Call him the comic equivalent of Alan Smithee

My colleague Tom Bowers just turned me on to this trailer Web site for the forthcoming “V for Vendetta,” which is based on the graphic novel created by Alan Moore and illustrated (“mostly,” according to Wikipedia ) by David Lloyd. The text is in Japanese, so most English speakers won’t understand what’s being said.

But, then, graphic novels depend a lot on their animated presentation. And while Moore started out as a cartoonist, other contributed the images. The list includes Lloyd (“V for Vendetta”, Stephen R. Bissette, Rick Veitch and John Totleben ( “Swamp Thing” ), Dave Gibbons ( “Watchmen” ) and Eddie Campbell ( “From Hell” ).

And if you hold high hopes for “V for Vendetta,” you have to know that Moore, reclusive and unwilling to cooperate with moviemakers, has refused to have anything to do with the film – leaving it in the hands of the Wachowski brothers of “The Matrix” fame and director James McTeigue

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Below : The character V, played in the forthcoming film (March 17) by Hugo Weaving , is a creation of Alan Moore.

Warner Bros. publicity photo