(And yes, i am the Blue-Tail from the post, not just someone trying to take credit)

It never fails to amaze me how many fans will bend over backwards to apologize for the Company Policy toward those presumptuous artistes who dare think they might deserve rightful compensation, or god forbid, fair treatment for the products of their blood, sweat & imagination.

One can quibble with Mr. Moore's take on events; but your take is filled with false "facts" and even falser assumptions.

To wit:

“V4V” was originally done in Warrior... but never finished due to Warrior being folded. 13 years pass -

Three (3) years pass. Last Warrior installment comes out in 1985; first DC issue of V comes out in 1988. But the length of time isn't really germane to your false assumptions.

...and DC - having some critical success with Mr. Moore on his Swamp Thing run and other projects -

Yes, just some critical success. Let's not mention the fact that Moore's take on Swamp Thing arguably laid the groundwork for DC's entire Vertigo line in terms of both audience acceptance and stylistic approach. Oh, and in terms of "other projects?" There was a little thing called Watchmen -- the first issue of which came out in Sept. 1986 and which caused a bit of a shockwave within the comics industry; come to think of it, outside it, too. It remains the only graphic novel to win a Hugo award, I believe.

...[DC] decide[s] to re-publish the saga in mini-series form - and add the missing finale that was always missing - again - 13 years after the fact. At the end of the run, they decided to reprint the whole series in a trade paperback.

Again -- three years after the fact. And DC didn't just out of the blue "decide" to publish the work as some favor to Moore; reportedly, other publishers had approached him about reprinting and concluding the series. Why, why would anybody be interested in reviving this obscure, ancient, forgotten work that would lie fallow forever if not for the largesse of some generous publisher, possessed of an almost avuncular indulgence for those creative types and their wacky passion projects? Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Moore was one of the hottest, most talked about talents in comics at the time (*cough*, Watchmen); perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Eclipse comics had some small success by reprinting and convincing Moore to complete another half-finished Warrior serial entitled Miracleman.

Sounds pretty good so far for everyone doesn’t it ?

You seem to think that DC was doing Moore some giant favor by bankrolling the completion of V; I think you may have it a bit backwards.

Not sure how reprinting 13 year old work by Mr. Moore - which was essentially unknown outside of the UK - and giving him the chance to finally finish it off - and then publish it all together in trade format - which was definitely not a common practice back then - well sounds awesome really !

Given Moore's track record at the time, the chance to print any project "new" to a whole new crop of American Moore fans may have sounded to DC Comics a bit like a license to print money.

Oh, and that trade paperback: Watchmen, collected in book form in 1987 - if I recall, just in time for the Christmas trade. I wonder if the numbers on that influenced DC to try it again?

Oh, yes: and three years. Have I mentioned that? Though I still don't see what that has anything to do with anything.

DC at the time, despite giving Mr.Moore the chance to make all this money for long past efforts with the power of theuir marketing efforts behind it -

And Moore was giving DC the "chance" to put out a publication that they could promote as a more-or-less "new" work from the creator of the critical and commercial juggernaut Watchmen. A work which he, reportedly, had received other offers to complete in other quarters.

[DC] made him one more promise - that the complete rights would revert back to Mr.Moore himself a mere 5 years after the book went out of print.

I don't know the details of the contract; I do know that Mr. Moore feels that, on both V and Watchmen, he and his collaborators got screwed because DC followed the letter rather than the spirit of the contract, on the reversion of rights and other matters. (There was another stink regarding DC weaseling out of paying royalties on Watchmen merchandising items because they kept claiming that they fell under the "promotions" exception.)

A bazillion printings later - and probably mainly more to come - and growing due to the popularity that the film had .. it seems as if the book will never go out of print, and therfore - never ever revert back to Mr.Moore.

The only thing that seemed more unlikely in 1987 than a comicbook getting collected in trade was the idea that it would be in print for two decades plus, nonstop; of course, the wording of the contract makes it in the company's interests to keep the book in print as long as their remained any further possible profitable exploitation of the material. And of course, if we follow the letter of the agreement rather than its spirit, we should feel no obligation to renegotiate terms of the deal with the Creators of the work.

This is hardly the only beef that Moore had with DC over the years: scroll down to the May 23, 2005 entries over here.

Personally, I don’t believe that DC ever meant to “steal” the book from Moore. I truly believe DC believed they were doing the right thing -

And you don't think Moore believes he's doing the right thing in taking a principled stand for creators' rights?

Unbelievable.

