"DC Entertainment revealed today that DC Comics will publish a collection of miniseries that will expand upon the world of Watchmen." Predictably, Alan Moore has nothing to do with any of this. Link. "Branded Before Watchmen, the long-rumored project–which has been on-again, off-again in a variety of forms for years–will comprise seven miniseries created by an all-star lineup of talent." One example series being: "Dr. Manhattan (four issues): Blue and nude atomic-power superman, profoundly detached from humanity. Written by J. Michael Straczynski, a superstar comics scribe equally known for his TV and film work (Babylon 5, Clint Eastwood’s 2009 film Changeling), with art by Adam Hughes."
There's some good talent attached to these - Darwyn Cooke is writing one, I think - but I think it's a seriously dumb idea. Luckily, I'll never actually have to read them.
They should put Bendis and Ennis on them. Really cultivate their ability mimic that Moore dialogue we all love.
So, despite the fact that they're already doing a Dr. Manhattan in ongoing form with Captain Atom, they're going to do it again with the guy who shoved ghost spiders inside Peter Parker? Not for me, but whatever.
a) This pisses off Alan Moore, which makes me very supportive and likely to buy it. b) Alan Moore's daughter has Twittered about it. Why the fuck should I even care about Alan Moore's daughter? c) It's Watchmen, so really all it's going to be is more polishing a turd. Seriously. Watchmen had one good panel ("I did it thirty-five minutes ago.") and the rest of the book was boring art and depressing no-resolution wankery. Alan Moore gets my applause for Top Ten and select issues of Hellblazer. Other than that, he is to comics what Tim Tebow is to football - popular, but not for reasons related to being good.
C) makes me think that you're fairly young, and therefore don't have the context to appreciate the deconstruction of the genre that was entirely original at the time it was published. Additionally, the very way the panels were set up in certain issues of it prove how not boring the art was. Watchmen was, and still is, a powerful piece. I have to imagine that you're either trolling or are not sufficiently exposed to the history of comics to fully grasp its impact. However, in the spirit of the internet, I will say this: Did it not have enough splash panels and balloon tits for you? Did seeing a wang in a comic book offend your male power fantasy? That you only like the panel where the villain's plot succeeds means you probably love 90s extreme anti-hero comics and beat off to old Liefeld X-Force covers and want to add pouches and buckles to everything you own. I AM ASHAMED TO SHARE THE HERCULES ICON WITH YOU GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR I SAID GOOD DAY!
Not at all - I appreciate quite a bit of comic-book writing, and I think I fall right around the median age here. 1) I dislike Alan Moore personally - I find the man himself to be downright loathsome, and this biases my view of a lot of his writing, I will admit. 2) There is nothing to like about Watchmen as a story. The characters are so antisympathetic to the point of being more unrealistic than the "balloon tits" cartoon superhumans they're meant to deconstruct. I can respect and admire what it means for the genre and recognize the intent - but it's the execution that I found unlikeable. 3) The enshrining of anything Moore touches, especially Watchmen, as some kind of religious gospel is up there with the contempt I feel at people who rant and rave about "The original movie theater version of Star Wars is the only true canon and George Lucas is raping my childhood!" 4) Dave Gibbons' art is too flat for my liking. I also put George Perez in the same category, so at least he's in good company. I think Watchmen is important and the comics industry is better for the fact that it was written. As a comic book, however, I don't like it.
I really enjoyed the Watchmen book, but yeah, I don't think this needs to happen. Like, at all. We already have plenty of backstory on each of the main characters in the book, it was, you know, actually there in the book.
I love Watchmen, it's my favourite comic in the world, but I'll agree that the story is actually the worst thing about it. It's still a very good story, and quietly revolutionary for its time, but the actual sequence of the narrative events has some flaws and isn't desperately exciting in and of itself. What makes Watchmen great art is not the story but the manner of its telling.
And that I will give it - it's like Lars Von Trier's Antichrist - an utterly HORRID movie, but incredibly well composed. Is it art? Indubitably. Do I like it? No.
