Alan Moore has no hoorays for Hollywood

"I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying," Moore told me during an hourlong phone call from his home in England. "It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The 'Watchmen' film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I, for one, am sick of worms. Can't we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change."

Moore is often described as a recluse, but, really, I think it's more precise to say he simply is too busy at his writing desk. "Yes, perhaps I should get out more," he said with a chuckle. The 54-year-old iconoclast is everything his longtime readers would expect -- articulate, witty, obstinate and enigmatic. Far from grouchy, he gets an edge in his voice only when he talks about the effect of Hollywood on the comics medium that he so memorably energized in the 1980s with "Saga of the Swamp Thing," "V for Vendetta" and, of course, "Watchmen," his 1986 masterpiece. The Warner Bros. film version of "Watchmen" is due in March, but it has encountered turbulence with a lawsuit over who has the rights to the property. Moore, who does not control the movie rights, has no intention of seeing the film and has asked that his name be left off of it; he also hints he has put a dark spell over the endeavor.

"Will the film even be coming out? There are these legal problems now, which I find wonderfully ironic," Moore said. "Perhaps it's been cursed from afar, from England. And I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come."

Moore said all that with more mischievous glee than true malice, but I know it will still probably pain "Watchman" director Zack Snyder when he reads it. Snyder, the director of "300," absolutely adores the work of Moore and has been laboring intensely to bring "Watchmen" to the screen with faithful sophistication. But I don't think there's any way to win Moore over. The writer said he has never watched any of the adaptations of his comics (which have included "V for Vendetta" and "From Hell") and that he believes "Watchmen" is "inherently unfilmable." He also rues the effect of Hollywood's siren call on the contemporary comics.