As for Frank Miller, and DKR. Miller has admitted that he, Moore, and the others made a mistake tearing down the walls, and not replacing them with something else. He's criticized the realism in comics, and the drift away from what comics were.

However, it'd be limiting and short sighted to not flirt the edge, and just leave comics as a generic archtype of pulp fiction. Comics are entertainment, and they can be all ages, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't explore the possibilities of good stories that can be told.

I don't think of Alan Moore's work as anything much better than Family Guy. I don't have anything against either. I just can't conceive how it can be perceived by anyone  as a higher quality standard to strive for.

Never mind.  See the earlier note.

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For about forty years, give or take a few, superhero comics stayed about as far away from the "edge" as they could, and averaged sales up around ten times what present titles sell for.

"Flirting the edge" is what got us in trouble, as it was effectively also turning our backs on the bulk of our audience -- kids. Comics as a medium can be all-ages, or any ages, but there are pockets within the form that should be consistent in their targeting. Superheroes are one of those pockets.

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You're right bobby, that is a bit of mind reading on my part about what DC would do if Moore came to them and said he wanted to write another series for them. So let me rephrase my statement by saying that I think it is a very likely (but by no means, guaranteed or a certainty) that DC would try to accommodate Moore and give in to his conditions (as much as humanly possible) if Moore said he wanted to write a series for them.

And Jim Lee stated in interviews, probably jokingly, that he feared what Alan Moore would do to him for making the sale to DC.

DC didn't have to cave into any demands. ABC comics were hardly risque or taboo.

The first conflict, regarding the League of ExtraOrdinary Gentlemen, resulted in Moore pulling the book from DC and ending most of his own writing on ABC titles.

DC certainly didn't cave to keep Alan Moore's League or him writing the ABC titles.

Nice fairy tale you made up there though...

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Yes, I know that the ABC line were a part of Wildstorm before Lee sold the company to DC.

Wasn't it rumored that Moore only agreed to continue to work on the ABC books when Wildstorm was sold to DC if didn't have to deal with anyone at DC and only deal with the Wildstorm folks?

And wasn't their cussing,some nudity,and some sex in the ABC books? And let's not forget that issue of LOEG, where the Invisible Man raped a teenage girl on panel at an all girl school/home.

But you're okay with his contempt for female characters, right?

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I wasn't aware there was such a thing in his works...

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Two examples, vis-a-vis contempt for the ladies, off  the top of my head:

In re-reading Watchmen, most the female characters are all victims of one sort or another, except for the second Silk Spectre.  However, she comes across as shrill and self-centered.  She is revealed to be the product of an affair her mother had with the man who tried to rape her, the Comedian.  At the end she muses about dressing like this nice fella.

The Killing Joke's treatment of Batgirl.

I haven't read Swamp Thing, Promethea or Lost Girls, so I don't know much about how women come across in these. 

I've found that the man simply can't write a coherent, three act story; he always seems to blow the endings! 

The Killing Joke's treatment of Batgirl.

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I thought that came from Editorial with the "cripple the bitch" comment.

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I thought that came from Editorial with the "cripple the bitch" comment.

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Even were that true, is the word "No" not part of Moore's vocabulary?

Oh, I'm not defending the book, JB. I just thought I remembered reading it wasn't his idea.

Even if he had shown any respect towards Barbara, the ending was absurd.

I wasn't aware there was such a thing in his works.

You're kidding, right? Along with the above examples, even Mina Harker gets attacked by the Invisible Man in LOEG.

Can you be a little more vague, Don?

Can you be a little more obtuse?