is the same reason Paul McCartney suffers through questions about the old days with the Beatles while he's trying to sell current work: sometimes the only way to get more publicity about the current stuff is to endure questions about the past.

Now, in this case Moore has to put up questions about a project that was finished long ago, which didn't have the impact on the comics-world that he says he hoped it would-- and on top of that, the work's now being adapted into a medium for which it wasn't made, by the fiat of a company with which he wants no further associations.

It's not surprising, then, that his feelings toward the movie are something less than charitable. Still, the interview does allow for a sizeable section concerning "what I'm working on now," so it's pretty hard not to picture Moore using the hype surrounding the movie as a way of advancing his own new projects.

There's nothing morally objectionable in Moore's participation in the process of hype. Still, his current concerns color everything he says here. So when I do go more deeply into refuting his statements, I have to do so with the knowledge that he's not making definitive declarations as such, as he might do for a JOURNAL interview, but hedges a lot of what he says.

Still, since a lot of the illogical assertions he makes here are often proclaimed as gospel by others, the refutation-game is still worth the candle.