Watchmen Prequels - It's Official

[JimN]

I think it goes further than having a problem with the comics. It goes behind to the decisions of the company and the people who choose to support those decisions. That is what people have a problem with more often than not, it isn't that these books may be terrible or may be mediocre or may be great.

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/02/weve-come-so-far-on-before-watchmen-and-creators-rights/

http://supervillain.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/this-is-a-collaborative-medium/

This goes far beyond the surface level of whether or not the books are any good.

Sure, it's become a platform for people to rant about whatever related issues mean something to them, sometimes while dismissing comics that haven't even been published yet. I'm all for creator's rights but the creator's rights issues surrounding Watchmen are old, old news, a battle that was fought and lost. I find Sean Witzke's assertion that Before Watchmen is a retaliatory effort against Moore a real stretch, although he's probably right in calling it a cash grab. Big deal. So are most of the comics published by the big 2. As a consumer, I don't see these prequels much differently than Batman or Spider-man comics. I can buy them, ignore them, whatever... they're more entertainment product. Frankly, Watchmen was too. Sometimes this stuff is great, sometimes it's not but it bugs me when someone writes " ...the people who work on marvel and dc comics have almost entirely been shown to be people who’d rather make their mortgage payment than actually care about the morality of what they are doing." Give me a break. Not only is that painting with far too broad of a brush but the vast, vast majority of comics have been created by people trying to "make their mortgage payments" and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing inherently immoral about DC launching a series of prequels to Watchmen a quarter century or so after it's creation either. They have the legal right to do so and the idea that it's immoral for them to follow up on a revered work just doesn't hold water with me. Can it be viewed as disrespectful to the creators of the original work? Sure, if you want to view that way but Watchmen wasn't exactly pure, non-commercial art for art's sake in the first place, was it? It was a commercial enterprise from the very start.

I think Witzke is much closer to the mark when he writes:

They have had the right to do this for years and did not, and doing it now, in the way they are doing it should tell everyone exactly what Time Warner thinks about creators rights.

However, I don't think it tells us what they think of creator's rights, I think it tells us what they think of letting potentially valuable characters languish on the sidelines out of respect to creator's wishes. The rights are no longer in question or this project wouldn't be happening.

I'd love to see everyone who really cares about creator's rights in comics throw their support behind creator-owned comics. Some already do but enough did, and eschewed corporate-owned comics and characters in the process, we might see an actual sea change in the industry. However, people love their Batman comics and there's nothing wrong with that, nothing immoral about reading, publishing or working on them. There's nothing immoral about publishing or working on a Nite Owl comic either.

Jim

[steve bryant]

... probably right in calling it a cash grab. Big deal. So are most of the comics published by the big 2...

"Most?"     

I'd love to see everyone who really cares about creator's rights in comics throw their support behind creator-owned comics. Some already do but [if] enough did, and eschewed corporate-owned comics and characters in the process, we might see an actual sea change in the industry. However, people love their Batman comics and there's nothing wrong with that, nothing immoral about reading, publishing or working on them. There's nothing immoral about publishing or working on a Nite Owl comic either.

 

[RickV]

You make a great point and very articulately but I guess this like taste in art or writing comes back to a personal stance, there is always that straw that breaks the camels back and I guess for a lot of people it happened to line up that this was that straw.

I don't begrudge anyone for their purchasing decisions but I guess the best case scenario is that this catapults the real issues to peoples minds so using the information they can make it up for themselves.

The other positive from this is the conversations surrounding this while being very circular have none the less been fascinating.

[Jay Tomio - Part Deux]

So are most of the comics published by the big 2

All comics that are for sale period, otherwise they'd be free. That the big  2 are more successful at it and get returns doesn't change the motivation. Nobody is putting shit out their as a favor to anyone.

[RickV]

I think however you can make distinctions for the reasons something existing. Everything being sold doesn't mean that everything has the same value culturally creatively or aesthetically.

[S. Earl]

Ugh, I am not looking forward to having all this rehashed again with the next months worth of the podcasts I listen to.

[JimN]

All comics that are for sale period, otherwise they'd be free. That the big  2 are more successful at it and get returns doesn't change the motivation. Nobody is putting shit out their as a favor to anyone.