1) I can totally see this, and somewhat agree, but I save my real loathing for Frank Miller. 2) I disagree with this. How you can think Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II are "antisympathetic" I don't know. The entire thing was ahead of its time for realizing that Batman and his ilk are likely totally psychotic, and that expecting the truly superhuman to remain totally human is actually really unrealistic. 3) Complaining about making prequels isn't enshrining it as gospel, it's recognizing the crass commercialism at play here. There's some solid creators on the team, so it may end up being good, but we've all seen too many cash-in sequels and "reimaginings" to not complain about this potentially sullying the work. 4) Well, that's just like, your opinion, man. It's a product of its time, though.
Regarding 3 - I feel that the intention behind a product has no bearing on the quality of the product. If the profits from, say, Sins of a Solar Empire went directly to the Taliban, it'd still be a great game. I also don't believe that sequels and follow-on work have any bearing on the original's quality. That's as fallacious as thinking that the "follow-through" of a baseball or golf swing can affect the projectile in flight. Argh, there's a term for that, the idea that the qualities of a thing are inherent to that thing and not dependent on its surroundings. Bell's Theorem touched on it, IIRC. Wow, what a digression. Anyway - I'm more enraptured by the audience backlash, which tends to make me somehow want it to succeed because I'm of the opinion that fans should be seen and not heard.
I'm just not sure what there is to say about these characters, beyond retconning a bunch of bullshit into their backstories (which I guess is what comics do....). Watchmen is fine on it's own. I also think Moore is a nutter, and the art style is very "80's" (my wife had a hard time reading it purely because of her distaste of the art). But to call it a bad story....man, I'll add you to the list of people who's opinions we can safely ignore going foward, Nute.
Sure, the originals quality stays the same - but when you follow up on something like Star Wars or Watchmen with prequels you always end up retconning stuff in that changes character motiviations/events. The original does change, because you're changing the overall story arc for that universe
I suppose that's a valid interpretation. But in the case of Watchmen, I think that it could fill in some things I felt were lacking. I think part of why I don't like the theme of Watchmen is the belief that to be effective, a hero has to be inhuman or psychotic. The "normal" character (Dan) is figuratively and literally impoten until he embraces the crazy and even then he's only a foil for Rorschach's insanity or Manhattan's inhumanity. I simply don't like the implications of that worldview.
That's interesting, because I read it the other way around - that you have to be a little crazy to dress up and want to fight crime in the first place (as Dan more or less openly admits in his 'Under the Hood' excerpts), and that once you do, you are taking on a role that will likely make you inhuman or psychotic, or at least nudge you in that direction if you weren't already. FWIW, Dreiberg didn't get over his impotence once he 'embraced the crazy,' he got over it once he put on his costume - which I think was another way of examining how strong a hold that this alternate identity can have on an actual human being who undertook this whole costumed hero thing. Also, worldview? What worldview? Watchmen isn't a worldview, it's just an exploration of some of the unconsidered, realistic aspects of superhero mythology, IMO. (BTW, nonsequitur here but I loved your posts re: explosives in the useless knowledge thread)
1) I think Alan Moore is a complete douche-rocket, but that doesn't at all change what I think of The Watchmen, which is an amazingly good comic book. 2) Wow, what the fuck. There's nothing to like about the story? I liked that the characters were complex and made a good try at showing what these people would be like if they really existed (both regular vigilantes, and a super-powered person). I liked that it took a serious look at how they would change the world if they existed. I liked that the ending was totally non-pat, non-comic, non-Hollywood. I liked that the characters were so focused, and so varied. I liked the two twists in the ending (which I guess I won't spoil in case people haven't read it, but: who the villain is, and what happens with his villainous plan). I could go on and on. You are stone fucking crazy if you say you didn't like the story. 2.5) Even if you didn't like the story, the way it's told is awesome. There is so much motif-ing (if I may make that a verb), foreshadowing, juxtaposition, it's like every page is a complex work that complements the words of the script just by its layout and the way the images work together (mirroring the way the different stories play off each other). 3) I guess there's no way to respond to this since you just assume that everyone who likes Watchmen only does because they're a Church of Moore nutjob who can't see the way the world is because only you can. Also, the original movie theater version of Star Wars is the best one, by some margin. Every new edition is worse than the one before. But I'm not sure what sort of equivalence you're drawing there.
