For the record, Alan Moore has not softened his view on Hollywood or its plan to bring his classic graphic novel Watchmen - a dystopian epic that deconstructs the superhero genre - to the screen.
"I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying," Moore told me during an hour-long 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 energised 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 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 it; he also hints that he has put a dark spell over the endeavour.
"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 Watchmen director Zack Snyder.
Snyder, the director of 300, absolutely adores the work of Moore and has laboured 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 he believes Watchmen is "inherently unfilmable".
He also rues the effect of Hollywood's siren call on contemporary comics.
"There are three or four companies now that exist for the sole purpose of creating not comics but storyboards for films," he said.
"It may be true that the only reason the comic-book industry now exists is for this purpose, to create characters for movies, board games and other types of merchandise.
Comics are just a sort of pumpkin patch growing franchises that might be profitable for the ailing movie industry."
Moore sometimes wears metallic talons, describes himself as an anarchist and, in the past, has told interviewers he worships an ancient Roman snake god.
But what's really unusual about him is that he seems to be the very last creator in comics who would hang up on Hollywood.
"I got into comics because I thought it was a good and useful medium that had not been explored to it fullest potential," Moore told me.
"If you approach comics as a poor relation to film, you are left with a movie that does not move, has no soundtrack and lacks the benefit of having a recognisable movie star in the lead role."
