Alan Moore has finally come face to face with the Occupy movement protesters. Channel 4 News took the Northampton based comic book legend to meet the Occupy protesters in London. He wanted to find out why they had adopted the Guy Fawkes V for Vendetta mask and been so inspired by his creation. He starts off by saying: “The reason I haven’t been down before is because I didn’t want to make much of a thing of the V mask.”
When Moore asks one of the protesters what the mask means, he answers: “The whole character is very relevant to what we’re doing at the moment. We’re going against a system which we feel is corrupt. So we’re doing the same kind of thing as what happened in the movie.” Ah, the movie, that very thing that Moore so hates. Hence why Moore does not want to be associated with any of the movies based on his work. We are also told that Time Warner profits every time a V mask is sold, another of the ironies of the situation.
At the end he said that he’s “amazed, I’m very impressed and I’m rather touched. The people here are amazing, I think that this is the best organised, most forward thinking protest that I’ve ever had experience of.” What stood out above all in the short piece is the following quote from Alan Moore: “I suppose that the main drive is to find the edge of something and then throw myself over it.” Not something you’d expect to hear on Channel 4 News. And absolutely brilliant.
Please see below for the extraordinary video:
