The Watchmen: Classic, duh!

"Well, despite being a "superhero" comic, Watchmen is otherwise quite credible and realistic, that's why the ending always struck to me as silly. I don't think the alien could've brought such a peace between the Russians and the Yankees as seen on the last pages of Watchmen, and the fact that Moore had to back the ending up with the psychic's brain bit seems to imply that he wasn't so sure about it either. Anyways, within a few decades people would still have forgotten the alien and the cold war would be back in effect, unless Ozymandias would keep bombarding the Earth again and again with new aliens. So he'd eventually lose anyhow."

(i doubt those tags mean anything, but they were intended to reduce the size of the letters above)

Yeah, it was done while I was doing Watchmen, or just after or something, I'm not sure which but it was too close to Watchmen. I mean, Brian [Bolland] did a wonderful job on the art but I don't think it's a very good book. It's not saying anything very interesting.

Granted, it's not as ambitious as Watchmen, but geez!

Eddie Campbell tells the story in How To Be An Artist about as accurately as anybody is willing to confirm. (Basically, Billy The Sink dropped out after #2, Al Columbia was drafted in as a Sink-a-like but fell out with everyone over a girlfriend. He destroyed #3, burned what he had started of #4 and disappeared.)

I think the ending is an important part of Moore's views on superheroes (at that time: in a recent interview he said "I had a bad week 15 years ago and everyone's still suffering"): the path that starts "you will do good or we will beat you up" leads swiftly to giant mind-control aliens and The Big Lie in general.

And now Ned with the news...

Does he lie about killing them? this must be researched.

-- Jordan (j0rdanc0h3...), May 25th, 2004.

...but didn't anyone notice that at the very end of the comic book, in the last panel, seymour the new frontiersman office assistant guy is fumbling his hands through the papers in the 'crank file', indicating that he eventually may find Rorshach's Journal.?

and remember, it is Rorschach's journal which contains the trail leading to Ozymandias's plans, which if uncovered could threaten the world peace Veidt created.

hence the symbolism of the ketchup stain landing on seymour smiley face shirt, forming the bloodied comedian logo, implying the comedian (and the war-centric worldview to which he belongs) will have the last laugh.

I don't think the bloody smiley is a symbol for The Comedian, rather than for the whole comic (remember, the blood stain implies the death of Comedian). But Moore hints elsewhere what he thinks will happen after the ending. The sailor in the pirate stroy is obviously Ozymandias' alter ego; Ozymandias even tells he sometimes dreams of swimming towards a great ship. In the pirate story the sailor tries to save the ones he loves, but his attempt is misguided, and he fails horribly. So Moore is implying Ozymandias will eventually loose. In the end, Moore the anarchist thinks people's freedom to decide is more important than anything else. This is the biggest irony of Watchmen: in the final chapter, Rorschach the fascist becomes the hero, whereas Ozymandias the left-wing vegetarian is the villain. No matter how much we (and Moore, no doubt) revile Rorschach's ideological views, we have to sympathize with him for refusing to accept Ozymandias totalitarian plan.

From another viewpoint, Moore is saying that Ozymandias has already lost.

I agree, but that's sort of the whole theme of the comic. Imperfect perfections. Like the whole symmetry/mirror image thing - I guess most of you have noticed that chapter five has a symmetrical structure; each panel has a corresponding mirror image panel. So the fist panel of the chapter corresponds with the last panel on the first row of the final page, etc. And the two middle pages form a symmetrical image - Ozymandias hitting a guy with statue, so that they're bodies form an big "X". (X is kinda like the symbol of the whole story, just like V was that of V for Vendetta - in V the direction of the story is linear, down and up, whereas Watchmen is all about choices, crossroads, open endings. Seymour can either pick the book or not.) But for the whole story to be symmetrical the mirror image should be between chapters 6 and 7 (because the whole story has 12 chapters), not in chapter 5. So it's a broken symmetry, just like with the bloody smiley, just like with Comedian's face. Imperfect perfection.

Note: I didn't come up with these ideas by myself. If you have lots of spare time, I'd suggest visiting this excellent Watchmen site.

Or maybe Moore just didn't know shit about computers in 1986.

WATCHMEN

Variety (subscription required) is reporting that the Alan Moore property has been placed in "turnaround," meaning that the studio has effectively pulled the plug on any movie through Paramount. The producers, Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin are taking the movie to other studios, hoping to get re-signed. Thanks to Michael Dunne for the heads up on that.

easy to crack computers were a real staple of 1980s fiction - viz. Wargames.

I think, though, that it's possible Alan Moore just knew dick about computer systems. See how easy it was for V to hack into Fate in V For Vendetta.

yes, especially if they were alternately red and green panels where the lights from a nearby hotel sign were flashing on and off. 8)

the computer system told him the password was almost right and would he like to add something to it, the II in Rameses II iirc. real computers would never do this but it was necessary for the plot (pointing out that Ozy associated more with RII ("Rameses The Great") rather than RI who only reigned for a couple of years - more of his 'latent narcissism')

is that a superhero emoticon?

Maybe the password scene would've worked better if it was "shot" from behind the monitor?

I'M POSTING THIS AGAIN BCUZ NOBODY SAID SHIT ABOUT IT LAST TIME AND I'M POUTING.

Stir and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with isotopes.

I had a funny conversation yesterday with a guy who is discovering "graphic novels", and was interested in reading Watchmen becuae he has seen it showing up in lists of best books of the 20th century and stuff. The great thing was that he seemed to basically have never heard of superheroes, so he was saying "I've looked at it in shops, and it seems to be about, you know, crime fighters and stuff, but it is meant to be very good".

It would be great to have never heard of superheroes... it would be so exciting to then discover them.

I'm not sure you could deal with superheros, without that childhood grounding.

if you have no previous, then watchmen has nothing to subvert.

I think the whole subversion angle is a bit overstated. For a lot of people, Watchmen would have been the first comic they ever read, and they still love it.

Yeah, strip it of all the deconstructive post-modernism and it's still a cracking mystery-cum-science-fiction story.

For real!

I'm the only person who hated Watchmen I guess. And not in an iconoclastic, "ain't I a rebel" way either. A friend gave me Watchmen and Transmet at the same time (when I was starting college and getting back into college for the first time since grade school). Transmet was amazing and I fell in love with comics again because of it. Watchmen felt boring, self-indulgent and way pretentious. The pages of text? The ridiculous pirate comics? Ugh. I still can't stand it today.

Getting back into comics for the first time, I meant.

Def. I was just thinking I want to re-read it now that I've read a bunch of the Golden/Silver Age stuff to which it was a response.

that was an xp to the conversation above mordy

Watchmen felt boring, self-indulgent and way pretentious. The pages of text?

Haha, let me tell you about a little comic called Cerebus.

I just wanna say, before the inevitable onslaught (I don't think I've ever articulated this opinion without being yelled at) that I don't think there's anything wrong with liking Watchmen (or Cerebus for that matter). It just isn't my cup of tea and in general, I've had a hard time enjoying Moore's work. Which isn't to say I only like comics to be pulpy. I like Morrison, who I think is trying to do more that just write pulpy stories (I loved Animal Man, for one). There's just something about Moore that's a huge turnoff for me, and that is epitomized in Watchmen.

Sorry, didn't mean to be snipey. I don't think Watchmen's pretentious at all, the storytelling is tight as a drum, and all the subtexts ultimately come second place to that. It is a little smug perhaps, you can practically hear Moore rubbing his hands together in the background going 'Haha, I've fucking nailed this one,' but, you know, he has a point.

Cerebus on the other hand is monumentally pretentious and self-indulgent, but still completely extraordinary and at times stunningly brilliant.

Watchmen definitely has every Moore quirk in a crystallized form, which can be a good or a bad thing I guess. Sometimes I feel Watchmen is kinda too dense, too loaded with signifiers, but then again you simply gotta admire Moore and Gibbons for managing to pull it off. And there's stuff you'll probably discover after you've reread it more than once. Like all the little details that emphasize it's a alternate timeline, such as the weird pipes people smoke instead of cigarettes, or the blimps constantly hovering in the sky, etc. I must've readed Wathcmen like four times before I noticed the word balloons are differently shaped in different decades.

But I think it's also a good thing Moore has sorta loosened up his scripts and not really tried to do another Watchmen, I don't think he would've succeeded, and his "lighter" comics are equally enjoyable. Though I guess Promethea is an example of what can go wrong with Moore's grandiose, pompose scripts: it's an admirable effort, but also boring in all the ways Watchmen isn't.

I may be far, far too biased, in that I read the thing when it came out when i was 16-17 and thus thought "I can't read super hero comics again after this, since it negates the need for them and now can go get laid"…and it was SO eye-opening to me at the time…I give it to people as a gift from time to time…

But its hard for me to understand that anyone can regard the thing as purely a cold exercise in "deconstruction." Indeed, while its a precisely executed formal triumph, it has characters that breath, live and love. The whole thing has heart.

On another note: it is well known that Moore sez "fuck hollywood" re: the films made thus far of his shit. But my understanding is that the Watchmen film is being made with superhuman levels of fidelity to his vision. I bet he'll never see it on principle, but it seems to be going the extra mile to do everything he would approve of.

I've tried to read Transmetropolitan, but I have hard time getting past the main character. I think he's just extremely irritating, like a high school sci-fi nerd's idea what a cool, tough guy is. King Mob in Invisibles was kinda similar in that respect, but Spider Jerusalem is ten times worse.

(x-post)

Compared to Spider Jerusalem, you gotta sorta admire how Moore pulls the rug off of reader identification in Watchmen. Nigh Owl, the one guy who I guess the reader is supposed to identify most is shown to be an inefficient, bumbling fool, whereas it's only the fascist vigilante who has the moral backbone to oppose Veidt's scheme by the end of the story. Then again, the lack of characters one can identify with makes Watchmen sort of a "cold" read, and I'm glad Moore has created some sympathetic, likable characters in his other work.

Transmet's alright if you can get over the fact that every story arc is pretty much the same. I find the blockiness of Robertson's art a little hard to take as well.

I like some thing in Transmetropolitan, but really the main character is just so awful. Does anyone really think he's "cool"?

xpost to Tuomas' previous post - I've always maintained that Moore's attitude to Viedt's scheme is less clear cut than generally believed. He does disapprove (Pirate Comic allegory ahoy), but the whole work is obsessed with moral grey areas, so I think he does imply some kind of twisted logic and nobility in Adrian's actions.

Spider is great but clearly only works as a parody character; I was always way more on board with his bodyguard and his assistant.

I meant "caricature" rather than "parody charactor"; I don't know why I wrote that.

Also, I think the way Ellis builds the world of Transmetropolitan sorta contradicts what Spider Jerusalem does in the stories. I mean, the whole society is shown to be so value-pluralistic, morally relativist, and nihilist that it's hard to imagine people actually care that much about "shocking truths" revealed by one journalist.

(xx-post)

But I don't think Spider Jerusalem is a parody character all the time. To me it feels Ellis ultimately wants you think he's sorta cool and heroic, despite mocking him from time to time. (I guess he realized, if he wouldn't do that the character would be simply unbearable.)

I've always maintained that Moore's attitude to Viedt's scheme is less clear cut than generally believed. He does disapprove (Pirate Comic allegory ahoy), but the whole work is obsessed with moral grey areas, so I think he does imply some kind of twisted logic and nobility in Adrian's actions.

I agree, but I still think in the finale it's Rorschach who comes off better than Night Owl, and that it was deliberate on Moore's part to fuck with audience expectations by making the fascist guy look more heroic. I think I've read some interview where he pretty much states this was his intention.

I agree about Spider, but I did like him nonetheless - everything's so over-the-top about that book, the world, the "idealized" version of future-journalism. But I can see how his character would annoy the hell out of others.

They're not talked about as much for some reason (maybe because of being less ambitious), but Moore's more positive takes, or maybe reconstruction, were pretty damn fun to read too - Tom Strong and Supreme were, like Astro City, nods to the past while being solid works in their own right (especially Tom Strong).

Tom Strong is enormously fun and good-hearted.

Interesting discussion of the bloodstained smiley way upthread. A few quotes:

I don't think the bloody smiley is a symbol for The Comedian, rather than for the whole comic

The blood smiley and its variations are more symbolic of messy human flaws on inhuman perfections, I thought.

I see it as a symbol of what Moore was trying doing to the genre; a splash of messy, vivid human bean juice against a hyper-stylised, simplistic, two-dimensional representation of a human bean.

On another note: it is well known that Moore sez "fuck hollywood" re: the films made thus far of his shit. But my understanding is that the Watchmen film is being made with superhuman levels of fidelity to his vision.

Oh yeah, none more faithful.

I bet he'll never see it on principle, but it seems to be going the extra mile to do everything he would approve of.

Considering "everything he would approve of" consists of a) not making the film and b) goto a, and he's been on the record regarding this since 1989 (see the TCJ interview), there aren't many miles to go. All he wants with regard to Watchmen is his rights to the book back, not for a movie to be faithful or unfaithful.

At least if this is to be believed, the movie is keeping the gist of the ending, even if changing some of its particulars. Which is much better than the nonsensical ending to the script that had been floating around in the 90s, in which Veidt tries to use a time machine to kill Dr. Manhattan before the accident which creates him.

don't read spoilers! I think people should stop reading about the film.

Then again, the lack of characters one can identify with makes Watchmen sort of a "cold" read, and I'm glad Moore has created some sympathetic, likable characters in his other work.

I find a lot of the characters somewhat sympathetic, even if they have very bad sides to them. Even Rorshach comes across like someone who would like a big hug.

This is making me imagine a "Rorshach Goes Raving" comic.

For a lot of people, Watchmen would have been the first comic they ever read

I'm not sure how true this is, but more importantly it would be very unlikely to be the first exposure to superheroes that they ever had.

I definitely considered Rorschach the identification character for the main engine of the plot, yes. But then I don't really understand the need to like the hero of a story.

I'm not sure how true this is, but more importantly it would be very unlikely completely impossible to be the first exposure to superheroes that they ever had.

Liking a character is not the same as identifying with them. You must have some kind of window into their motives in order for their actions to be dramatically compelling, but you can still think they're a bastard (example off the top my head: the Ripley novels).

So, yeah, the characters in Watchmen are not generally that 'likable' (at best weak and confused, at worst HELLO GIANT BRAIN SQUID), but the reader can still identify with every single one of them, with the exception of Doc M who is beyond that sort of thing.

The movie Silk Specter looks like the teenager Incredible!

In the future, we will all look like the teenager Incredible!

I definitely considered Rorschach the identification character for the main engine of the plot, yes. But then I don't really understand the need to like the hero of a story.

But the type of stories Moore is deconstructing in Watchmen are pretty much based on likable heros.

What I meant by fucking with reader identification is, I think Moore assumes the stereotypical Watchmen reader is pretty much like him - liberal, left-leaning, somewhat intellectual. But the types characters this sort of reader would normally sympathize with are either ineffective losers (Dreiberg) or authoritarian maniacs (Veidt), whereas by the end of the story it is the violent right-wing nutso Rorschach whose side most readers are kinda forced to take.

Are the readers really forced to take that side, Tuomas? My read of WATCHMEN is that Rorschach's inability to compromise is what turns him into a physically repellent (living in squalor, unable to connect to most everyone), morally repugnant ("If that made Blake a Nazi, you may as well call me a Nazi too") anti-hero who was not the center of sympathy in the story. Moore was turning the whole notion of the lone vigilante as a good thing on its head. There aren't any "good guys" in WATCHMEN; even Veidt doesn't have the courage of his own convictions and is well on his way to becoming the protagonist of the BLACK FREIGHTER story within a story.

But again, that's my read.

I'm with Matt here. I think Moore assumes his readers are, first and foremost, comic book fans. Remember that this was published in the revionist era of Miller's Dark Knight and at the Punisher's peak of popularity. I think Moore assumes his readers will be most inclined to identify with Rorschach from the very beginning - he's the most consistent with the then-dominant (still dominant?) wounded loner/vigilante antihero archetype. But at the same time, he's trying to get you to question that archetype, to get you to think about what the "loner vigilantes" who crop up in the real world are like. The fact that he refuses to condemn Rorschach, even after making it quite clear that he's a fascist psychopath, is just Moore playing with the gray areas. Travis Bickle looks a lot like a hero at the end of Taxi Driver, too.

I didn't mean to say that people sympathize with Rorschach all the way throughout the story, just that by the end of the story his refusal to accept Veidt's barve new world seems more "heroic" than what the other characters decide to do. I agree that there are multiple readings to the comic though, and of course one function of the Rorschach character is to point out to your typical Batman or Punisher fan what a vigilante crimefighter like that would be like in the "real" world.