I don't think every commercial comics endeavor qualifies as a "cash grab" (at least not as I understand the term) but obviously, anyone selling comics is hoping to make some money.

[JimN]

You make a great point and very articulately but I guess this like taste in art or writing comes back to a personal stance, there is always that straw that breaks the camels back and I guess for a lot of people it happened to line up that this was that straw.

Yes, and it's because it involves something they're passionate about. People tend to become far more concerned with creator's rights when the issue impacts something they love.

I don't begrudge anyone for their purchasing decisions but I guess the best case scenario is that this catapults the real issues to peoples minds so using the information they can make it up for themselves.

The other positive from this is the conversations surrounding this while being very circular have none the less been fascinating.

There have definitely been some good issues raised and discussed!

[Hassan T]

Also it is strangely lacking any of the big 3 people at DC which is very strange and at least to me shows a lack of confidence in this going over well so they threw it to people they could sacrifice.

I think you are reading too much into the "lack" of involvement of Lee, Didio, and Johns. Lee? He is already busy with the flagship new 52 title. There is no way he can be involved from a creative standpoint on this project. That said, I am sure that there will be variant covers and wouldn't be surprised if Jim Lee drew one. Didio?  While people liked Didio's Omac, majority of the team, most readers consider him an average writer. There is no way he could put himself on this event without fan outcry. Johns? Again, he is already super busy with THREE new 52 titles and Batman Earth One. He is also working on stuff outside comics. Plus, I don't think he would be strong fit for the Watchmen universe. Another thing was that DC sold the new 52 with Lee and Johns as their star players. If they want to sell "Before Watchmen", it would be best if they didn't use the same formula (i.e. main creators involved with the new 52).

[thefreakytiki]

Ugh, I am not looking forward to having all this rehashed again with the next months worth of the podcasts I listen to.

I concur.  


the Tiki

[RickV]

Ugh, I am not looking forward to having all this rehashed again with the next months worth of the podcasts I listen to.

Looking less forward to the 36 weeks when all everyone will be doing is dissecting each issue.

However the DC panels at all the major conventions from this point forward should be HILARIOUS.

[Glassford]

http://ourvaluedcustomers.blogspot.com/2012/02/to-her-boyfriend.html

Something tells me a lot of people feel like this girl... (check the link)

[malpractice]

My point is that approving or disapproving of these comics is one thing but IF someone were to say "I'm never reading a Darwyn Cooke or Amanda Connor comic again because they worked on Before Watchmen", I'd consider that childish. YMMV.

i guess i am childish then because i am not supporting any of those fucking scabs ever again.

I read that iFanboy piece and i used to stick up for those guys but never again. That article was everything that's wrong with comics "punditry". you are supposed to be critics, act like it!

[JimN]

i guess i am childish then because i am not supporting any of those fucking scabs ever again.

Yes... that seems pretty childish to me.

It's not like they're crossing a picket line. They're working on corporate-controlled superhero characters, just like so many other comics creators (include Gibbons and Moore) have done over the decades.

You're obviously entitled to feel whatever you want about this but it seems like a tempest in a teapot to me. I can't get any more upset about new Rorscach stories than I can about new Dracula stories or more Oz stories. I'd rather hope something good comes out of it than angrily condemn everyone involved.

Jim

[Alec B.]

the two articles to read:

http://4thletter.net/2012/02/newsarama-needs-to-do-better/

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/02/weve-come-so-far-on-before-watchmen-and-creators-rights/#more-105188

[Alec B.]

I'm going to sit in the cynics camp for this argument as well.

DC legally has every right to make this move, and I'm sure it'll make them more money than I'll ever personally make. That's cool. I won't even argue DC fucked over Alan Moore. I'm not subscribing to any thought that they slid their hands together and giggled as they signed the original deal. if anything, Moore thought Watchmen would be his after a year, and DC would have contractually given it to him if the book would have gone out of print. The drive of capitalism kept the book in print, though, so DC kept to their side of the deal. Moore's smart enough to have possibly thought of such an outcome.

No, my beef is purely with what I think this announcement says about comics at this point. It shows that the industry has come as far to no longer honor anything. Nothing remains sacred. Not that anything has ever been sacred in comics. Ideas have been exploited for decades, but it seemed that even past that Comics had a little class to recognize and protect a few, specific ideas and works. Before Watchmen says that Comics has moved past that. There's no longer any honor, not even a %. Instead, everything's for sale, and comics is now entirely an industry rather than partially being one. In my eyes, at least.

I know. It's cynical. it's a childish stand to take, and I'm sure most will laugh as they read this post, but I honestly felt a bit sick when I read this thread because it even cemented the idea a little more in my head. No one cares anymore. Instead, everyone wants what they want at the end of the day. They want more Watchmen. They want sales. They want Darwyn Cooke. And it'll all be justified any way possible.

And don't even give me the argument that "comics are all about exploitation." Yeah, that's true, but I find it very sad when people seem to just except that idea rather than want to change it. Before Watchmen is just another mark in the long history of exploitation comics holds. And not just creator exploitation, but idea exploitation. Moore's right when he says DC is running off his ideas from 25 years ago. Before Watchmen is completely derivative of something he made. And, yeah, he did make it. Sure, it's inspired by Charlton, but I think Watchmen's finished product stands so far from Charlton it's its own idea.

And Moore's not a hypocrite. Chris Mautner says it well:

"And the fact that Moore has frequently drawn upon classic literary material in works like Lost Girls and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is also irrelevant (although let me make an aside here to say that there’s a big difference between building a pastiche using familiar characters and motifs to create something new and original, and rehashing familiar material to make a quick and cynical cash grab)." http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/02/weve-come-so-far-on-before-watchmen-and-creators-rights/#more-105188

Basically, I feel Before Watchmen has taken Comics over the edge. The mainstream side of things has been dying away in my eyes for months now, and this has managed to kill it completely. It's simply not a matter of "should they or shouldn't" or even Watchmen itself. Instead, this is about something larger. Is Comic just enough cog in capitalism's machine or is it the special, intimate, thoughtful industry we've all made it out to be? Before Watchmen surely says cog.

[JimN]

I'm going to sit in the cynics camp for this argument as well.

DC legally has every right to make this move, and I'm sure it'll make them more money than I'll ever personally make. That's cool. I won't even argue DC fucked over Alan Moore. I'm not subscribing to any thought that they slid their hands together and giggled as they signed the original deal. if anything, Moore thought Watchmen would be his after a year, and DC would have contractually given it to him if the book would have gone out of print. The drive of capitalism kept the book in print, though, so DC kept to their side of the deal. Moore's smart enough to have possibly thought of such an outcome.

No, my beef is purely with what I think this announcement says about comics at this point. It shows that the industry has come as far to no longer honor anything. Nothing remains sacred. Not that anything has ever been sacred in comics. Ideas have been exploited for decades, but it seemed that even past that Comics had a little class to recognize and protect a few, specific ideas and works. Before Watchmen says that Comics has moved past that.

I think it needs to be said that "Comics" doesn't exist as you're referring to it above. There is no entity, corporate or otherwise, known as "Comics". As you know, it's an industry. This isn't about "Comics" or creators, it's about DC Comics and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Your post was articulate and revealing and thanks for that. I think it's helped me understand the level of outrage over this announcement a little better. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems this has burst a few bubbles. I gave up the idea that companies like Marvel and DC were the kind of "we're all in this together" entities Stan Lee made Marvel out to be back in his '60s and '70s editorials a long time ago. I had no bubble for this Before Watchmen announcement to burst and I accepted long ago that Moore and Gibbons had lost these rights under a bad contract and that, sooner or later, the cast of Watchmen would be in comics created by others.

There's no longer any honor, not even a %. Instead, everything's for sale, and comics is now entirely an industry rather than partially being one. In my eyes, at least.

I know. It's cynical. it's a childish stand to take, and I'm sure most will laugh as they read this post, but I honestly felt a bit sick when I read this thread because it even cemented the idea a little more in my head. No one cares anymore. Instead, everyone wants what they want at the end of the day. They want more Watchmen. They want sales. They want Darwyn Cooke. And it'll all be justified any way possible.

Hell yes, I want more Darwyn Cooke. I think he does great work.

