Watchmen Prequels - It's Official

[Wood]

Or this:

I would buy every copy of that I could get my hands on, and slab them at CGC. 

[JimN]

Watchmen was a singular, one-time only type deal.  Moore couldn't use the actual characters so he made analogues.  That served their purpose for that story.  The argument could be made that it's a more personal story because he (and Gibbons) thought it was going to be theirs to keep at the end of the day.

Fantastic Four and Superman were created for publishers that are interested in telling as many stories as possible with these characters.

Watchmen was created for one of those publishers too, as were the Charlton characters Watchmen's analogs were based upon.  

I understand your point and Watchmen was obviously intended to be a stand-alone work but it's based squarely within the same superhero tradition as FF and Superman and makes plenty of allusions to the earlier adventures of it's characters. The door to tell stories set before Watchmen has always been wide open and it was only a matter of time before someone walked through it. Hopefully, the creators involved will tell good, entertaining stories and with luck, maybe some of them will create something great. Even if they don't, there's no real harm done. Watchmen's legacy is secure and nobody is obligated to give prequels or sequels a second thought if they aren't interested.

Not to mention the PREQUEL for all the characters is already embedded into the main story. Chapter 4 is the Doctor Manhattan lifetime story, Walter's entire deal is explained while he is in jail, Comedians is told during the funeral Laurie's on Mars, The Minutemen in the excerpt of Under the Hood.

There is NOTHING TO EVEN TELL.

Of course there is. The lives of those characters aren't covered in such depth that stories can't be placed within the context of what Moore and Gibbons revealed in Watchmen. As I just said in reply to David, there are even allusions to untold stories in Watchmen.

It is like people clamoring for a Blade Runner sequel so scenes like these "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die." Can be shown on film.

Don't you think there's potential for a good film in that little monologue? I do. That story obviously doesn't need to be told but if it was told, and told well, why would that be problematic?

Mystery is good, Ambiguity is good, George Lucas already has shown everyone what happens when you reveal all the mysteries of your universe. NOTHING GOOD.

You don't have to reveal all the mysteries of a universe to tell a damn good story. I'm not a big fan of sequels and prequels in general but sometimes they're good. Heck, sometimes they're great.

[David]

I would buy every copy of that I could get my hands on, and slab them at CGC.

 

I hope Kirkman's not the writer for that because those faces aren't too Liefeld-y.

[Julian Lytle]

LOL! Good point, Julian.

What book is that? I missed something!

THE PRINCE OF CATS HC
Writer/Artist: Ronald Wimberly
Original graphic novel
$22.99 US, 144 pg

[RickV]

But that doesn't seem very interesting at all. That is part of my point the original 12 issues hits the highlights so out of the gate these books are doing the best they can with the other things the characters may have done.

It seems even less relevant and without point when described like that.


Also speaking of the Fantastic Four Marvel did it 12 years ago

[Jay Tomio - Part Deux]

The Lucas prequel bit doesn't hold up. The prequels made and continue to make helluva paper, and if anyone thinks original anything was made for any other reason it's hard to have a discussion.

Nobody here would have NOT done something similar for that bottom line. If DC gets that bottom line = win.

[Cammy]

I was definitely one of those fans calling 'blasphemy!', but with these creative teams, you gotta come to the reasonable assumption that none of these writers or artists want to do a bad job on something already so controversial. They're going to be giving their series 110%, because they don't want to be known as "That guy/gal who fucked-up Watchmen". They're putting their careers on the line; that's fuckin' ballsy, and I look forward to it now with high hopes.

Also, it'll be a goddamn crime if DC doesn't give Francesco Francavilla one of those Rorschach covers.

[LA Rabbit]

We have to assume they wouldn't be made unless the scripts were at least good.

Karma to you but I am going to have to disagree. It seems like often times things are pushed out the door for a variety of reasons, and the quality of the script is but one. I think they would take "popular" over "good" every single time. Plenty of critical darlings get canned because of bad sales.

Now, I hoping that DC has at least the first issues of each of these in the can already as I think delays could really hurt them but this announcement seems more about media management than comic books which makes me think it could be premature.

I appreciate they are trying to dominate the news cycle in a positive fashion and this is probably to counter the stream of discussion regarding how sales levels on the new 52 are dropping. Lets be honest, there really isn't that much news¹ about comics to justify the volume of websites and chatter it generates. On most of those cites at least one feature recently has been that the sales levels on the new 52 are dropping.

We have a niche hobby, and until digital takes off, DC and Marvel have only a few thousand² real customers, and those are the comic book store owners.  Because of the pre-order system, DC can't let its customers get spooked about doubling down on the second wave of new 52, so they need to move those stories to the back pages of the websites so it is not on the minds of the LCS owners putting in orders for the new 52. They want LCS owners all aglow with thoughts of how a fresh wave of #1's is going to pack their stores.  This Watchmen announcement will effectively bump the "sales levels dropping" stories. Good move by DC.

DC ain't no dummies, so they probably had a few plans on how to do the rollout. Best case would be the titles are famously popular and we return to the glory days of sales numbers. I don't think anyone thought this would happen.  2nd best plan is digital blew up and they have two great outlets for sales (Diamond and digital). More options is more flexibility. 3rd plan is stretch this out until digital gets some legs under it.  So that means they would need to plan successive events to keep boosting sales.  They need to stagger announcements to counter the news cycle. They probably could guess that some titles would fail, so they set up the wave to replace those.  Each successive wave is likely to have less sales (if recent sales trends holds, reboot does boost sales but it is diminishing returns), so mix in this Watchman business.  Either DC can find some trick to get and retain readers in better numbers or at a minimum they can help transition to a new distribution model (some combination of paper and digital) that will lead to more money.

Back to my original idea in that I don't know that this is necessarily about good scripts so much as sales.       

¹I use the term warily because I recognize it is mostly editorial chatter, press releases and bloviating by people like ME.
²I have heard estimates of 2,000 to 3,000 but does anyone have a good citation?
^EndnotesIf you make it through this, you deserve Karma

[ValorPhoeniX]

Also speaking of the Fantastic Four Marvel did it 12 years ago

im genuinely interested in reading this, was it any good?

[RickV]

I haven't read it was mentioned on twitter by someone in jest.

[Rustyautoparts (Russ Otto)]

I think the real tragedy here is that the talent involved has probably been roped into this with some impressive paydays to be expected. Meanwhile, most of them ought to be workIng on their own ideas (or, if the MUST use established characters, use those marvel and DC characters that are open for continued exploitation and reinterpretation)

Ex: Imagine the great original work that Cook WON'T make because he's working on this.

OR

Imagine all the great original work Cooke WILL do once he has that big phat check coming in. Doing lucrative work for the Big 2 allows creators to afford spending time on personal projects, like Brubaker and Criminal. Joe Casey wouldn't have time to do half the crazy shit he does if he wasn't rolling in that sweet animation dough.

[RickV]

Those peoples for hire work though is mostly Forward moving and not positioned directly before a pre existing story in which they have to tell their story around. Major difference.

[erikh42]

Man I would kill to read the JT Krul Watchmen Prequel. Why do you taunt me with what will never come to pass.


Like this:

Simply Awesome.

[Scotchlander]

Leah Moore comments...

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/02/01/leah-moore-on-before-watchmen/

[JimN]

But that doesn't seem very interesting at all. That is part of my point the original 12 issues hits the highlights so out of the gate these books are doing the best they can with the other things the characters may have done.

It seems even less relevant and without point when described like that.

So don't describe it like that. Pry your mind open a little and realize that these writers and artists probably aren't approaching it from the narrow point of view you are. They probably aren't saying "Well, Moore and Gibbons hit all the highlights of these caharcters lives so there's no way we're going to find anything meaningful to say or do with them".  Somehow, I think characters like Rorscach and the Comedian probably had at least one or two experiences in their lives that weren't covered in Watchmen that might make for interesting reading.  Moore and Gibbons found something interesting to say with pre-existing characters and many comics creators have done likewise over the years. Perhaps some of the creators working on these books can do the same.

Jim

[JimN]

THE PRINCE OF CATS HC
Writer/Artist: Ronald Wimberly
Original graphic novel
$22.99 US, 144 pg

Cool! Congrats to your friend.

[David]

From Eric Stephenson's blog:

LADDER'S BOTTOM RUNG

Everyone has known this was coming for a while, but that doesn't make the news of DC's "Before Watchmen" comics any less disgusting.

There are some really talented people involved in these books: Darwyn Cooke is one of my all-time favorite storytellers; Amanda Conner, Adam Hughes and J.G. Jones are artists whose work I've admired for years; Brian Azzarello's a wonderful writer and his 100 Bullets is a genuine classic. Len Wein? He co-created Swamp Thing and a good chunk of the X-Men most people know and love. (Namely Wolverine, Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler.)

I would rather see any of them do something new than engage in the kind of hard graft DC has conscripted them for with these books. Or as Alan Moore's daughter Leah put it on Twitter:

"Why not do NEW ogn's (sic) from the Before Watchmen creators, or better yet fresh talent. Use the budget to find the *next* watchmen instead?"

Alan Moore gets a lot of stick from various quarters for having principals. Certain people like to couch that in different, less flattering terms – he's crazy, he's lost it, he's an asshole – but at the end of the day, he's making a stand based on what he thinks is fair and right. Whether you agree with his position or not, I have to think you'd be able to admire his tenacity. It would have been far easier for him, at any point, to simply accept the DC/Warner Bros. agenda and just pocket the cash.

In the final estimation, it's really just more of the same. This is what they do. I'm sure it will be perfectly serviceable fan fiction.

Source.

[Farrell]

Does Alan Moore kidnap these principals from local schools and keep them in his basement?  Protecting the youth of England from their pernicious discipline and standards of "education?"  I knew Moore looked sinister, but I had no idea it was this bad.

[Wood]

Does Alan Moore kidnap these principals from local schools and keep them in his basement?  Protecting the youth of England from their pernicious discipline and standards of "education?"  I knew Moore looked sinister, but I had no idea it was this bad.

That is scary stuff: http://bullpenbulletinspodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=9083.msg209821#msg209821

 

[Farrell]

That is scary stuff: http://bullpenbulletinspodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=9083.msg209821#msg209821

 

Ha!  Good memory.