Watchmen Prequels - It's Official

[S. Earl]

Over on the Grantland blog, Alex Pappademas writes:

Corporations are not people. Loving something doesn’t mean it belongs to you. And if there’s a chance that a bunch of bad (or, to sound a hopeful note, merely gratuitous) brand-extensions can teach that lesson, then bring on Li’l Rorschach.

This seems to be the hardest hurdle for so many people to get over.

I'd totally have a Li'l Rorschach sit on my desk.

[aelfinn]

i'd like to see a tiny titans-ized version of the watchmen. 

[RickV]

Rather that the things that tie into the original.

Humor and Parody series would be awesome but have been done.

[David]

Before Watchmen: Newsstand Boy

Hilarious because she seems pretty spot-on with the McDaniel dig.

[Dean S.]

Just because I enjoy mayhem and the slaughtering of sacred cows, I've love it if DC just blew out the Watchmen.

Watchmen Legos (actually....this would be sweet.  Who cares what Alan Moore thinks?)
Partner with Hanes on a line of Rorshach underpants with the black marks on the back.
Partner with Vivid on a XXX parody with the twist that the porno revolves around an Alan Moore look alike trying to stop the filming of the Watchmen movie using the power of his manhood.
Some shitty novels.
A tribute album sung by a bunch of has been artists like Whitesnake.
Pez dispensers
A partnership with McDonalds leading to Watchmen Happy Meals (also legitimately sweet)
A mediocre computer animated cartoon.

Let's just get the whole thing out of our system.  I honestly think I'd enjoy the original 12 issue series MORE if it came wrapped in fewer pretensions. 

[RickV]

They have a block on CN now.

Watchmen shorts by this guy: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/YDDHHrt6l4w&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/YDDHHrt6l4w&rel=1</a>

[electric mayhem]

Let's just get the whole thing out of our system.  I honestly think I'd enjoy the original 12 issue series MORE if it came wrapped in fewer pretensions. 

 

[Bluestreak]

I'm only going to make one statement on this here because i find this all too depressing:

Everyone has a different thing that they "rant" about. For some it is prices, others it is 20 pages, some it is double shipping, digital, the reboot or whatever. I suppose the only thing I've ever felt strongly about is that i don't think DC editorial is up to scratch (but I didn't have a problem with the reboot per se). Well I've discovered what my comic book guy moment is (the moment where I seem to be going over the top): Before Watchmen.

Here is my catalogue of the reasons people are ok with this and my responses:

DC own Watchmen and can do what they want.

No one is disputing that but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should

Just because you like something doesn't mean you own it.

Certainly in a legal sense but do you remember that South park episode where they go after Lucas for changing Star Wars and trying to change Raiders? The point they make is that these things belong to everyone. I think you can just as easily say that "Just because you own it it doesn't mean it belongs only to you" If it did then there would be nothing for them to exploit financially. They depend on our sense of belonging to make their money so I'm not going to apologise for feeling the way I do. Watchmen is not like a car which you simply own or don't. DC recognize that in the way they are trying to persuade us how much everyone is putting in their a-game.

Moore is a dick
So? Would you not support these spin-offs if he wasn't a dick about it but just didn't think there should be a sequel?  I don't think Moore is a dick but i also don't expect the artists i admire to be people i would like. The two aren't totally separate but they are largely separate. Moore is outspoken and he may be wrong on some things but he is principled and has given this medium more than almost anyone. That buys him leeway from me anyway. But whether or not Moore is a 'dick" is not really relevant. Is anyone who supports this prequel only supporting it because Moore doesn't like it?

Moore is a hypocrite because he uses other people's characters
The simple fact that Moore uses other literary characters in his work does not mean that the two are the same. How do they use them? Some have said the difference is that Moore starts off with a story and that drives his use of the characters whereas this is about starting with a desire to exploit the characters and then looking for the story. Maybe but that isn't the problem for me.

When Moore uses other characters the technique he uses is something the film director Pasolini called 'free indirect discourse' (FID). This involves creating a situation where who is speaking is lost between the original and the new author. So for example Moore's Nemo is entirely consistent or familiar with the Verne version but at the same time completely alien. If you read Verne you are struck but the difference but can't fault him with not being true to the original. he isn't simply aping the original but nor is he throwing the original out the window. Deleuze describes it as giving birth to a child who is monstrous but at the same time as indisputably belonging to the original author. What Moore repeats is not the characters but the force of the characters.

The Watchmen and V movies fail for me either because they are either a brute repetition (the former) or take liberties with the story but in the process are unable to repeat the force of the original.

The problem with Before Watchmen from everything I have read is that it falls in that middle ground. Yes, I haven't read it but for all the talents of some of the writers they are not Alan Moore. The best they can hope for is that they approach the source material, there is no chance they will surpass it. I think what Morrison did with Doctor Manhattan in Superman Beyond is a better use of the inspiration (and he didn't even like Watchmen!)