I can't speak for anyone else but I don't consider myself willing to justify this move "in any way" and I'm not exactly a poster child for the current reader of corporately controlled comics. I buy very little other than creator-owned comics and dabble in the rest only when curiosity, nostalgia or admiration for a particular creator pull me back in. Maybe, in my own way, I actually have the more cynical point of view. This announcement doesn't upset me because I saw it as inevitable, especially after the movie was made and the various re-packagings and new editions were released. DC has been milking this cash cow for a long time already and it's been decades since I harbored any illusions about the mercenary nature of the comics business particularly the mainstream superhero side of it. Watchmen falls firmly into that mainstream superhero world of comics. It's a superb work, one of my all-time favorites, but it was based on superhero comics, created for a major American superhero comics publisher, commented on superhero comics (among other things) and once those rights were retained by DC, inevitably headed toward this destination. It's in the tradition of Batman, Superman, etc. and now the characters will share a similar fate.

And don't even give me the argument that "comics are all about exploitation." Yeah, that's true, but I find it very sad when people seem to just except that idea rather than want to change it.

I'd love to see it change but I don't see this having much to do with change. It's an old fight that's already been lost. The front has moved elsewhere and anyone who wants to support the battle for creator's rights should do so by supporting creator-owned comics. If they feel so strongly about it that they no longer want to support companies like Marvel and DC, that's a fair stance too, although I think there should be room in the comics world for both creator-owned and corporately-owned comics.

Basically, I feel Before Watchmen has taken Comics over the edge. The mainstream side of things has been dying away in my eyes for months now, and this has managed to kill it completely. It's simply not a matter of "should they or shouldn't" or even Watchmen itself. Instead, this is about something larger. Is Comic just enough cog in capitalism's machine or is it the special, intimate, thoughtful industry we've all made it out to be?

It's both but that intimate, thoughtful side of it has rarely, if ever, been found at the corporate level.

I sympathize with anybody who has had their illusions about comics shattered by this announcement. I really do. It's not a fun experience.

Jim

[steve bryant]

I understand where malpractice and Alec B. are coming from, but Before Watchmen doesn't change anything for me. In the time that I've been paying attention to how things work (the last 25 years or so), here are a few things I've seen:

• Marvel screwing one of the three tentpoles of their company, Jack Kirby (a genuine architect)
• Comico listing the Rocketeer as one of their assets when they went belly-up (they didn't own it), throwing the situation into years of litigation and delaying Dave Stevens' work on the book significantly.
• the realization that Watchmen would never go out of print and that DC would own it forever (this realization occurred for many of us in the early 90s)
• First Comics' bizarre "ownership" of creator-owned titles Nexus, Badger, Grimjack and possibly others, and the hoops the creators had to jump through to finally get their creations back years after the company folded.
• Todd McFarlane buying Eclipse IPs, possibly including creator-owned properties as Miracleman (Marvelman) and Scout. Or not owning them. And all the attached lawsuits.
• Marvel suing over the name Marvelman.
• Marvel filing a nusiance suit over the name the Rocketeer because they once published a short story called The 3 Rocketeers, even though they never did anything with the characters and never trademarked the word Rocketeer, in an effort to bully a creator without corporate muscle behind him.
• Jim Shooter getting squeezed out of Valiant Comics.
• Marvel buying Heroes World Distributing, and setting the entire industry down the path where we now only have one significant distributor instead of three or four.
• Seeing a friend design a couple of robots for a board game...the designs went on to appear in video games, an animated series, and in toys. After the thousands and thousands of dollars it generated, he received a copy of each toy as compensation. (To his credit, he never once bitched about the situation and isn't bitter, but as a bystander, I thought, "What a shitty thing to do.")
• Alan Moore blocking his collaborators, Rick Veitch and Steve Bissette, from collecting their series 1963.

Additionally, I learned about some of the stuff that happened before I was paying attention, Seigel and Schuster's battle with DC, Bob Kane screwing over every one of his collaborators, DC firing their longtime freelance writers when they asked for healthcare benefits and replacing them with untested talent...

What I'm getting at is that if this is your tipping point, that's fine. I understand it. I can relate to what you're going through. But for me, this happened long ago. I went through a cynical period and came out of it. I like to think of myself as an optimistic pragmatist.  Or maybe a pragmatic optimist.

