Before Watchmen

Nervous Wreck

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/01/watchmen-returns-in-prequels-from-dc-comics/

This morning, DC Comics announced the first comic book expansions on the characters and world of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's seminal 1986 classic Watchmen. Featuring a variety of top-tier writers and artists across the comics industry, it will expand on the history of the world of Watchmen and of many of the book's most popular characters.

Courtesy of The Source, there are seven miniseries constituting at least this wave of the effort, buyoed by a "Curse of the Crimson Corsair" pirate tale written by original Watchmen editor Len Wein and drawn by colorist John Higgins which will be serialized across the different miniseries.

The announced books are as follows:
BEFORE WATCHMEN includes:

RORSCHACH (4 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: Lee Bermejo
MINUTEMEN (6 issues) – Writer/Artist: Darwyn Cooke
COMEDIAN (6 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: J.G. Jones
DR. MANHATTAN (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artist: Adam Hughes
NITE OWL (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artists: Andy and Joe Kubert
OZYMANDIAS (6 issues) – Writer: Len Wein. Artist: Jae Lee
SILK SPECTRE (4 issues) – Writer: Darwyn Cooke. Artist: Amanda Conner
With the exceptions of Wein and Higgins, none of the creators involved in this initiative were involved in the original production of Watchmen. This announcement does clear up where quite a few popular creators, such as Jae Lee, J.G. Jones and Amanda Conner, have been working for the past year or so since ending other projects.

The publishing event will be capped off with BEFORE WATCHMEN: EPILOGUE, featuring multiple writers and artists. Click below the jump for the first Crimson Corsair promotional image.

Read More: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/01/watchmen-returns-in-prequels-from-dc-comics/#ixzz1l8NZ7ryZ

I made this sound when reading:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmNObROcBOo

chin_grin

Ughghghghg indeed.

I love how Moore distances himself from movie adaptations of his comics. Why the hell are they milking Watchmen!? I mean there's a second one planned! Why? (Ok, money would be the main one...........but still............'why?').

Fysh

chin_grin wrote: »

Ughghghghg indeed.

I love how Moore distances himself from movie adaptations of his comics. Why the hell are they milking Watchmen!? I mean there's a second one planned! Why? (Ok, money would be the main one...........but still............'why?').

That's pretty much it, I'd guess.

I don't have any interest in reading them, partly because lately I'm mainly bored by US comics and partly because I think Watchmen is fine as it is. The creative teams that have been announced look very good and I'm sure they'll turn in some lovely work, but I don't see that this work will be made better by featuring the characters from Watchmen - if anything, I suspect it'll end up making Watchmen feel lessened, in the same way that the Star Wars prequels made the entire space-faring world seem smaller by trying to tie up all the details of what went before A New Hope.

I suppose DC do deserve some credit for at least throwing serious talent (and thus money) at this exercise. If you're going to make cash-in products, at least make them good.

Nervous Wreck

Fysh wrote: »

I think Watchmen is fine as it is.

This. It's like the stupid Hollywood model of re-vamping, re-making, re-telling, retconning, prequelling every successful movie of the last 30 years out of pure laziness cos they can't be arsed with original ideas. A pain.

Nervous Wreck

Alan Moore - “I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/books/dc-comics-plans-prequels-to-watchmen-series.html?_r=2


Ha!

Fysh

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Alan Moore - “I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/books/dc-comics-plans-prequels-to-watchmen-series.html?_r=2


Ha!

Yeah, I could see that coming after the whole Blackest Night thing.

It is kind of sad, really, because I would love to see what Amanda Conner or Darwyn Cooke would come up with if given the freedom and financial support to go all out and make something new. But a prequel to a comic nearly 30 years old?

I just can't help thinking "...what a waste".

megaten

Incredibly pointless. Isn't it the scheme of some dude in mid-management trying to impress his superiors? I'll have to try and remember where I heard that.

Fysh

megaten wrote: »

Incredibly pointless. Isn't it the scheme of some dude in mid-management trying to impress his superiors? I'll have to try and remember where I heard that.

Paul Levitz resisted the idea while he was the head honcho, but once he left and Dan Didio was allowed a more senior position there was a certain amount of speculation that Watchmen 2 of some sort would be inevitable.

Within the context of corporately-owned properties, it makes sense. To a beancounter, Superman and Batman and the Watchmen cast are all the same. So the logic of "this book sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year? And we own the rights? WE SHOULD MAKE A SEQUEL!" makes sort of sense.

(Though of course, if that logic actually held true then bookshops around the world would have reported amazing sales of the entire Batman backlist when the Christopher Nolan films were released, and yet we know how well that worked out....)

Apolloyon

*sighs*

I thought things had hit a low point when DC did their sudden...sorry 'well planned' marketing mandated...sorry 'editorially mandated' reboot last year. But this is their lowest point in my opinion. There is absolutely no need to go back to the 'Watchmen Universe' The mini-series/graphic novel stand on its own.

What worries me most is that I saw this kind of 'milking it for all its worth' attitude in the early to mid nineties and we saw what happened to the comics industry after that.

These are really good creative teams on the Watchmen Prequels. But for me this is just a step too far and I for one won't be picking these up.

gufnork

I believe I can understand why a lot of you aren't the happiest about this but speaking for those of us that just pick up the odd few comics here and there, and aren't quite as fanatical about it all as perhaps they could be then, really I'm just looking forward to seeing what they come up with. I don't tend to get involved with all the pros and cons of it all.

That's not to say I can't see why others might be a little 'meh' about it too though.

Fysh

It's not so much that I think it's a moral outrage that DC are doing this, so much that it suggests they don't really understand why they haven't come up with more comics that sell as well as Watchmen does, decades after its original publication.

Even with Sandman, which they perenially revisit - that was a longform series, deliberately structured in a way that allowed Gaiman to weave in new stories as and when he pleased, and DC make a point of at least getting his approval on new material. I've read a bunch of the non-Gaiman spinoffs, and none of them have been anywhere close to as good as the original series.

Over the last few months I've read things like Eisner's A Contract With God trilogy and Mazzuchelli's Asterios Polyp. They, in common with Watchmen, demonstrate a stunning degree of craft and a wider scope than is present in most superhero comics. I would love to see more comics with that kind of craft and scope of storytelling, but rebooting their shared-universe characters and going back to the Watchmen well is not going to create comics of that sort.

I would expect these comics, in comparison to Watchmen, to be of the same glorious quality as American Psycho II or Cruel Intentions 3.

gufnork

Fysh wrote: »

...but rebooting their shared-universe characters and going back to the Watchmen well is not going to create comics of that sort.

I take your point and on the whole I do agree, but I think where large companies such as DC are involved, they're always going to go for the easy money in between coming up with something truly amazing every now and again. However the new ones are received, it's not going to affect what's gone before. Is it? I don't think so anyway, so I don't really see that it matters very much. If the new stuff is naff, lets just ignore it until it goes away.

As regards them not producing new or great stuff because they're too busy producing naff prequels to Watchmen, i'm not sure I buy it. Truly great stuff in any walk of life tends to be more a happy accident than planned I feel, and so I would still expect them to put out more good or great material, just not at this moment in time is all.

I still take your point though, on the whole...

Fysh

gufnork wrote: »

I take your point and on the whole I do agree, but I think where large companies such as DC are involved, they're always going to go for the easy money in between coming up with something truly amazing every now and again. However the new ones are received, it's not going to affect what's gone before. Is it? I don't think so anyway, so I don't really see that it matters very much. If the new stuff is naff, lets just ignore it until it goes away.

Oh, DC won't be getting a penny out of me for any of this stuff. Vertigo stuff aside, the only comic of theirs I buy at the moment is Demon Knights.

gufnork wrote: »

As regards them not producing new or great stuff because they're too busy producing naff prequels to Watchmen, i'm not sure I buy it. Truly great stuff in any walk of life tends to be more a happy accident than planned I feel, and so I would still expect them to put out more good or great material, just not at this moment in time is all.

