ICv2 has confirmed Rich Johnston's scoop, published in his Lying in the Gutters column at Comic Book Resources, that Alan Moore is severing his ties with DC Comics.  Moore, who has written some of the finest comics of the past three decades, was reportedly upset over remarks made at a press conference by V for Vendetta producer Joel Silver.  Having been dragged into a lawsuit concerning the authorship of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film, Moore takes a dim view of movies made from his work and has attempted to have his name taken off the credits for any film version of his comics. Silver's remarks, which Moore construed as indicating that he approved of and was somehow involved in the V for Vendetta movie, were the last straw.  According to Johnston, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Dark Dossier, a hardcover graphic novel due out later this year from Wildstorm, will be the last of Moore's work to be published by DC Comics.

Moore originally left DC Comics after a series of disputes that culminated in a squabble over royalties from buttons based on his Watchmen graphic novel.  After leaving DC Moore worked at Jim Lee's Wildstorm Studio, which was a part of the artist-controlled Image Comics, but when Lee sold Wildstorm to DC Comics, Moore was 'indirectly' working for DC again -- a status that he OK'd only with certain safeguards to isolate him from having to deal with DC directly.  Now Moore plans to take the third collection of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics from DC and place it with independent publishers Top Shelf (U.S.) and Knockabout (U.K.).  The first two League of Extraordinary Gentlemen collections have been superb sellers in both bookstores and the direct market.