Like you didn't know this Bun Toon was coming...
If you’ve been on the internet in the last few days, you know that fandom collected has their matching Underoos in a bunch over DC’s announcement that they are, in fact, FINALLY doing the WATCHMEN prequels they’ve been threatening for over a decade. I could say that responses have been mixed, but they seem to be mixed between complete revulsion and utter disgust.
I know what’s frightening people. The WATCHMEN was a brilliant satire that deconstructed the comic book forever, and people are worried these prequels are going to be just comic books. They won’t be epoch-making once-in-a-lifetime experiences that will mark everything before and after. They’ll simply be the work of folks doing their best and falling short of shocking genius.
So what?
Ty the Guy OUT!
Here now, your BONUS Watchmen-in-the-hands-of-others MOMENT.
See? And this turned out just fine.
And who could argue against this steaming pile of quality?
Okay….here’s the ACTUAL “Before Watchmen”
I mean, FUCK Ditko. What did he ever do for comics?
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GHA! I hated that movie. I thought maybe it was just my love for the book, but Peachy was basically turning to me every five minutes telling me the movie sucked… which she’s only ever done for Transformers 2. It’s still a couple hours of my life I wish I could have back.
I will hear NO bad comments about that film! It was TOWERING genius–especially where Rorschach attacks people with an axe!
Oh, no doubt that Nite Owl’s slow motion spin kicks are the stuff of great cinema.
And you get to see Silk Spectre’s tits!
HAH! I did not! I saw it at one of those theaters that censors nudie scenes!
She was a pretty wooden actress though, so it may have been like seeing a robot’s private parts…
Wonderful stuff, nice one Ty! There’s nothing like a demon from the dimension of Northampton …
Urm, I’d actually consider buying a comic about Ozy’s mutant cat-thing… And that’s what we should call it… Ozy’s Mutant Cat-Thing Adventures.
i liked the film and I loved the original comic, and you know what I am sure that the” prequels” will be just fine.
I love comic books but I kind of do not love fanboys… they skieve me out big time with their inanity.
You take was funny Ty. : )
You, sir, are a mad genius.
that Ditko line cracked me up. I want the new books to be good, and I’ll give them a fair chance, but I’m not looking for something as groundbreaking as the original; just something that expands upon it.
“fanboys” should just be thankful that DC didn’t incorporate the Watchmen Universe into the New 52. Rorschach would totally drop the Joker down an elevator shaft.
Ditko designed Spider-man, and pretty much defined his appearance for the next infinity. More importantly, however, he invented Squirrel Girl, and for that I am forever thankful.
Nice. I think this sums up precisely how I’m feeling about the whole thing. EVERYBODY is overreacting. It’s just comics.
“It’s just comics.”
Then why did you bother to post?
I want that Ditko book!
I loved the comics [not so much the ending but everything up until then]. I enjoyed the film [though much of the back story was pared down in order to fit the film’s length] and thought the ending was brilliant. I thought the motion comics were kinda cool as well. I suspect the prequels will all vary in quality depending on how well each creative team does.
LOVED the Watchmen, LOVED the movie. My question is this; will the Comedian/Marilyn Monroe rape be a stand-alone issue with “…DC Comics Presents a Very Special Watchmen Prequel Comic” on the cover.
Well…will it?
One other question: Will the Comedian/Captain Metropolis rape be a stand-alone issue with “…DC Comics Presents a Very Special Watchmen Prequel Comic” on the cover.
Well…will it?
Oh, please. Like there’s anything “special” about rape in a DC Comic.
They should just call their Johnny DC imprint “Rape Free” and “Rape Lite.”
Watchmen? Never heard of ’em…
Cheers!
Steven Willis
XOWComics.com
Was that a homage to Quartermass in the last panel?
BTW everyone is forgetting that if the prequels are successful ten or twenty years down the road we could finally see sequels like Dr Manhattan Comes Home or what happened to the astronauts after they cleaned up the broken glass on Mars. Finally Watchmen Babies starring the kids of silk Spectre and Nite-Owl (or given history Ozymandias). Rorshach on Lithium and Zanacs? Order up at the Gunga Diner!
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This is full of wonderful wonderfulness. Thank you.
I HAD to watch the Watchmen on the big screen, had to! I couldn’t possibly miss the “Transformers, revenge of the fallen” trailer premiere, could I?
Seriously, I’ll buy anything that Jae Lee draws, so I’m not even bothering to get outraged about this. I mean, OK, I get it, sacred source material. But it’s not like they’ve handed it to a bunch of hacks — these are some of the best and brightest.
