Last month we told you about how comic book legend and Sin City director Frank Miller had turned into a parody of his hard-scrabble fictional aesthetic–penning a cliched and rather inane faux tough guy criticism of the Occupy Wall Street movement on his blog. Well, we weren’t the only ones who thought Miller’s critiques were dumb. Comic Book legend Alan Moore, author of The Watchmen, ripped into Miller in a recent interview with Honest Publishing.

Says Moore:

Well, Frank Miller is someone whose work I’ve barely looked at for the past twenty years. I thought the Sin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny, 300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided. I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time. Since I don’t have anything to do with the comics industry, I don’t have anything to do with the people in it. I heard about the latest outpourings regarding the Occupy movement. It’s about what I’d expect from him. It’s always seemed to me that the majority of the comics field, if you had to place them politically, you’d have to say centre-right. That would be as far towards the liberal end of the spectrum as they would go. I’ve never been in any way, I don’t even know if I’m centre-left. I’ve been outspoken about that since the beginning of my career. So yes I think it would be fair to say that me and Frank Miller have diametrically opposing views upon all sorts of things, but certainly upon the Occupy movement.

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This is the Japanese trailer with new footage! Stuff we’ve haven’t seen before. Neat.

Nikki Finke has the whole scoop on the back and forth between Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox.

See our past coverage: Alan Moore‘s work is jinxed. ComicCon Watchmen panel.

Watchmen was the only thing anyone was talking about at Comic Con this year. Kevin Smith told the director of the film Zack Snyder at a standing room only panel,”The whole reason we ever had a Comic Con was that someone would make a Watchmen movie. I feel like after I see it I can die!”

It’s due to be released in March (3/6/09 to be exact…snort). Now, 20th Century Fox says it owns the rights but Warner Bros is the one making the film. A federal judge Gary A. Feess ruled that Fox may have a case. Let the litigation begin.

As we reported from Comic Con, writer Alan Moore has taken his name off Watchmen project. He’s had a series of bad experiences in Hollywood with his other graphic novels being made into lukewarm films (i.e. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V for Vendetta). Now he’ll have another seedy dark tale of epic proportions. Ahem.

Now the NYTimes reports:

According to Fox’s lawsuit, however, Warner, in acquiring rights through the producer Lawrence Gordon, failed to acquire certain rights already owned by Fox, including the right to distribute any picture made by Mr. Gordon’s company.

The case, originally filed in February, echoes an earlier court fight that was resolved in 2005 when Warner agreed to pay the producer Robert B. Clark at least $17.5 million to settle claims that it had infringed his rights by making the “The Dukes of Hazzard” film with Johnny Knoxville.

The settlement came after Judge Feess, who presided in that case as well, issued a preliminary injunction that would have blocked the film’s release.

Not to negate the nail-biter that surely was the Dukes of Hazzard release but if Watchmen is delayed…expect a riot. A nerd riot. A sweaty swarm of nerds billowing toward you…like Comic Con with an attention span.

We had former LA Weekly employee Tim Heiderich taking notes for us at the panel because it was impossible otherwise to get in. It has to be said that the panel started at five minutes until noon. Just like the Doomsday Clock. Even the release date 3/6/09 are the numbers on a clock face. Cool huh? So cool, there were fans that had been in line for this panel for two days. They had gotten there Wednesday.

Director Zack Snyder (300) was there. He explained that the movie stayed true to the original vision of the creator. “The comic book is the film’s bible.” He also offered,”Comic books are already story boards and a script.”

Alan Moore, the writer of the original series has kept his name off and wants no part of the movie. After Moore’s experience with his work V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen being made into lukewarm films, he’s now put off by Hollywood.

In fact, the movie credits are most likely to read “based on a comic illistrated by Dave Gibbons“. Snyder said,”I wish Alan could experience the same joy and excitement [as we have] about the film.”

Nerdy tidbits: