Moore himself admist to anarchism being a “romance” – something that is “impractical” and “idealistic”, but wortthy of fighting for just the same. He then frequently goes on anti-US riffs that sound like something out of a Chomsky monologue. He seems to fit comfortably into the intellectual faction that likes to compare people they don’t personally like or agree with to Hitler (such as Bush=Hitler, Thatcher=Hitler, Reagan=Hitler, Ditko=Hitler, so on). He even once did a collaboration with the Christic Institute (Brought To Light), something like Rorschach’s Journal – except that it’s a riff against the US and CIA, and the stuff in it is untrue (In fact, Alan Moore at one point imagined that the CIA was after him about it).

Alan Moore’s stuff tends to be touted as “genius” by people who happen to agree with his wacko worldview – the sort that tend to be found amongst the Leftists and radicals on the political spectrum. Like Rorschach (and Alan Moore), they seem to be unaware of how ridiculous they sometimes sound to everyone else, or oblivious to teh general bankruptcy of their proto-Marxian ethics. It’s sometimes sad, despite Moore’s talents, to see him become so ignorant, petty and cruel, despite himself – just as sad as seeing Rorschach sadistically torturing some innocent in the pursuit of his own idealized goals. I’ve never felt the same about Ditko’s writings – someone who seems much more comfortable with his own worldview, and who doesn’t feel the need to “prostelyze to the masses” as if he were annointed by God (or Glycon, as the case may be). Unlike Moore and Rorschach, Ditko does not feel the compulsion to impose his ideas and impulses on the general public – whether they want them or not. He’s just making a living.

This kind of lunatic Leftist pontification is what really ruined Watchmen for me (or practically any of Moore’s other works, especially the exceptionally nasty “V for Vendetta”). I think I’ve had a lingering antipathy for the man ever since he ruined Swamp Thing (at one point, turning it into an envirponmentalist diatribe agianst “capitalism” and American urban life). With the film adaptation of Watchmen, I was able to appreciate Moore’s storytelling skills without his own stupid Left-oriented ideological riffs getting in the way – this probably being why he so hates movie adaptions, I think, as most every moviemaker that sees his stuff cuts his more wacko political crap out. In any event, unless you like Leftist politics and the neo-Marxian anarchist worldview, I’d skip his awful Watchmen graphic novel and go see the much better movie.

As for Ditko, he’s better straight from the comics. He’s a much more mentally stable guy, which apparently shows through in his writing. He’s certainly not as much of a crackpot as Moore. But you’d be better off reading any of the Savage Sword of Conan stuff, especially if it’s an original Howard story and John Buscema did the art. Really great classic stuff, without so much as a hint of neo-Bolshevik propaganda.

What leaves me feeling a little uneasy about Rorschach/Question – not to take anything away from the characters as literary/artistic achievements – and what I think Alan Moore manages to highlight in his story – is that R/Q ’s philosophy/worldview is impractically idealistic. Mr. Moore shows that the basis of the superhero comes from a type of thinking that is dangerously reductionist and simplistic and that that kind of thinking generally leads to tragedy. Luckily, Mr. Ditko who, as Remy (above) points out, sounds (not surprisingly) very much like his creations, was an artist and not a politician, although I seem to remember a certain German Nazi politician who started that way.

Strangely, for a man who seemed intelligent, Mr. Ditko seems not to have considered that the “problem” with people or characters who cannot or do not choose between “right and wrong” is not necessarily a matter of intellectual analysis but lies more in basic human nature, something the characters of Watchmen also either cannot understand and take into account or try to circumvent, or treat as a joke.

Human nature which, as far as I can tell, hasn’t changed in thousands of years has seemingly always craved easy answers; they are tantalizingly and universally appealing. I think, unfortunately, for whatever reasons, Mr. Ditko found some beliefs to live by that did not take into account the complexity of human beings and the so-called civilization we have developed which cannot always be reduced to easy formulas like right=good, wrong=bad. In Watchmen Mr. Moore extrapolates this kind of thinking to its probable conclusion and shows that the mind can be a powerful servant or a dangerous tyrant, if not tempered appropriately with emotion or “heart”.

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Any chance of asking why he choose to leave Marvel and Spider-Man and Dr. Strange when he did?