I'm not sure I agree, Tuomas. The ending is grey, and while you might sympathise with Rorshach's stand, you also sympathise with Nite Owl's not rocking the boat and starting a nuclear war.

The ending is as ambiguous as they come. Finding a "right answer" out of the situation requires an Alexander to cut through the Gordian Knot of that conclusion, and there isn't one in sight.

It's crazy that I find the discussion of Watchmen more interesting than I ever found the actual comic.

Quick question tho: Assuming this reading of Rorschach as a heroic anti-Veidtian protagonist, what do you do with the Ditko readings? Hasn't it been well accepted that Rorschach was a comment on The Question + Objectivism? (Or am I just tainted by Douglas's reading in his book?)

I don't see how those readings can't coexist. Rorschach is shabby and unseemly for a reason, right? He's the closest to a "traditional" superhero in that he can do no wrong, steadfast and resolute. But he's also crazy, and a murderer (though like a hero, he owns up to that crime, but none of the others hung on him).

I haven't read Douglas' reading of WATCHMEN. I really should get to that sometime.

Well, it just seems like that final resistance is a validation of Objectivism, then.

Death before dishonor? Sure. But how practical is it?

I'm not sure it's a validation. Sure, you can have absolute rightness of purpose, but you've got to give up your sanity in return. (lol davesim cough cough)

But contrast to Bioshock, where the problems with Objectivism aren't laid out as pragmatic problems, but as serious internally inconsistent problems. (Watchmen being 'Fine, it's good. But can you really do it without flipping out?' Bioshock being more 'This shit will corrupt you from the bottom out.')

S/D Pop Culture Object Critiquing Objectivism. :P

What's this "Objectivism" you speak of?

Ah, Wikipedia says it's the Ayn Rand thing. She's pretty much unknown in Europe (before reading about her on ILX I had never even heard of her, despite having studied philosophy and the social sciences) so sometimes I kinda forget how influential(?) she is in America.

xpost

It's Ayn Rand's philosophy - ultra right wing heroic individual bollocks.

I've always wondered abot this Ayn Rand character; she seems to have a big following in the US, yet few people in Europe seem to even know who she is. Is there something about her writings that appeals specifically to Americans?

Yeah, probably her anti-Communism and her plucky, yet heroic fictional individuals.

something about her writings that appeals specifically to Americans

lionization of selfishness

exaltation of selfishness is what i meant, i suppose

Well, she makes the unbridled free market sounds romantic and rugged and individualistic. Like some sort of cowboy wall street. Characters have strong artistic visions, and it's the poor and unenlightened who keep them down.

Is there somewhere else where this is being discussed?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26retail.html?ref=technology

arrr.

That guy reading the Black Freighter is too old! He's only a kid in the comic.

he looks like a real hip urban dood...

bah, the film is going to be rubbish, I see it now.

The Black Freighter stuff... I remember back in the day a lot of people thought it all superfluous and used to skip over it, so it's interesting the extent to which critical opinion now focuses on it.

Critics are suckers for text-within-a-text interplay.

^^^^^^this otm

I have never actually read the Black Freighter stuff!

I've always liked it in its own terms... it's a great OH MY GOD, NOOOOOO story. I know there is all this "it is a metaphor for what Rorschach/Ozymandias/the psychiatrist/Sally Jupiter/your mam have become" stuff, but feh.

Yeah, I read it just as an entertaining pastiche/diversion/backdrop-enricher when I first tackled Watchmen aged fourteen or so, and it works fine as that. Subtext aside, the dramatic beats and rhthym of Black Freighter enhance the main storyline nicely as well.

That guy reading the Black Freighter is too old! He's only a kid in the comic.

Comics aren't just for kids any more.

I am less worried this will suck the more stills I see. It might be ruined by audio, tho.

Ooh, Black Freighter is animated!

I've always been like "I skipped 300 for two reasons - it looked like it sucked and I hated the comic." So I was really dubious about the same director making the movie of a comic I love. But maybe his thing is such faithful adaptations that if I'll react the same way to them as I do to the source.

For one precedent, I rewatched the "V" movie recently, and I still think it was a really good take on the original (with the targets of satire switched, of course.)

It's weird. 300 is such a different beast than Watchmen. I'm pretty unwillling to predict Snyder's results on Watchmen based on 300. The plot structures are, y'know, kinda exact opposites. 300 is more or less one narrative thread where the visuals are basically the whole point, while Watchmen has, as Dr Manhattan might say, more moving parts. 300's succeeded in no small part because of its brilliant art direction--though that didn't help Sky Captain.

Ooh, Black Freighter is animated!

Yeah, this sounds cool! Even if it was done for budgetary reasons, I think it's the proper way to do it. In general, I think comic-based movies should be done as animations more often, it's definitely the better format for comic adaptations. I think the animated films made of Corto Maltese and Persepolis were both very good.

http://community.livejournal.com/mad_ape_den/9455.html

In words of three letters or less. MAN!

Fab.

Outstanding:

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/2706/mmpictm2.jpg

That looks awesome. Why do people ever call Watchmen realistic then bitch about the ending? Dude, Dr Manhattan! It ISN'T realistic! It's a wonderful little sidetrack to the idea 40s (and etc) or so superheroes existed, at most, in HISTORICAL terms. And a magnificent read.

In fact (I may well be the 150000th person to realise this) Dr M's a literal deus ex machina... it 's just annoying seeing so many hate on a perfect superhero story.

does anyone else out there think that the psychiatrist's character arc in "The Abyss Gazes Also" is a bit contrived?

Nah it just points up how completely fucked Rorschach is

Hey people who own Absolute Watchmen, the huge hardcover reprint: Was it worth it? The larger page size, and the extras? I'm undecided if I should get a copy on eBay - so what's your reviews?

ulp, nevermind, my questions were answered in the "Absolute Watchmen Edition' thread, which I could have searched for beforehand, were I more enterprising and less slovenly. We have all learned a lesson here.

Graphitti edition, IMO.

/ducks the hail of shoes thrown at him

New movie production diary and stills showing the original Nite Owl's study. I especially like this one: On the shelf next to Under the Hood" is a copy of Philip Wylie's Gladiator.

http://io9.com/assets/images/io9/2008/06/WMD-22648_select.jpg

!

If nothing else this movie is going to be a study in meticulous production design.

That's what YOU think! A Chicagoan friend of mine was bitching about "Grain Belt" beer signage appearing in that shot of an NY City street.

It's a parallel history though.

hi dere

Dr Manhattan appears to be wearing speedos.

I will be hugely surprised if he spends any time in the finished movie with his atomic tackle out.

There is fuzzy dangle in the cafeteria shot.

I realized today it's pretty damn hard to explain what exactly this is to people who just saw the trailer tonight with Batman and have no idea what it is.

Is Doc M going to be translucent throughout? Cos he's pretty solid looking in the book.

I'd suspect that's the solution they used for making him look otherworldly. Otherwise he's just a naked blue guy - and that would just look a bit silly.

"Motion comics"? Really, Warners? REALLY?? http://www.ew.com/ew/static/watchmen/watchmen.html

Much better: the interview with Moore at http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20213004,00.html .

That motion comics thing has been done a dozen times. People just don't get that this won't work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/business/media/14mtv.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=invincible&st=cse&oref=slogin

People just don't get that this won't work.

OH, REALLY NOW?

God bless Nagisa Oshima.

Fine, people just don't get that this won't work IN AMERICA

Is it just me that can't get them links a-workin'?

Hahahaha. Now everyone will hate Watchmen as much as I do!

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3168969&p=4

Watchmen puts both Rorschach and Nite Owl on the streets in a game set exclusively at night, when most of the nation's crime takes place.

If you're wondering who could possibly replace the much-revered Alan Moore in the scripting department...comic fans will be glad to know that respected comic veteran Len Wein is on board to provide the dialogue.

Swamp Thing In Reverse!

You know, this is so dumb I don't feel offended by it at all.

Plus, as far as tasteless vid-game tie-ins go, who could beat this?? (Which I bought, incidentally -- bit too hard during the first level.)

My favorite 'miss the point' movie videogame tie-in is The Godfather.

"Dude, I beat the game with FREDO!"

I feel no shame for wanting to play that game (FREDO).

Bit disappointed the music on the Platoon game isn't an 8-bit rendering of Adaggio For Strings.

I suppose the comics themselves might be okay, but still disappointed in Darwyn for selling out on this:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/dc-announces-before-watchmen-120201.html

already discussed here:
Superhero Filmmakers: Where's Our Watchmen?

but this thread is better so

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/02/01/arts/comics/comics-popup.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/Comic%20scans/BratPack-i1p19.jpg

http://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/iss/600w/845/458451/9211431_1.jpg

also lol, Tom OTM in 2008

also Abhay OTM a month ago

http://twiststreet.tumblr.com/post/14837611825

Sad there's no Neal Adams Watchmen Odyssey announcement.

isn't most of the material you'd put in a prequel to watchmen already in watchmen

Yes.

Dr. Superman, you just made my day. I demand that Neal Adams create this series!

Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed that Darwyn Cooke's involved in this. Hard to say if I'm interested or not. I'd honestly rather see a crazy, let-it-all-hang-out sequel.

But prequels are a perfect commentary on superhero comics right now, so prequels it is.

I finally caught the Watchman movie on cable tonight. I thought they really did a pretty good job considering how much is in the series to get out in a couple of hours.

It doesn't bother me a bit that DC is doing the Watchmen prequels. Personally, I am really surprised they waited this long. It's a great comic story but in the end - it's still a take on the Charlton characters. Whatever gets done doesn't change the original comics.

Why be disappointed in Darwyn Cooke? Ultimately Cooke's most known comics are doing The Spirit, JLA, adapting Richard Stark novels and working on the Batman cartoons. It's totally what he kind of does and probably the perfect guy to do this kind of thing as he will work on the details to get it right. Think about it. It's better than some jagwagon like Geoff Johns doing this and saying "I know what they SHOULD have done".

The Straczynski ones I could see being the screwed up, as he goes on some weird tangents in his comics (the latter half of his Spider-man run and that totally odd ball abandoned Superman run coming to mind). He also kind of already had a take on this one on his Squadron Supreme, as his take on Hyperion and all is pretty much out of the Watchmen playbook. Considering he is doing the comic with one of the Kubert brothers, it probably will end up getting finished by Phil Hester and Scott McDaniels about 5 months late anyway.

Think about it.

oh wow you have TOTALLY OPENED OUR EYES good point

http://watchmen2creatordarwyncooke.tumblr.com/

totally with earl here, Cooke is the right choice for the project. not that it had to be done in the first place, but still...

yes, he's right that Watchmen sucks because of a lack of "hope," and that he can fix it by making a story with more hope set before the hopeless one

ugh

I too idly watched a fair chunk of the Watchmen movie on cable last night and it is absolutely horrible, a completely tone-deaf rendering of the material.

that Tumblr's pretty scathing and all, but fuck it, maybe Cooke's kids need braces or something. I'm sure DC made it worth his while to eat his words, and, really, I don't see how his Parker adaptations any different in terms of servicing flawed nostalgia. I enjoyed the first one enough, but have passed on the rest (though someone let me know when he gets around to Slayground!).
This kind of fucking over (or at least complicity thereof) your forerunners is kind of part of the deal if you wanna work for DC or Marvel. If Morrison gets away with glossing over (to put it generously) DC's ongoing shit treatment of Siegel & Shuster, and now this weirdo Ghost Rider biz at Marvel...I dunno, so much of it isn't even IP management, it's Brand management.
And who knows, maybe DC will overexpose & overexploit Watchmen to the point where demand dries up, it falls out of print and rights revert back to Moore & Gibbons in time for the 30th anniversary. (unlikely, but best case scenario)

If the rights go back, it'll probably go out of print forever, if Moore's actions regarding 1963 are indicative of anything.

now this weirdo Ghost Rider biz at Marvel...

What's this referring to?

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/11/ghost-rider-creator-sues-marvel-17000/

Almost everything Darwyn ever does is terrific, but I'm not sure he's the "right choice." He's a pessimist, not a nihilist like Moore. Watchmen is as much about the sensibility as the characters, and I can see him cracking the latter, but not the former.

Also, I've met him a coupla times, he's a great guy, and I woulda thought this sort of work was too hacky for him.

21 Notes on Watchmen 2, excellently thought by Tom Spurgeon

a formative experience a tiny bit further in the past than Fantastic Four #1 one was when the Moore/Gibbons series hit the stands.

