Watchmen prequels now official and announced

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

No quite right, I mentioned them in an attempt to understand the point you made about ???? destroying any desire for new creators to enter the industry. I concluded from your second post, but thought I should check, that you were saying that buying from DC (and Marvel) was what was doing this.

I think they are basically harmful and I don't buy any DC and Marvel stuff myself. However I have a particular problem with Before Watchmen.

and yet they seem to. As fair as I can see, due to the channels now available, whatever your opinion of them, in far greater numbers?

Not really talented people. And as I said, the channels you mention are flawed.

[NorthVox]

I wouldn't say that Marvel or DC are partiuclarly "harmful" to the industry, and as an aspiring comic writer myself, Before Watchmen isn't so much making me worry about working in the industry. My only problem with Before Watchmen is that it just feels like a lazy cash in and I can only see it doing more harm than good to the original. Watchmen is a fantastic book, and all the side stories and plot twists feel like a well oiled machine and work perfectly in tandem with each other. These Before Watchmen episodes won't, IMHO, add anything to the story, and might even take away what made the original plotlines stand out so well. Personally, I'd rather see DC make some new characters and stories, rather than raid the piggy bank.

[W. R. Logan]

It's only a comic.

[radiator]

I think the apologists are missing the point - it's not that DC are legally wrong to do this, it's that what they're doing is cheap, shameless and artistically bankrupt. Presumably someone owns the rights to The Shawshank Redemption. That's a film people like - a sequel would probably turn a profit on name recognition alone - why not make that? I'm guessing because the idea is dumb, and such a project would be an insult to the makers of that film.

What DC are doing is the equivalent of this:





And am I being cynical to suspect that Len Wein's involvement is mainly due to his association with Swamp Thing - it would be a very corporate way of thinking - "we can't get Alan Moore - what's the closest name we can attach?".

It's also weird that Before Watchmen is going to be far longer and more expansive than the orignal series - and it's all but guaranteed that a great deal of it will be substandard or contradict the original in some way - why dilute and devalue the brand of what is the closest the superhero genre has to a classic work to make a quick buck?

Oh well, I just hope it turns out to be as good as The Dark Knight Strikes Again...

[JamesC]

 it's all but guaranteed that a great deal of it will be substandard or contradict the original in some way

I don't see why either of these things are a foregone conclusion. There's tons of scope to tell 'untold stories from the past' of all the main Watchmen characters.
It's not like they're making a sequel, which would ultimately mean telling us what happened to Rorschach's journal and therefore fucking up Moore's ending.

If we divorce the moral argument from the creative for a moment, I don't see why setting stories in the history of the Watchmen universe is any more creatively devoid than 'Young Anderson' for example.

[Steven Denton]

 it's all but guaranteed that a great deal of it will be substandard or contradict the original in some way

I don't see why either of these things are a foregone conclusion. There's tons of scope to tell 'untold stories from the past' of all the main Watchmen characters.
It's not like they're making a sequel, which would ultimately mean telling us what happened to Rorschach's journal and therefore fucking up Moore's ending.

If we divorce the moral argument from the creative for a moment, I don't see why setting stories in the history of the Watchmen universe is any more creatively devoid than 'Young Anderson' for example.

Watchmen is a self-contained unit, there is no Watchmen universe there is no watchmen continuity outside of the expertly woven tapestry that is watchmen.

I’m not saying there are no possible stories worth telling, but there would need to be a good reason for revisiting Watchmen. Expanding back stories of very well drawn characters is not a good reason.

Anderson, Batman, Spiderman, Dredd and the like are not closed units, they are a platform for telling many stories. 

[TordelBack]

If we divorce the moral argument from the creative for a moment, I don't see why setting stories in the history of the Watchmen universe is any more creatively devoid than 'Young Anderson' for example.

To be clear, I don't really care about the project one way or another, and I certainly don't think the morality of it is at issue, within the context of the comics industry as it existed in 1986 and exists today (measured against some actual sense of decency, it may well stink).

But for me the difference with Young Anderson, and SBT's Spiderman analogy, is that Watchmen was conceived and executed as a single piece of clockwork.  There are no superfluous cogs or teeth, and no missing ones.  Adding bits on is like saying 'Yeah, I like Michelangelo's David fine, but wouldn't it look great if we got Damien Hirst to do Goliath and stick it in the same room, sort of looming over him?'.  Not saying that'd be wrong (okay, I probably am), but I certainly think it isn't necessary and can only detract from the original - get Hirst to go do his own David and Goliath somewhere else.

EDIT:  I see Steven has said much the same and better.

EDIT EDIT:  Maybe if they got Ron Mueck to do Goliath it'd work... hmmm.

[JamesC]

 it's all but guaranteed that a great deal of it will be substandard or contradict the original in some way

I don't see why either of these things are a foregone conclusion. There's tons of scope to tell 'untold stories from the past' of all the main Watchmen characters.
It's not like they're making a sequel, which would ultimately mean telling us what happened to Rorschach's journal and therefore fucking up Moore's ending.