There are many valid criticisms to make of Mr. Moore's position; you've failed to make any of them.

Joe Q mentions the DOCTOR STRANGE cover in a recent interview/Q&A session at a convention.

Here's the quote:

JQ: Yeah, there have been but you have to understand that an artist using models and photo references to assist them in their work has been going on for quite some time — there is nothing new about any of this. The only new thing is thing called ‘the internet’ and basically, it is just a matter of time before someone looks up the image and finds the reference. A lot of artists use themselves as a model — I know Alex does, I know I do...it’s the same thing. And sometimes, to expedite matters, an artist will find a reference and they may not even think about where it comes from and they will use it. Low and behold, before you know it, that photograph is found and it’s out there!

You just really have to be careful with what you use as a reference. Likenesses are a much bigger problem — there’s that famous Amy Grant album cover that was used on a Dr. Strange cover, I believe — and that led to a lot of serious legality issues. There are going to be times when you use a likeness and someone may not like it — you just have to be really careful. We do encourage our artists to try to avoid that — but again, we do have to produce work and produce it quickly. Fans of comic books these days demand a certain level of fine detail in their books and artists try to compensate for the amount of work that they are trying to expedite — the pressure is tremendous.

The entire story is HERE:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=149363

~P~
P-TOR

He didn’t leave because of the “Sophisticated Suspense” blurb on the cover. He left because of “For Mature Readers” label that first appeared on SWAMP THING #57. which they eventually did without consulting creators.

As I understand it, it wasn't the "mature readers" thing so much as the whole rating system DC had planned that never wound up happening anyway.

I read an interview with him where he said that at that point he was fed up with corporate comics, and was practically looking for a final straw to make him leave anyway.

You seem to have a bit of a problem using the passive voice. You've used this weird grammar before. Clearly, you mean "Marvel may or may not have been asked to pull the issue from stores." Instead, you're saying that someone may have asked the issue itself to go to Marvel and say, "Please remove me from stores." Which is an amusing image, but unlikely, to say the least.

He'd have to meet Grant Morrison.

"- For all the flack DC editorial has gotten over the years from Alan Moore, they really should be commended for allowing him to push the envelope early on. They could have very easily sent that story back and told him it was unacceptable, but they allowed his artistic vision to win out. I guess it’s too bad they didn’t do the same with Rick Veitch a few years later."

Do you folks at Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed have access to the art for the Swamp Thing issue that was never published, where Veitch wrote about Swamp Thing's encounter with Jesus Christ? Some art has come out, but to get the entire story in one place would be great...

Wonder what Rick Veitch had in mind after Swamp Thing met Jesus...

Sounds pretty good so far for everyone doesn't it ?

Not sure how reprinting 13 year old work by Mr. Moore - which was essentially unknown outside of the UK - and giving him the chance to finally finish it off - and then publish it all together in trade format - which was definitely not a common practice back then - well sounds awesome really ! DC at the time, despite giving Mr.Moore the chance to make all this money for long past efforts with the power of theuir marketing efforts behind it - made him one more promise - that the complete rights would revert back to Mr.Moore himself a mere 5 years after the book went out of print.

A bazillion printings later - and probably mainly more to come - and growing due to the popularity that the film had .. it seems as if the book will never go out of print, and therfore - never ever revert back to Mr.Moore. Of course - Mr. Moore is PISSED - because he knows he has signed away the book forever to "greedy corporate scum DC".

Personally, I don't believe that DC ever meant to "steal" the book from Moore. I truly believe DC believed they were doing the right thing - more or less creating an environment where an artist could essentially "lease" out their books to DC - and eventually have the books return to their "parents" when DC had gotten "fair use" out of them. At the time - neither DC or Marvel had much success with anything non-capes ( such as "V for Vendetta" ) and trade paperbacks were almost a "weirdo" item - which didn't tend to have more than a single printing. Books such as "Watchmen", "Sandman" and "V for Vendetta" changed all that. Not only had the trade paperback overtaken the "pamphlet" ( single comics ) market, but stuff tends to stay in print for years, and has multiple printings.

if he really did leave because they were lableing the comics ‘mature’ why did it take him his entire run on swampthing to leave? They started the Suspensfull Fantasy thing farely early on in his run on the series, so why would he leave a few years later? why not leave immediately, if he was so fed up about it?"

He didn't leave because of the "Sophisticated Suspense" blurb on the cover. He left because of "For Mature Readers" label that first appeared on SWAMP THING #57. which they eventually did without consulting creators.