Originally Posted By: the G-man
Moore didn't seem to be so creator rightsy when he was building his rep on characters created by other, work for hire, artists/writers, including...Jack Kirby.



Good point.

Marvel doesn't compensate the Kirby family, but I don't know what DC does. I recall Dick Giordano in the 80's saying that when DC did reprints of stuff like GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW, NEW GODS, DEADMAN and other early/mid 1980's baxter reprint books, that DC at that point paid the same rates for reprints as they paid writers and artists on newly published work.
I don't know if that policy carries on into the collected books DC publishes in the modern era.

I'd like to think Moore is more creator-aware than he was in his early 30's (circa 1983-1989) when he was working for DC.
But it can't be disputed that he was far more aware in his 30's of legal contracts, than were, say, Shuster and Siegel at age 18, when they were swindled out of the rights to Superman.

As I posted earlier in the topic, there was a SWAMP THING issue where Moore brought in Kirby's character The Demon, where Alan Moore had a dedication to Kirby by the story credits, "Dedicated with awe and affection to Jack Kirby".
And yes, it arguably is hypocritical that he built his reputation while utilizing others' work-for-hire characters. Similar to his story "Pictopia" in ANYTHING GOES 2 (1986), that was critical of the "dark" trend in comics, despite his being one of the major proponents of bringing in what he himself termed a "Dark Age" in comics.