Hi Ty,
I bought up the subject of the Watchmen prequels to my SVA class. Most of them seemed opposed to it. The main thrust of their objection was that the Watchmen graphic novel was a high-water comic book work that should not be messed with.
Playing devil’s advocate, I –
-Reminded them that Watchmen series was a reworking of the Charlton stable of characters. Were the creators of those characters consulted about the revisions that Moore made? I doubt it. In particular Steve Ditko, creator of The Question, would not approve of the Rorschach incarnation of his character. Outside of Kirby, you can’t find a much more iconic comics artist/creator in American comics than Ditko.
– Suggested that, if the prequels are not very good, they will just reinforce how special the first Watchmen creative work was. It the prequels are great, then it proves that Moore and Gibbons spawned something that had great “legs” and depth to it.
– Also asked the students what would happen if DC called them up to work on one of the Watchmen prequels.
Logic SEEMED to make an impact on the students, but there is a strong gut level distaste for the concept of Watchmen prequels that no amount of reasoning or logic will totally dispel. If I was in Moore’s place, I might feel ticked off too, even if I knew I didn’t have an ethical or legal leg to stand on.
Carl
But the movie didn’t turn out just fine. It was a ridiculous thing in which, more than once, they portrayed dialogue from the original comic, then did it again, rewriting and shooting additional dialogue that said the exact same thing, only using different words. The people who made it had no clue how to deal with the nuances of the story they’d been given and produced something fairly unenjoyable as a result.
Sometimes those who love a great work have a legitimate point when they ask that it simply be left alone to be enjoyed. It’s unpleasant to see a good story ruined, particularly in the name of milking an idea and its original fans for cash. It’s even worse when that money could be going to new ideas and artists who might leave behind new great stories for people to love, instead of sullying those already in existence. I’d much rather see companies like DC take risks and promote new talent that we might love than create unnecessary detritus which we know that we won’t.
Ty’s being facetious about the movie.
It still surprises me that trough all these years nobody though about publishing the Watchmen saga redone with the actual Charlton characters. That would really be like to fuck Ditko. Yeah, the Ozymandias book looks really promising, I´ll buy it and drop dead…
“Sometimes those who love a great work have a legitimate point when they ask that it simply be left alone to be enjoyed.”
This is interesting, though, isn’t it? No one’s actually making threats about changing the WM books. I mean, there’s a fundamental question about whether it’s even *possible* to retroactively influence that work (without actually changing it, digital Jabba, I’m looking in your direction). I’d raise the possibility that these prequels literally *can’t* change what the core WM work actually is. In some trivial sense, that’s obviously the case — the book is the book.
So I get the point — I mean, I’ve seen Attack of the Clones — but I don’t know if what we’re talking about here is really the threat that we’re making it out to be.
And that’s without acknowledging that Azzarello and Straczynski are actually quite good at their jobs. Like, stipulate for the moment that those two (and Lee, and everyone else slated to work on these books) are hacks unworthy of any benefit of any doubt. Accept that as a fact for a minute, even though it’s kind of silly. EVEN IN THAT CASE, the work is the work. Even Star Wars, for all of episodes 1-3 general crappiness, is a different story — those stories raised questions about 4-6 because they were the same guy. See also everything Weezer’s done post Pinkerton. But this isn’t even the original artists, so I just — I’m just saying, there’s a legacy, and then there’s the actual WORK, and I’m certain the second’s not being threatened, and I’m not sure about the first.
Thanks for that. Of COURSE nothing can diminish the original work. It’s done, it exists, it’s in no more danger than Jane Austen’s work is troubled by “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”. It’s no more damaged than Wizard of Oz is by “Lost Girls” (oh, wait, that example just shifted the conversation, didn’t it?!?). It’s no more damaged than Ditko’s Charlton Action Heroes were damaged by Watchmen. Moore played in enough shared universes that I find it odd sharing this one is so abhorrent to him. I get that he “feels” ripped off by signing a contract that didn’t go well, but in the real world, Watchmen’s success owes quite a bit to DC’s promotion of it, their ability to exploit the market, and the basic ownership of the characters they’re based on in the first place. (Anyone who pretends Rorschach isn’t Question and Dr. Manhattan isn’t Captain Atom has never read a Charlton comic). Alan created a magnificent script with this work, but he didn’t do it a complete vacuum, he had DC, and Dave Gibbons, and Len Wein and John Higgins on the same team, and NONE of them are offended by what’s going on.