If we divorce the moral argument from the creative for a moment, I don't see why setting stories in the history of the Watchmen universe is any more creatively devoid than 'Young Anderson' for example.

Watchmen is a self-contained unit, there is no Watchmen universe there is no watchmen continuity outside of the expertly woven tapestry that is watchmen.

And Watchmen will always be able to be read like that. And providing they make no sequel which will ruin Moore's ending then I still don't see the problem.
I would agree that there need to be rules regarding any contradiction (I wouldn't like to see a Highlander 2 type sitiation for example!).
I think these books should be judged on their own merits and not just seen as sullying the good name of Watchmen.
By way of an example - Tom Brown's Schooldays is a self contained unit but I still enjoy the Flashman novels. 

[JamesC]

But for me the difference with Young Anderson, and SBT's Spiderman analogy, is that Watchmen was conceived and executed as a single piece of clockwork.  There are no superfluous cogs or teeth, and no missing ones.  Adding bits on is like saying 'Yeah, I like Michelangelo's David fine, but wouldn't it look great if we got Damien Hirst to do Goliath and stick it in the same room, sort of looming over him?'.  Not saying that'd be wrong (okay, I probably am), but I certainly think it isn't necessary and can only detract from the original - get Hirst to go do his own David and Goliath somewhere else.

This seems like a pretty rubbish analogy. If Goliath was looming over David it would mean you had no choice but to view David in that context (without the use of some kind of elaborate viewfinder).
If I decide not to but 'Before Watchmen' I don't expect someone from DC will come around and wave a copy of it in front of my face everytime I read the original.

[TordelBack]

By way of an example - Tom Brown's Schooldays is a self contained unit but I still enjoy the Flashman novels.

I know what you mean, but is that a fair parallel?  I know Tom shows up in Flashman (only to be disgusted and storm off quite quickly), as does Speedicut and of course the beastly Flashy himself, but Tom Brown's Schooldays is hardly about cads rogering their way around the globe, but presumably the Watchmen comics will be about masked vigilantes. 

You're right about the Goliath analogy being rubbish though.  I really need some kip.

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

It's only a comic.

The phrase "only a comic" is a pretty reductive critcism of the whole medium. Disagree.

[JamesC]

By way of an example - Tom Brown's Schooldays is a self contained unit but I still enjoy the Flashman novels.

I know what you mean, but is that a fair parallel?  I know Tom shows up in Flashman (only to be disgusted and storm off quite quickly), as does Speedicut and of course the beastly Flashy himself, but Tom Brown's Schooldays is hardly about cads rogering their way around the globe, but presumably the Watchmen comics will be about masked vigilantes. 

Well yes the comics will be about masked vigilantes but that's still a pretty broad scope. What the tone of the books is remains to be seen. As such, on the inofrmation available at the moment I have no problem with the project in theory or, I think, any basis on which to say the project is creatively devoid.

[Steven Denton]

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, Wide Sargasso sea, the Flashman novels and to a degree all historiographic metafiction could be cited as justification. But they were also part of my original point.

All involve re-purposing historical or fictional characters, in some cases expanding on very peripheral characters. The juxtaposition between the original and the post modern re-interpretation is normally part of the creative core. Creating a new work based on historical or fictional characters is neither pointless nor unheard of but there does have to be a point and they do have to bring something new and distinctive. Expanding back stories of already fleshed out characters does not fall into this category.

[SmallBlueThing]

But for me the difference with Young Anderson, and SBT's Spiderman analogy, is that Watchmen was conceived and executed as a single piece of clockwork.  There are no superfluous cogs or teeth, and no missing ones.

Ah- but so was Spider-Man. Conceived as a short story in the final issue of a dead magazine. Yes, it was an origin, but if it hadn't have been successful, and that issue of Amazing Fantasy seen such a bump in sales, we would not have had Amazing Spider-Man #1 and fifty years of stories. It would have been just one of those endless Lee/ Ditko shorts that they did- most of which *could* have been expanded into an ongoing series, if the potential profit was high enough. Yes, Watchmen is a twelve issue limited series, and AF15 is- what, eight pages? But the point still stands. Both are (I'm told) perfectly constructed engines of story, doing their job, both reflect their respective eras and both have remained in print ever since.

Watchmen is obviously a special thing. I don't like it at all, but that's not to say I don't recognise its skill and importance. But I just see this as the comics equivalent of those "What Heathcliffe did next" books that came out a decade or so back, the hundreds of "Continuing adventures of Sherlock Holmes" stories, Star Trek: The Next Generation, NuWho, or "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" for that matter. In fact, 'Watchmen with Zombies'- a reprint of the original series, but with extra panels depicting them fighting zombies... I'd definitely buy that!

SBT

[dracula1]

The Watchmen Graphic Novel is the cream of the crop, artistically and narrative wise. It pushed the envelope of what is possible in the Graphic Novel medium further and used the founding principles of the Graphic Novel started by the late great Will Eisner. I've used the word Graphic Novel alot as it is not the same as the term Comic which the likes of The Watchmen is not.