Maybe i'm wrong, and if I am I'll apologise but I'm willing to bet my thumb that I'm not.

If we view Watchmen as inviolable we would never have made Superman comics for the last 70 years
This is a pretty weak argument. As others have said Superman and all comics were created as serial fiction. Watchmen was a singular vision with a beginning middle and an end.

Moore didn't create these characters anyway, he just ripped off the Charlton characters

Moore used the Charlton characters as his inspiration but they are virtually unrecognizable. I mean the Comedian and the Shield? Doctor Manhattan and Captain Atom? DC's Captain Atom has been changed to be more like Doctor Manhattan (haven't read it but that's what i understand from reviews)! If you are going to say that you might as well say that Batman is the same as the Shadow and Zorro.

Why is Moore so special that everything he works on is inviolable?
It's funny but this isn't about Moore. Nobody is angry at Scott Snyder for doing Swamp Thing in some ways that may go against Moore because there is an implicit recognition that Swamp Thing is part of serial fiction and that it was fair game (although you'd hope it was done well). People continue to do Tom Strong etc; and nobody raises a complaint.

I just want to see some more cool stories with Watchmen characters; Watchmen was pretentious anyway
funnily enough this is actually the strongest argument for the prequels. If you want it and you don't think it detracts from the original or signifies a new low for the industry then yeah go for it. If you found Watchmen pretentious then why should you care whether there are more stories or not? If you just liked Rorscharch breaking fingers, Comedian incinerating pregnant women or Jon disintegrating people I'm sure there are other comics you can find. I say that because if you take away the themes and reflection on issues i can only imagine that it is the violence that appeals because there isn't much in the way of typical superhero adventure in there.

DC are a business and businesses are supposed to make money

Sure, again they can do it but we all have some point where we think commercial exploitation is too far so we don't believe in child labour or some people don't like to invest in companies that make weapons or destroy rain-forests. That point varies for individuals. For me, there are maybe a handful of superhero comics that transcend their source material. Your mileage on Watchmen may vary but i think we can reasonably say there is a critical consensus on this point as much as their is a critical consensus on anything. Why not leave this very very small list of things as they are? Is asking for that really so unreasonable?

Where does this stop? Would you oppose a sequel to V for Vendetta? How about someone else doing a sequel or prequel to Dark Knight Returns. At a point they will drive Watchmen or one of these other things into the ground and that can damage the original. Although I still love Star Wars, it has certainly lost some of its luster thanks to the prequels. I love comic books a little less today than i did yesterday. I'm looking at everything a little more cynically and my pull list more sceptically. My estimation of these creators certainly dropped a few notches.  Maybe it is only me.

Finally a few other things that really annoy me:

the press release says that as publishers they have an obligation to keep characters relevant. That would imply that Watchmen isn't relevant or not as relevant. So the top selling graphic novel every year needs help. charming.

JMS in the CBR interview says that another way of saying "who watches the watchmen?" is "who do you trust?" Sorry, that is bullshit. the former is about accountability and checks and balances, not who do you trust. the answer is that in a society no one can be trusted to be a law unto themselves. that doesn't fill me with confidence.

I hope this hasn't been too boring

[Farrell]

I hope this hasn't been too boring

I think it's an interesting, thoughtful post with some good points, and that the author of such a post shouldn't have only 16 (now 17) karma.

[David]

I'm only going to make one statement on this here because i find this all too depressing:

Kudos.  Thanks for this.

[BobBretall]

We would be getting more Darwyn Cooke regardless, he's a regularly working artist. It's just that we're getting Darwyn Cooke doing Watchmen prequels instead of Darwyn Cooke doing...something else he's interested in.

Exactly.   What this means is we're going to get at least 1 less Parker GN because of the time he's spending on Watchmen.

But is it any more original material? He's doing a straight adaptation, however well crafted and told.

Agreed.  It's just that I'd personally MUCH rather read more Cooke Parker (or more Cooke doing his own original stuff) than seeing him do Watchmen prequels.   Will they be nice to look at?   I'm sure they will, but of all the things Darwyn could draw, derivative DC stuff is way down my list of preferences.

That said, he'll likely get a LOT more $$$ for Watchmen stuff than any other thing he could do, so who am I to begrudge him a nice paycheck.

[David]

Mark Waid posted the following in the Robot 6 and Comics Alliance comments sections in response to JMS:

To be fair:

I find it absolutely impossible to believe that DC, at any point, offered Alan “anything he wanted” as financial compensation, much less “complete creative freedom.” I’m sure they offered him boatloads of cash and I’m sure they offered him “creative freedom within reason,” but JMS is overstating in order to make a better case for his side. Also, in trying to “balance” the comparisons, JMS forgot to add the qualifier, “Let’s also say that, without getting into whether I was right to believe so or just crazy, I believed to my absolute core that the company who was trying to woo me back to Babylon 5 was a corporation who had (in my opinion) already screwed me repeatedly and who I could never in a million years bring myself to trust to deal fairly and morally with me despite contractual language in my favor.”

None of what I have just said is intended to take sides or to especially bolster Alan’s side or to snipe at JMS…but as someone who was on staff during Watchmen’s original publication and first-hand witness to the many growing problems between Alan and DC, I can tell you that it’s a very thorny, very complex situation in which (IMO) both sides have valid reasons to believe that the other doesn’t deal fairly or sanely. I bring this up only because I bristle at JMS’s assertion that what he offers is a “more accurate” analysis of the overall mess instead of an equally flawed restacking of the deck.

[thefreakytiki]

Is Mark Waid the new Tom Brevoort?  Mind you, much more eloquent than Tommy B. but he still seems to have to comment on everything DC does.  Dude must really dislike people over there.


The Tiki

[RickV]

That is completely understandable considering his history.

[Wood]

I'm not sure which I like more, Waid's writing or Waid's proselytizing.

 

[JimN]

Just because I enjoy mayhem and the slaughtering of sacred cows, I've love it if DC just blew out the Watchmen.

Watchmen Legos (actually....this would be sweet.  Who cares what Alan Moore thinks?)
Partner with Hanes on a line of Rorshach underpants with the black marks on the back.
Partner with Vivid on a XXX parody with the twist that the porno revolves around an Alan Moore look alike trying to stop the filming of the Watchmen movie using the power of his manhood.
Some shitty novels.
A tribute album sung by a bunch of has been artists like Whitesnake.
Pez dispensers
A partnership with McDonalds leading to Watchmen Happy Meals (also legitimately sweet)
A mediocre computer animated cartoon.

Let's just get the whole thing out of our system.  I honestly think I'd enjoy the original 12 issue series MORE if it came wrapped in fewer pretensions. 

LOL! I'd love to see Watchmen Pez dispensers. That idea really amuses me.

[thefreakytiki]

Apparently Kevin Smith was asked to be part of the Watchmen Prequels...

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/02/02/kevin-smith-turned-down-writing-before-watchmen/

When reporting early rumours about Before Watchmen, almost every name I was given turned out to be true – Darwyn Cooke, Brian Azzarello, JMS, Amanda Conner, JG Jones, Andy Kubert, Joe Kubert, Adam Hughes and John Higgins. There was another name that I dismissed as it was denied directly – that of Kevin Smith.

His name did keep popping up however. So I asked him if he’d ever actually been approached to write for Before Watchmen. He told me;

“Talked to Jim [Lee] and Dan [DiDio] about it two years ago. Only passed because I’m not Alan Moore, sadly. If I was Alan Moore, I’d be all over it. As Kevin Smith, I’d likely just make Bubastis “big pussy” jokes and have Rorschach wet himself. Hurm.”

Shame, I think I would have enjoyed Veidt And Silent Bubastis. And as we now know, Len Wein is now writing that title…


the Tiki

[steve bryant]

A couple of nice insights on the pros and cons of this over at Bleeding Cool. I've excerpted a couple of passages I find particularly interesting:

The Contract
Alan Moore definitely argues the ethics behind the original contract he signed with DC Comics over the rights to the publication of Watchmen and V For Vendetta. They allowed the company to publish the work for a reasonable amount of time while it stayed in print. Which allowed for the series, and a possible collection if DC wanted to publish one. At the time, however, no trade paperback of any comic book work had remained in print, and none was expected to. Alongside The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen and V For Vendetta spearheaded that movement in the US market of keeping collections in print. And soon it was decided that this is what would happen, the books would stay in print, DC would control the multi-media rights that went along with that and they were not interested in renegotiating the contract given the new market conditions.

When DVD and the internet came along, Hollywood writers were able to strike in order to get the studios and broadcasters to negotiate rights that would reflect new markets. Alan Moore was not in a union, there is no union that represents comics writers, so he began a one man strike against DC Comics. When Neil Gaiman wanted to negotiate the Sandman deal, DC relented, giving him a controlling share of a previously existing DC trademark. Possibly because they didn’t want a repeat performance. Indeed many creators, including those who will be working on Watchmen 2, have benefited from Moore’s stance.

That they can even work on Watchmen 2 is because DC refused to renegotiate the Watchmen contract back in the day.

The Writer's Union comparison resonated with me, as their industry is in the process of changing models (as comics have with the ascension of the trade paperback and the coming sea change of digital). Additionally, one can't minimize the role that Moore placed in the TPB revolution and the way that others' contract rights benefited from his stance. Great points, and certainly something that one should be aware of when commenting on the issue.