I still take your point though, on the whole...

I don't mean it in a literal sense - it's not like they aren't still publishing some very good stuff over at Vertigo (I really enjoy Scalped and am looking forward to the conclusion of DMZ, for example).

It's more that, having assembled a great team of artists and secured a big budget, it seems a bit weird to then task them to what I can't help but see as a high-profile "fill in the gaps" exercise.

I'm sure this'll be lucrative (in a collector marketplace, such comics will always have an audience) but I also think that with these creative teams and this kind of budget, getting them to create something brand new would have a much higher chance of producing work that might become a perennial strong seller than getting them to do the Watchmen prequels.

Ridley

I'm kind of surprised they're not taking baby steps with putting it out. Would have thought they'd test the waters with a mini-series, not throw 35 issues at people.

And Before Watchmen is such a terrible title.

speedboatchase

Like many of you I'd suspect, I'm appalled but also shamefully intrigued. The teams they have set up for each book sound impressive, but can't see what is to be gained here, especially considering that a. the entire venture is set in the past and b. we already got plenty of backstory in the original Watchmen.

No matter how good Before Watchmen might end up being, it'll end up inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Having said that, it's DC's licence and ultimately they're free to do what they like - in fact, I'm amazed it took so long for this to happen.

Mal-Adjusted

I agree. it's DC's property. It has a pre-existing fan base. DC are a for-profit company. ergo, why the hell shouldn't they do it?

and for all the calls for these creators to do something "new". the fans don't want new products. Oh, they'll SAY they do, but at the end of the day, they're still going to buy their Batman and Green Lantern.

Fysh

Mal-Adjusted wrote: »

and for all the calls for these creators to do something "new". the fans don't want new products. Oh, they'll SAY they do, but at the end of the day, they're still going to buy their Batman and Green Lantern.

You mean the ever-diminishing fanbase for monthly 20-odd page printed comics featuring DC or Marvel's company-owned characters? The fanbase whose numbers are such that selling a couple of hundred thousands issues is considered to be a runaway success?

I don't disagree that those fans don't want change, or anything new. But there are fewer and fewer of them buying any more (because they're either broke or dying off :P), and continuing to try and get a few more dollars here and there out of them isn't a great idea if its your sole strategy.

In a way, Before Watchmen is an interesting break with DC's usual obsessive catering to the die-hard Direct Market Captain Sweatpantses of the comics world - in that while I think it's a hideous (un)creative move, and one that's never going to achieve anything like the critical acclaim the original book attracted, it is one of DC's few properties that can be franchised and depend on sell-through to people who know it from the film adaptation or the high reputation of the original comic. The New 52 with its "$4 for 22 pages of comics" Superman & Justice League isn't going to get someone interested, if they aren't *already* reading comics - but "Before Watchmen" might, especially once we're talking about collections in bookshops rather than single issues.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes, but TBH if this is the sort of thing that DC thinks is a bold new initiative to expand their comics publishing arm, I have to wonder at their long-term planning. They don't produce enough genuinely new material to attract a new audience - look at the numbers reading Naruto or One Piece or Shonen Jump compared to any given DC or Marvel monthly title, and you can see where DC/Marvel are losing their new audiences. It's all well and good to say "well, we get the kids hooked with the cartoons" (and they do a very good job of it that way) - but that means that new generations are trained to expect a substantial amount of story that's free at the point of consumption, which bodes very ill for the future of printed single issues. Hell, I grew up reading printed comics of various sorts, and I think the current prices are ridiculous. What hope some kid who sees comics as the least effective way of spending their pocketmoney, compared to buying music or films or tv shows or games as downloads? Given access to Steam, iTunes, Amazon and the Marvel or DC Comixology stores, there's not a hope in hell for Comixology to come anywhere but last in terms of value for money.

Thwip!