It seems to be that it's more of a pervasive theme in most of Moore's works - the only people who can actually be prime movers and have any effect on the world have to be crazy, psychotic, or in some way removed from the human condition. Of all the "heroes" in Watchmen, Rorschach is the effective one. Veidt changes the fate of the world, while having to be the biggest bastard in history to do so. Manhattan becomes a god, but basically becomes worse than Veidt by enabling the status quo created at the end of the book. It's the overwhelming pessimism in almost all Moore's writing that strikes me as frankly so unrealistic that it drags me out of the narrative.
Boys, don't make me go drag that absolutely terrifying sketch of Moore out of wherever I left it on the internet and shame everybody out of defending him. I liked Watchmen. I strongly disliked V, but that might be related to the utterly shitty paper quality in the trade. I've got From Hell loaded on the Thrive and haven't eaten it yet and I enjoyed the first two trades of League well enough, though I don't think he's moving heaven and earth or anything. Even I have a little too much shame to keep Lost Girls in a house that my mother does occasionally set foot in. That said, I do wonder why they're not doing this as an ongoing through Vertigo. Vertigo Presents Watchmen Stories. You sign artists and writers for short arcs and you've got a reliable regular title for Vertigo. What with Scalped ending soon and them seemingly trying as hard as they can to splooge The Unwritten out, you'd think they'd want something like that.
Two more things: first off, I don't even think it needs to be seen in the context of its time. Compared to the fantasy literature of today, Watchmen totally stands up. It's true, though, that compared to the fantasy literature of its day, it was incredible. And compared to the comics of its day, it was nothing short of world-shattering. Second, I don't get how you can say the characters are all unsympathetic. The opposite is true. Many of them are just out-and-out sympathetic: the new Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, the old Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, etc. Even The Comedian and Rorschach, which I assume is what you're talking about when you say "the characters," are actually portrayed pretty sympathetically: you can't help but feel for the Comedian with his whole life situation at the end, and even Rorschach is portrayed very one-sided for half the book but then you delve into his past and suddenly its all shades-of-gray again. Even Veidt is given some sympathy, or at least an understandable motive. Either way, the vast majority of the characters are sympathetic. I guess this ties in with your objection that Moore seems to think that most prime movers who affect the world are crazy, psychotic, or in some way removed from the human condition. I would reverse it and say that he examines how crazy / removed people react to the world. But even taking it the way you put it, that's probably true.
I always got that Moore was saying that people who want to both have and wield power in the name of good are either a bit crazy to want to manage the responsibility wielding such power bears (the stress!) OR so far removed that they don't acknowledge or accept that responsibility. I think this is mostly true - regular people lead quiet lives and tend to stay out of each other's business. Perhaps I'm a bit pessimistic and cynical. I don't necessary find that a little crazy is a bad thing though. Perhaps that's the silver lining that grants the possibility of hope - that a truly benevolent crazy person might have the audacity to improve things for the rest of us.
I like that we have two posters with different Hercules avatars arguing differing opinions in this thread.
I think a lot of people get Alan Moore completely wrong because they think he is endlessly pessimistic and serious when he doesn't come across that way at all in the flesh, check out some videos of him being interviewed by a local group in Northampton: Edit: You also might want to read this to understand exactly why Moore still feels so pissed over Watchmen: http://it-sparkles.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-fun.html
I doubt I'll read these - my comic book reading is reduced to Mignola drawn Hellboy and The Goon (only in TPB) these days so whatevs, but I did like this article in Grantland - Great Moments in Nerd Trolling Totally worth a read.
