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I've asked this before, and don't recall getting an answer. Has Moore actually created anything completely original? I realize that's almost a trick question, given that just about everything has been done before, and some thing many times over, but not being familiar with the entirity of Moore's oeuvre, I am curious. All I have ever seen are reworkings and pastiches. Is there anything else?

(And I suggest American readers might want to hold off on answering this, for a while. The last time I asked, there was a quick flurry of "V for Vendetta!" responses from this side of the Pond, American readers apparently not being familiar with Guy Fawkes -- or even 1984.)

" What would Wein, Wrightson, H.G. Wells, J.M. Barrie, Bram Stoker, Lewis Carroll, and so on and so forth think of what Moore has done to their work? "

Len Wein is probably someone you should leave out of that list, as he was actually the editor of "Saga of the Swamp Thing" for 4-5 issues into Alan Moore's run and was the person responsible for approving or rejecting Moore's reinterpretation of the character. From what I read in interviews, the only objection he seemed to have to Moore's run was that he found the plots rather repetitive in their form. Something to the effect of "one plot, done over and over".

As for the others, it seems a fair bet that they would not approve.

"Knut, my next sentence after the one you quoted started like this: (with new added emphasis) "...Wein may not mind what happened to Swamp Thing as much as"

(first italic emphasis yours, second, bolded, emphasis mine)

Yes. Where you take the degree to which J.M.Barrie would mind his characters from a children's story being used in pornograpy and speculate that Wein's reaction might possibly be less negative. With the certain inference that he does mind to some lesser degree.

What I pointed out was that since Wein is the one who approved the initial, and most radical, change and since he did in fact have the power to reject it if he didn't like it, and has never disavowed it since (in fact - new information- at one time he supposedly proposed a new Swamp thing mini with Wrightson that would be based on Moore's redefinition of Swamp Thing) it seems inappropriate to speculate that he has any objections at all.

While there is a basis for inferring that some other authors may disapprove of Moore's take on their characters, there is none to suggest that Wein does, and ample evidence that he does approve.

Based on that, by including Wein with authors you presume will disapprove, even if you speculate that his disapproval will be less in degree, you are weakening the whole argument.

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TOM STRONG is a DOC SAVAGE pastiche, is it not?