In the wake of last week's bombshell announcement that DC Comics would be publishing a series of WATCHMEN prequel miniseries this summer (without the involvement of either Alan Moore or Dave Gibbons), local favourite Ben Jeddrie and I discuss the ethics of the project, the array of creators involved, and the changes in creators' rights between now and WATCHMEN's original publication date. Ben also provided the nifty title card seen above. Check out more of his work
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Dave, Ben... I really enjoyed that discussion of the "Before Watchmen" series, that turned into a nice digression into creator rights and the Zack Snyder movie. Like yourselves I remain conflicted about the series. I will be definitely checking out the Darwyn Cooke "Minute Men" title, but my excitement for it is as a Cooke project not as a Watchmen project.
ReplyDeleteThat is how I feel about the various mini-series as a whole. Funnily enough, the less anyone of these series seems like Moore's Watchmen the more I might find myself drawn to them. Moore's work does not need additions or subtractions, further exposition. If these series can stand as cool stories that happen to feature Watchmen characters then they might work out fine. Otherwise the results could be hazardous indeed for the genuine Watchmen fan. But I do trust in Darwyn to do good things.
I am not even sure this is going to make DC all the money it thinks it will. I know many readers of Watchmen are not even regular comic readers, and are unlikely to bother checking out a complicated array of new monthly series. And even those regular comic buyers might not let their limited dollars part for a bunch of books only tangentially connected to the mainstream DCU. JLA seems to continue to garner huge sales, as does Batman and Superman. For Marvel the universe seems to have contracted to Avengers, Spider-Man and the X-Men, and perhaps Captain America. Titles outside these "grand old men" titles always seem to struggle for a legitimate piece of the pie. Agents of Atlas? Thor, the Mighty Avenger?
Dave, you would know more about the sales aspect of comics than I would, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Watchmen minis achieve sales no greater than a more popular Vertigo book might.
I recall when Marvel acquired the rights to Marvelman/ Miracleman to some fanfare a few years back it was supposed to be a huge deal. The legal issues aside, a lot of regular Marvel fans were just indifferent to the announcement. If it wasn't X-Men or Avengers or if it didn't "matter" to the mainstream universe then "forget about it." i know Marvelman has nothing like the footprint of Watchmen, but still I don't know if the fans will be there for a "marginal" story. I could be talking out of my ass on this though.
Anyway... I loved the talk, and tell Ben that Dr. Alan Manhattan cartoon is nothing short of perfect! Thanks, Craig Dodge.