Mal-Adjusted

Fysh wrote: »

You mean the ever-diminishing fanbase for monthly 20-odd page printed comics featuring DC or Marvel's company-owned characters? The fanbase whose numbers are such that selling a couple of hundred thousands issues is considered to be a runaway success?

yes. was i not clear on this?

Fysh

Mal-Adjusted wrote: »

yes. was i not clear on this?

I was trying to suggest that a company owned by a multinational like Time Warner, owning a stable of intellectual properties that have demonstrated substantial appeal when exploited in other media, should perhaps not make decisions about its publishing plans based on the whims and contradictory notions of an ever-decreasing vocal but tiny minority of overly-invested fanatics, because pleasing those fans is almost impossible and attempts to do so almost always end up alienating a wider casual audience that would likely prove more lucrative.

I should probably have worded it better. And perhaps considered using shorter sentences.... (he says, looking at an entire paragraph that has numerous commas but only one period despite spanning several lines).

Mal-Adjusted

sorry, I get ya now.

Ridley

Wouldn't put it past them.

FewFew

Apart from the whole thing being a bad idea, what are they going to do with a bunch of issues focusing on Dr. Manhattan? His creation is quite sudden, he doesn't have a kryptonite type plot device and he's hugely over-powered in a world that doesn't have superheroes. They can have him losing touch with his humanity, but they can only go so far because Watchmen is always there as the end game. Really don't see how they'll get the mileage out of it.

Fysh

Fewcifur wrote: »

Apart from the whole thing being a bad idea, what are they going to do with a bunch of issues focusing on Dr. Manhattan? His creation is quite sudden, he doesn't have a kryptonite type plot device and he's hugely over-powered in a world that doesn't have superheroes. They can have him losing touch with his humanity, but they can only go so far because Watchmen is always there as the end game. Really don't see how they'll get the mileage out of it.

JMS has claimed to have some interesting ideas in that arena - I can't claim to offer unbiased comment on them, because he's someone whose work I've loved elsewhere and I'm disappointed at both his involvement in this project and his ham-handed comments defending DC, but it seems he's going to try and explore Jon's perspective on time and the nature of Free Will - possibly by revealing that actually Jon does have free will and therefore Casting A New Light On What Went Before; maybe even revealing that Everything You Thought You Knew Was Wrong!

*spits*

Which is exactly why I'm not reading these. The Amanda Conner artwork will surely be gorgeous, as I expect will Darwyn Cooke's - but I have all the Watchmen I need already.

I remain interested in seeing how the BW titles are received, both in comics circles and in the wider marketplace.

Sools

Could be a great movie if done right

Xrox

Was up late last night and saw Alan Moore on BBC's Hardtalk ripping the comic industry a new A-hole saying they are a bunch of old school ganagsters who have conned and tricked real artists out of their work for almost a century. Guess this is another example......

heres a link to part one of the interview for anyone interested(second part can be found there too)

Sesudra

Xrox wrote: »

a bunch of old school ganagsters who have conned and tricked real artists out of their work for almost a century. Guess this is another example......
QUOTE]

While I agree that creators and artists have been treated dreadfully over the years, I don't think that's what has happened here . I know Moore has a fractious relationship with DC but it's not like they're trying to pass his work off as anyone elses, he's always given full credit as the creator of Watchmen, and it was his own personal choice that he not get any money from the film versions of his work or (I assume) this spin off series. At some point, Alan Moore signed contracts with DC and his constant comments tend to read like an old man complaining about pesky youngsters.

Fysh

Sesudra wrote: »

While I agree that creators and artists have been treated dreadfully over the years, I don't think that's what has happened here . I know Moore has a fractious relationship with DC but it's not like they're trying to pass his work off as anyone elses, he's always given full credit as the creator of Watchmen, and it was his own personal choice that he not get any money from the film versions of his work or (I assume) this spin off series. At some point, Alan Moore signed contracts with DC and his constant comments tend to read like an old man complaining about pesky youngsters.

