Snappleshacks wrote:
I suppose the real question is whether we think future stories involving the Watchmen characters would be transformative works or derivative works. The preponderance of the record suggests it would just be more stories about grown men hitting each other; in other words pointless in the sense that the same story could be told in The Authority or The Avengers or JLA etc. I don't think there's any compelling reason to believe a Watchmen sequel would do to the original what Watchmen itself did to the superhero genre.
There is a crucial point that is missed here. How, in advance, are we to know the quality of ANY story by ANY writer?

There was nothing in a more than 20 year history of writing comics that suggested Stan Lee was going to transform comics when he collaborated with Jack Kirby on FF #1. There was nothing in Steve Ditko's work to make one think that he would co-create a hero such as Spider-Man.

You cannot evaluate a story until AFTER it's been written. To say that it's okay for Alan Moore to use other people's characters because he's a good writer, but it's not okay for anybody else to use Alan Moore's characters because they're not good (before you even see what they do with those characters) is an argument I just can't get behind or frankly in which I even see any logic.

How do you or I or anyone know that the next Alan Moore may be out there with a brilliant idea for any of Moore's characters that could be transformative in the same way that Frank Miller - being allowed to use Bob Kane & Bill Finger's characters gave us "The Dark Knight Returns?"

BTW - I will concede that perhaps Moore's feelings about using other people's copyrighted characters may have changed over time, but it strikes me still as hypocritical if he had his change of heart after he got to use other people's copyrighted characters to make a name and a career for himself.

And finally, I don't see any difference from a creative standpoint in using characters that are in the public domain or under copyright. Either way, you are basing your creative work on somebody else's initial creativity.

There have been many brilliant books and movies that have used Sherlock Holmes since that character entered the public domain, but Sherlock Holmes is still the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle and much of what we love about his personality springs from Doyle. Ditto with many of the characters Moore uses in LoEG (including IIRC Doyle's Mycroft Holmes).