DC is no different today than it was a week ago, before this project was announced. They're no different than they were two years ago when this project started. Or three years ago when the Watchmen movie was released. Or 20 years ago when we realized that Watchmen wasn't going to go out of print and that Moore and Gibbons weren't going to ever get the IP back.

I don't see Cooke, Connor, JMS, Joe or Andy Kubert, or anyone else working on this as scabs. If you do, however, bear in mind that Moore lost this battle 20 years ago, and that everyone who has worked at DC over the last 20 years probably qualifies as a scab, as well. I can't view it in such black-and-white terms.

DC Comics is no less creative today than it was before this announcement. They're still the home of Vertigo, an imprint that produces several of the most engaging creator-owned and creator-shared properties in comics history.

And they're really no less reverent than they were before, either. I'm sure there was a corporate edict that came down to exploit this material, and DiDio, Lee and Johns lined up the best available talent for the gig. Bear in mind, everything being produced is in prequel form, not following up the ending of Watchmen. They're merely filling in the blanks, not determining what came next.

Comics, as a medium, are no less creative than they were a week ago, two years ago, three years ago, or twenty years ago, simply because a corporation did what it does. Comics remain an exciting and vital storytelling medium. Like JimN said, if this treatment of creators truly bothers you, throw your support behind creator-owned comics. Image, Dark Horse,  IDW and a number of publishers in the back of the catalog publish a terrific variety of genres. In fact, you can drop hundreds of dollars a month on some truly amazing books without spending a dime on a single Big 2 book.

[Ryan 'gobo' C.]

Amen Steve! Karma.

[steve bryant]

Excerpts from various comics news sites, circa 2042

From Bleeding Rage, 2-3-42

Edward Moore-Reppion's lawsuit against DC Entertainment International is sure to split comics fandom in half. Moore-Reppion, whose grandfather, Alan Moore, created DC's wildly successful Watchmen franchise, is taking advantage of the continually changing US copyright law.

My sources tell me that new evidence cites that Moore signed his contract with DC Comics (as they were known last century) under great pressure from collaborator Dave Gibbons. A few sources have emailed me with evidence that Gibbons was paid 30 pieces of silver to secure Moore's compliance.

Remember, Little Ragers, Alan Moore died for your sins.

From RamaNews, 2-4-42

Edward Moore-Reppion's suit against DC opens up old wounds, with countless old school fans decrying the loss of creator-owned comics. Now that comics have been reduced to only two publishers, comics are better than ever, reflecting the variety of tastes of fandom. And publishing works better, too, now that all the extraneous debris is gone—much like the 2-party system in American politics or Coke vs Pepsi.

Now the main contention that Moore-Reppion cites is that his grandfather created the Watchmen. No one is disputing that, but what about the hundreds of creators who contributed to the Watchmen universe since then? Moore-Reppion can't possibly claim that his grandfather had any hand in the following, all of which were published more than 25 years after Moore's involvement with Watchmen concluded:

• Raken, Rorschach's mutant son
• R-23, the female clone of Rorschach
• Anti-Rorschach
• Mega-Rorschach
• Hootie, the Golden Age sidekick of Night Owl who died diffusing a bomb
• The Night Soldier, the identity that Hootie assumed after being presumed dead and reprogrammed by Al Queda
• Mary Manhatten
• Kid Manhatten
• Bronxo, the atomic dog
• Dr. Manhatten's Long Island of Solitude
• the Ozymandias Corps
• Stockings of Prey, starring Silk Spectre with analogue Nightshade
• The Comedian and his Agents of C.O.M.E.D.Y.
• Crisis on Earth W
• Countdown to Five Minutes to Midnight
• Secret Watchmen
• Secret Minutemen
• Curse of the Black Freighter
• The Black Freighter: At World's End
• Deadline: The New Frontiersman

From The Beating, 2-6-42

The Beating is very conflicted about the lawsuit between Edward Moore-Reppion and DC Entertainment International. The Beating used to enjoy a hot cup of chai tea with Leah Moore, Edward's mother. But The Beating has been known to share a nosh with many of the creators and editors who have contributed to the Watchmen mythos in the years since Alan Moore completed his work.

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I'm just having a little fun with satire here. I actually enjoy the three sites I'm poking fun at, and visit them frequently.