Leocomix wrote:
So your senses are wrong The LOEG books use public domain characters and what's more, do so in a creative way, fashioning its own distinctive mythology.
Moore doesn't blast creative people, he blasts the corporate mentality. It's more than a fine distinction, it's at the heart of all these debates.
Accepting your analysis on face value (I haven't seen the relevant Moore quotes regarding others using his Watchmen characters), I personally still find Moore's stance to be somewhat hypocritical as he rose to prominence in the comic book field precisely by working on characters created by others - Marvelman in the UK and Swamp Thing in the US.

Maybe he would have been able to achieve the same fame and success starting from scratch utilizing characters that were purely his own, but I doubt it would have happened in the same time frame or with quite the same results.

Keep in mind, too, that his original plans for The Watchmen involved using the Charlton heroes - again, all created by others. He only changed those characters (& changed them slightly) because DC told him they had other plans for Capt. Atom, Blue Beetle, the Question, etc.

Apparently the corporate mentality only deserves to be blasted when someone is using his characters, not when he is using other people's.