A Curse on Watchmen?

Famed graphic novelist Alan Moore is one of the few celebrities who is all the way "out" as a magical practitioner, and he's been publicly known as such for a long time. Moore is also famous for hating television and film adaptations of his work. He has his name taken off of all of them, as he believes television and film as mediums are so different from graphic novels that they can't possibly render the story even remotely accurately.

HBO is now coming out with a new series based on Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, and showrunner Damon Lindelof said in a recent interview that he is convinced Moore has gone so far as to curse the production.

HBO's adaptation of Watchmen has garnered its fair share of controversy, not least of all for the ongoing, decades-long feud between original writer Alan Moore and Warner Bros., parent company of DC Comics, over the rights to the characters and series. Showrunner and creator Damon Lindelof has now revealed that he fears Moore -- who is an outspoken practitioner of ritual magic -- has cursed him.

In an interview with Vulture, Lindelof said, [I]n all sincerity, I was absolutely convinced that there was a magical curse placed upon me by Alan [Moore]. I’m actually feeling the psychological effects of a curse, and I’m okay with it. It’s fair that he has placed a curse on me. The basis for this, my twisted logic, was that I heard that he had placed a curse on Zack [Snyder]’s [Watchmen] movie. There is some fundamental degree of hubris and narcissism in saying he even took the time to curse me. But I became increasingly convinced that it had, in fact, happened. So I was like, 'Well, at least I’m completely and totally miserable the entire time.' I should be!"

He added, "When Zack was making Watchmen — and I only know this because I watched the DVDs — I was like, “This guy is having the time of his life!” And I did not enjoy any of this. That’s the price that I paid. Psychological professionals would probably suggest that I emotionally created the curse as a way of creating balance for the immorality."

Now all of those quotes reveal that Lindelöf has no actual idea of how a curse works or what it does. He's not a practitioner, so I suppose no surprise there. I would go so far as to say that if the only effects of this alleged curse were psychological, odds are that a genuine practitioner like Moore probably didn't cast anything. A real curse has actual, physical effects. An imagined one, on the other hand, might have effects but they are entirely psychological. Moore also wrote in his well-known Fossil Angels article that if you're willing to curse somebody, you might as well just punch them - and I'm sure that if Lindelof ever got into a fistfight with Moore it would be all over the news.

So no, I don't believe that Alan Moore has cursed Lindelof or the latest adaptation of Watchmen. On the other hand, maybe he did or said something at some point that would lead Lindelof to believe that he might, and the guy's credulity took it from there. In some cases that can be the best of both worlds - your target suffers, and you don't have to life a finger.