It's official: DC is producing Watchmen prequels, the publisher confirmed Wednesday morning via official publicity blog The Source.
The news comes after months of rumors, leaked art and speculation. Starting this summer, the lineup of seven miniseries, dubbed Before Watchmen, includes:
RORSCHACH (4 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: Lee Bermejo
The first Watchmen-related comic book material released since the original series, a new Before Watchmen issue will be released weekly, with each containing a two-page Curse of the Crimson Corsair back-up written by Len Wein and illustrated by John Higgins. Both creators worked on the original Watchmen, Wein as editor and Higgins as colorist. The initiative will be wrapped with a Before Watchmen: Epilogue one-shot by various creators.
The possibility of new Watchmen comics has been a controversial topic within the comic book industry for years, due to original series writer Alan Moore's refusal to participate in any such project. DC indirectly addresses the issue in their press release, calling the Before Watchmen miniseries, "As highly anticipated as they are controversial."
Original Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons is quoted in the press release, saying, "The original series of Watchmen is the complete story that Alan Moore and I wanted to tell. However, I appreciate DC's reasons for this initiative and the wish of the artists and writers involved to pay tribute to our work. May these new additions have the success they desire."
In DC's press release, co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee stated jointly that the "time has come" for more Watchmen material, and emphasized the "collaborative" nature of comic books.
"Comic books are perhaps the largest and longest running form of collaborative fiction," said DiDio and Lee. "Collaborative storytelling is what keeps these fictional universes current and relevant."
Watchmen debuted as a 12-issue miniseries in 1986, and stands as one of the most celebrated and influential stories in the history of the medium, along with DC's declaration that the collected edition is "the bestselling graphic novel of all time." In 2009, a film adaptation directed by Zack Snyder was released to mixed reviews and moderate box office success.
No firm start date for Before Watchmen has been announced at this point other than "summer." Keep reading Newsarama for more on this as it develops.
They all look promising and the creative teams are steller; all except Ozymandias. Not sure how many I'll pick up but I'm definitely interested in them
XIII wrote:Yeah, but will you say no to such creative teams?
I'm not sure, probably. Even if I don't think it's a great idea, they did get a-list talent for it. They are all guys who's books I would buy normally, so chances are, yes.
I actually don't give a crap about watchmen being sacred or anything like that. As the long as the comics are good, go for it. From the looks of it, it should be good. If the cover price is 2.99, chances are I will read them.
There has been deficit of good comics lately, and I love me some JMS and Cooke.
"French is like anal, exotic but oh so unnecessary."
I'm torn. This sounds like it could be great, and really from those teams, it should be. But like Wolf pointed out, this is a huge cash grab too. But I think we all knew that if they ever did additional Watchmen books, they would milk it for all it would be worth. And they are here. That's a lot of books to add to a pull list but it's no different than any other event and tie ins. Except here we just get the tie ins without the main book.
For me, I'm more interested in the collected edition I think. I think with this one, I'd want a collected edition to be put with the collected edition of Watchmen I have. I think some of these creative teams would be fantastic together and I'd love to read their work, but I think I'd want to read all of this together to see how it all flows.
But Marvel and DC have not been doing anything right lately, and that's the problem. Especially after the new 52.
Even with the great creative teams it might get bogged down in editorial and management notes which could result in it sucking. That's why I said I will wait for reviews.
"French is like anal, exotic but oh so unnecessary."
I'm a little surprised that DC isn't having their golden boy, Grant Morisson, work on at least one of these titles. Personally I think Morisson would be a good fit for either Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan or NiteOwl
XIII, are you going to pass on Silk Spectre? Cooke may not be doing the art but he will still be writing
Very interesting article. I suppose I had not taken his work into account that way, and when you do it really does put him in the wrong in a new way. I have always understood his desire to not have a sequel to his work by anyone else because, when you think about it, if you wrote a story that mattered to you, you would probably want to be the one to ever revisit it rather than someone who was not involved in the original creation. But I also agree with the fact that, in the nature of comic books, that's almost never going to be the case, so you have to deal with that.
On a side note, I had no clue his work with the three female fiction characters was that explicit. Sometimes I am kind of disgusted with what's done in comics from time to time, and I realize why people don't take the medium seriously. I'm glad I never read that then.
Dude, Lost Girls is fucking creepy as hell. I downloaded it when it came out and got creeped out by it. It's also a $100 coffee table book which is why I didn't buy it, now it can go for $200 plus for new. I think I may have even deleted the version I downloaded, all that pedo stuff in it was quite disturbing.
The article is a nice summary of why Moore's "Don't use my characters because they're original works of literature" doesn't hold any water.
I don't fault DC for trying to make more money out of the most critically acclaimed product in the entire medium. What I do fault them for is, at the time, exploiting a legal loophole to prevent Moore from getting his property back at the appropriate time.
I really do believe that the contract Moore signed with DC was done in good faith with the understanding that Moore would get his properties back within a few years. No one could have forseen what a medium shattering hit Watchmen would become, and DC behaved as any company would: they kept milking the cow.
Moore is still at fault for signing the contract - no denying that, but how many writers (Azzerallo, BKV, Aaron, Bendis, Kirkman etc...) wouldn't behave the same way as Moore if DC or Image or Marvel decided to alter, add or edit their own creator-owned properties via a legal loophole?
To sum up: Ethically, I believe Moore is in the right and DC is wrong but legally DC has the right of way, and Moore can't do shit about it.