He signed contracts, yes, but at a time where the norm was that most series fell out of print and did not remain in print in collected form. Up until the late 80s you were more likely to get a series reprinted in single issues again than you were a well-put-together collection, hence the whole 12-months-out-of-print clause. Moore & Gibbons have both indicated that their understanding of the contract's terms was that the book would after a time fall out of print, the rights would revert to them, and they could do what they wished with it. (Possibly sequels, possibly just authorising reprints, possibly letting it fall into out-of-print status, who knows).

If you're going to complain about Moore going on about it endlessly, complain instead to the interviewers who insist on bringing it up all the time. The couple of times I've met him at signings he's been a friendly and affable chap; this has also been my interpretation of most of the interesting interviews I've read with him over the last 10 years (where "interesting" means the interviewer had better questions to ask than 'How do you feel about Watchmen' or 'So DC are pricks, AMIRITE?!') or the editorial bits of Dodgem Logic. And it's not like DC went out of their way to look after him particularly well - hell, they bought an entire imprint in part to get their hands on work he was producing.

Sesudra

Fysh wrote: »

He signed contracts, yes, but at a time where the norm was that most series fell out of print and did not remain in print in collected form. Up until the late 80s you were more likely to get a series reprinted in single issues again than you were a well-put-together collection, hence the whole 12-months-out-of-print clause. Moore & Gibbons have both indicated that their understanding of the contract's terms was that the book would after a time fall out of print, the rights would revert to them, and they could do what they wished with it. (Possibly sequels, possibly just authorising reprints, possibly letting it fall into out-of-print status, who knows).

If you're going to complain about Moore going on about it endlessly, complain instead to the interviewers who insist on bringing it up all the time. The couple of times I've met him at signings he's been a friendly and affable chap; this has also been my interpretation of most of the interesting interviews I've read with him over the last 10 years (where "interesting" means the interviewer had better questions to ask than 'How do you feel about Watchmen' or 'So DC are pricks, AMIRITE?!') or the editorial bits of Dodgem Logic. And it's not like DC went out of their way to look after him particularly well - hell, they bought an entire imprint in part to get their hands on work he was producing.

True - I love his work, and I honestly think when he's at the top of his game, he's the best there is at what he does. But, as you say, the interviews I've read with him have always tended towards the interviewer asking about his previous work and his relationship with DC and Marvel, and that's coloured my opinion of him because he doesn't have anything nice to say about them, or the modern comic industry in general. I've never read any of his prose work really so it looks like I need to check that out!

On the issue of Before Watchmen itself, it does seem like a cynical money grab, but some good stuff might come out of it, so I'll wait and see.

Fysh

Sesudra wrote: »

True - I love his work, and I honestly think when he's at the top of his game, he's the best there is at what he does. But, as you say, the interviews I've read with him have always tended towards the interviewer asking about his previous work and his relationship with DC and Marvel, and that's coloured my opinion of him because he doesn't have anything nice to say about them, or the modern comic industry in general. I've never read any of his prose work really so it looks like I need to check that out!

I keep meaning to pick up Voices From The Fire but I've got so many books I keep meaning to read that I'm having to veto buying new books for a while until the pile gets a bit smaller. I've read some of his short stories, though, and they're every bit as interesting as you'd expect from someone like him.

The key seems to be to avoid reading interviews done by the traditional comics media. The nature of the US comics industry means that they always go for the "Moore states that all DC comics are garbage" type headline, even though Moore's the first to admit that he doesn't read much in the way of modern comics so his opinion shouldn't be taken seriously

Sesudra wrote: »

On the issue of Before Watchmen itself, it does seem like a cynical money grab, but some good stuff might come out of it, so I'll wait and see.

There are some great artists and a couple of very good writers involved, so I remain curious to see what critical reception they get. I will say I'd likely have bought at least some of them were the same creative team lined up on a new project that wasn't hampered by the contractual baggage that haunts Watchmen, especially given the involvement of Conner and Cooke. The first issue is out this week, so it'll be interesting to see how it holds up in reviews.