I love Alan Moore’s writing like it was a part of my left arm. I consider Watchmen, V, Marvelman, Swamp Thing, DR and QUINCH, Captain Britain, LOEG, Tom Strong, Supreme, From Hell, the Bojeffries Saga and Maxwell the Magic Cat the twelve best comic series of all time, no joke. But when Moore started telling Gibbons how to think about this subject or they were no longer friends, Moore became fodder for satire, plain and simple. There are no sacred cows in satire. I make fun of my own mother if she does something funny.
Your point resonates, for sure — btw, sorry if my note was snarky. Thinking about comics while at work messes with my chi.
Frankly, I don’t know what to make of Moore these days — not the work, I can read that, but the guy who keeps talking about how awful everything is and how no one gets him. You don’t see a lot of his kind of genius (and I don’t mean his *extent*, just his variety) in comics, but you see it a lot in other arts — people who make a thing, then get all pissed off when other people take ownership of its interpretation. It’s sort of the basis of reclusive-authorism or misunderstood musician.
Which is not to say that I think he’s *wrong*, about any of it. Obviously, I don’t know the guy.
Moore interview in Dazed & Confused Magazine #74, June 2009:
“If, in 50 years time, the world is still here and Warner Brothers is gone and somebody wants to do a postmodern riff on Dr Manhattan, I’ve got nothing against the creators of such a thing — my grief is only with the companies that own them. I would positively encourage people to pirate the characters I created.”
With statements like these, I just feel that Moore doesn’t have just Watchmen in mind — I think he really, really just doesn’t want to deal with or be associated with DC any more than he already is, because a project like this would mean more questions about DC and Watchmen during interviews.
Incidentally, I was reading this yesterday, and it offers a critique of the whole situation that I don’t think has been presented anywhere else: http://lanceparkin.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/watchmen-ii/ Since Watchmen’s strength in being a gateway comic is the fact that it’s complete, DC may be shooting themselves in the foot in terms of long-term business. Not sure I entirely agree, but I can’t disagree either altogether…
The ‘Watchmen’ was to film what Hannibal Lecter is to gourmet cooking. The prequels look interesting and no one is forcing anyone to buy them, read them or accept them as ‘cannon’.
Vote (either way) with your wallet.
Personally I cant wait until they publish the inevitable Watchmen / Little Lulu crossover with special appearances by Kamandi and Speed Racers friendly pet Chim Chim fighting it out with Darth Maul and Wendy, the good little witch.
If you hadn’t gotten around to this I was going to suggest you do “Before The Dark Knight Returns” with grumpy old Bruce Wayne complaining about all of the noise those victims of crime are making outside.
I think people should only be allowed to experience Watchmen by going back to the mid-80s and waiting a month between issues. That’s what I do.
Well, if you want to do that, don’t forget to get really mad when issues are delayed and take more than a month to arrive. Then remember that comics used to always ship on time (even if they had to do a crappy reprint or fill-in issue to do it).
There was something glorious about having a month (or more) between issues. It allowed us time to break off into discussion groups, make charts and graphs and have real evidence to back up our critiques. Nowadays, fans get to read the book in one sitting and never experience the thrill of expectations that are completely shattered as the series moves on.
I hate to split hairs but the Watchmen movie didn’t turn out fine. It was a bit of a flop, and it wasn’t very much fun to watch. It wasn’t like they made that movie for audiences so much as for the comic nerds who are going to sit with the book in their laps and treat the panels like a checklist…
That’s the problem with the internet…sarcasm comes across too dryly. Of course the movie was a flop, a flaw and a flub…I was hoping my phrase “Steaming pile of quality” for the motion comic would convey my feelings about that one as well. There’s never been an adaptation of any of Moore’s material that didn’t turn out disappointing. We need a sarcasm font.
“There’s never been an adaptation of any of Moore’s material that didn’t turn out disappointing.”
I don’t know about that – I thought Eddie Campbell’s “Birth Caul” and “Snakes and Ladders” were both pretty decent.
Ah, okay…you catch me on a technicality, there. Howzabout “there’s never been an adaptation of any of Moore’s comic book work into film or television that hasn’t turned out disappointing”. Adapting songs into comics, or poems into stories is a different kettle of fish, but you’re technically right, it can be done.
I swear to you all, back in the months after the Watchmen series was first published, I saw a full-page ad in The Comics Journal, or some such trade mag, advertising the sequel to Watchmen. Or it may have been a module for a role-playing game. It was called “The Harlequin’s Revenge” or something similar. Really. Maybe it never it was never published, but I remember seeing the ad for it.
@Greg — I remember seeing that, too. I had forgotten about it completely. I found an article about it CBR.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17997
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