There Are Two People In This Marriage
Watchmen was created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. While the prequelisation may be against Alan Moore’s wishes, it may not necessarily be against Dave Gibbons wishes. And surely they both have the right for their views to be respected? It was this kind of issue, the refusal of Alan Moore for Marvel US to reprint his Captain Britain work after Marvel launched their Marvelman lawsuit that saw his artistic partner Alan Davis, who believed a timely reprint of Captain Britain might help Davis’ burgeoning US career, to break up a partnership that was blossoming. Dave Gibbons hasn’t made his view clear on prequels, though I understand that he’s not objecting to their existence.

I didn't know that Alan Davis and Moore differed about reprinting Captain Britain. Reading the Gibbons' quote about Before Watchmen, and Moore referencing Gibbons phoning him up to ask about prequels/sequels, it looks like Gibbons is on board for this. For those of you keeping score, that's three times that Moore has tried to block the wishes of his collaborators (1963, Captain Britain, and Watchmen).

Read the whole article here:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/02/02/ethics-of-before-watchmen/

[malpractice]

I didn't know that Alan Davis and Moore differed about reprinting Captain Britain. Reading the Gibbons' quote about Before Watchmen, and Moore referencing Gibbons phoning him up to ask about prequels/sequels, it looks like Gibbons is on board for this. For those of you keeping score, that's three times that Moore has tried to block the wishes of his collaborators (1963, Captain Britain, and Watchmen).

So you should just give in to your collaborators wishes all the time regardless of your own views and opinions, or even if it's something you feel is morally wrong ? If you are going to argue that then you need to accept the flip side of that argument which (if i am using your logic) is then Moore's collaborators are constantly blocking his wishes so they are also in the wrong.

Also how has Alan blocked the wishes of Dave Gibbons in any way ?

. Moore and Gibbons disagreed on there being a film of Watchmen, Alan says fine make the film just take my name off of it and give all my money to Dave and never contact me about this matter again. Dave Gibbons wanted the film and the film got made. Both Gibbons and DC broke their part of that agreement by DC using Dave Gibbons as a go between to constantly pester Moore about Watchmen movie related details, etc. but that is another matter.

. Both Dave and Alan were vehemently against prequels, sequels, or anything of that ilk as pertaining to Watchmen from the start. You can read quotes from Dave Gibbons as of 6 months ago which still show that point of view, and his "endorsement" of the prequels in that press release was hardly convincing. Gibbons came off as sounding like a hostage with a gun to his head to me, the fact he isn't participating in the project at all (not even drawing a variant cover or anything of the like) speaks volumes. BUT... even if a month ago Gibbons decided he was cool with prequels of Watchmen, now they are coming out so how has Alan Moore blocked the wishes of Dave Gibbons in any way.

on the topic of Captain Britain

. Alan Moore refused to work for Marvel in any capacity due to the Jack Kirby not getting his art back controversy in the 80's and denied Marvel the right to reprint them, he eventually let them reprint it in issue form in 1995 so Dave Thrope could get royalties for his issues (which he needed at the time). So due to a moral issue he refused but still eventually let them reprint so not as to block their wishes.

[Wood]

So you should just give in to your collaborators wishes all the time regardless of your own views and opinions, or even if it's something you feel is morally wrong ? If you are going to argue that then you need to accept the flip side of that argument which (if i am using your logic) is then Moore's collaborators are constantly blocking his wishes so they are also in the wrong.

Also how has Alan blocked the wishes of Dave Gibbons in any way ?

. Moore and Gibbons disagreed on there being a film of Watchmen, Alan says fine make the film just take my name off of it and give all my money to Dave and never contact me about this matter again. Dave Gibbons wanted the film and the film got made. Both Gibbons and DC broke their part of that agreement by DC using Dave Gibbons as a go between to constantly pester Moore about Watchmen movie related details, etc. but that is another matter.

. Both Dave and Alan were vehemently against prequels, sequels, or anything of that ilk as pertaining to Watchmen from the start. You can read quotes from Dave Gibbons as of 6 months ago which still show that point of view, and his "endorsement" of the prequels in that press release was hardly convincing. Gibbons came off as sounding like a hostage with a gun to his head to me, the fact he isn't participating in the project at all (not even drawing a variant cover or anything of the like) speaks volumes. BUT... even if a month ago Gibbons decided he was cool with prequels of Watchmen, now they are coming out so how has Alan Moore blocked the wishes of Dave Gibbons in any way.

on the topic of Captain Britain

. Alan Moore refused to work for Marvel in any capacity due to the Jack Kirby not getting his art back controversy in the 80's and denied Marvel the right to reprint them, he eventually let them reprint it in issue form in 1995 so Dave Thrope could get royalties for his issues (which he needed at the time). So due to a moral issue he refused but still eventually let them reprint so not as to block their wishes.

PULPIT!

TESTIFY!