I was too young to read Watchmen when it came out, but holy shit is this a sobering fact

And by sobering, I mean "the comics audience lies so far to either side of this that it'll never really occur to most people how disconnected this is"

My own disappointment in Darwyn taking this job is that it's keeping from doing his own comics based on material that he's come up with himself. I've enjoyed the vast majority of his comics work, but really want to see him do his own thing. But then again, it's not any of my damn business which jobs he chooses to do or not do.

I thought the WATCHMEN flick tried to have its heart in the right place and made some horrible missteps along the way that made me really not like it at all. Less reverence would have served the film far better. Granted, 99% of the audience didn't read the source as I had, but every shot call out to the original material just jumped right the hell out and reminded me that it was a shadow cast by another work.

I thought the Watchmen movie sucked.

the Watchmen movie thread on ILX was very ugh

I haven't seen all of his films, but the only thing of Zack Snyder's I've found tolerable was his Dawn of the Dead remake!

But back to the point: that tumblr repeatedly posting the cover image of the Azzarello series is way, way on point.

The point of Watchmen was that it was a cynical take on the genre. I mean, there have been series already playing out such takes -- like The Authority and the entire history of post-Watchmen inward-looking comics. The best part of the story was that the characters were cutout archetypes. Once you flesh them out, they're no longer just cutouts and the original series has a different context and... ugh.

I thought the WATCHMEN flick tried to have its heart in the right place and made some horrible missteps along the way that made me really not like it at all. Less reverence would have served the film far better.

That's just it -- it was a reverent adaption by someone who had somehow missed the whole point

The comic's strength was in showing the sketchiness of the whole superhero endeavor, that each character had their own reasons for doing it and their own human strengths and failings. Treating the idea of their being superheros seriously. The point of the movie was LOOK MOM I MADE A SUPERHERO MOVIE THAT IS SERIOUS.

His DAWN OF THE DEAD is really good until it becomes just a sorta regular action movie and then tries to lower the boom at the end. But man, that first 15 minutes are gripping.

Fast Company cobbles together a bunch of different statements from Moore into a faux-interview-statementy-thingo.

Been reading the Before Watchmen series, started out with what I presumed would be the best one, Cooke's Minutemen series. And it was shockingly good!
Question that's killing me though - who is the blonde-haired orphan ("Jacob"?) in the serial killer's photo (from the Comedian's final story) supposed to be? Adrian?

FIRST LOOK! #DoomsdayClock #1 has what I think is the coolest lenticular cover ever. Thank you, Dave! @1moreGaryFrank @bdanderson13 11/22/17 pic.twitter.com/UltJCZFI6G

— Geoff Johns (@geoffjohns) August 30, 2017

thought for a minute that that was a heart at 12 o'clock. not sure if the actuality is better or lamer.

i am powerfully unhyped for this

I wish I had Photoshop installed so I could turn those blots into Alan Moore's face, a middle finger, and three dollar signs.

This is like when young people like shitty bands and it makes you feel old, except the young people are older men and it makes me feel completely neutral

lol

http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/watchmen-hbo-damon-lindelof-1202818921/

Those original twelve issues are our Old Testament. When the New Testament came along it did not erase what came before it. Creation. The Garden of Eden. Abraham and Isaac. The Flood. It all happened.

Sounds like he has the inevitably overwrought ’tude toward the subject matter...

Damon Lindelof's Watchmen

Ah – I steer clear of ILE

Shivers at the phrase "true fans"

Uuuugggggghhhhhh

Rorschach may have spoken truth, but he wasn't a hero. Enter a new mystery in RORSCHACH by @TomKingTK and @jfornes74: https://t.co/OHw9cO3Qtt #DCBlackLabel pic.twitter.com/NkBQQQuaRs

— DC (@DCComics) July 15, 2020

I saw the graphic comic. His mask is actually a woman’s dress.

— EvanBarracuda14 (@EvanBarracuda14) July 15, 2020

*mind blown*

i'll give it a chance because i still like Tom King

also DC Black Label has been retaining good cover designers

That 'Batman: Damned' book is really nice. I have it on my stack to read next.

hope Alan enjoys this. maybe after watching the tv series

in his flat in London

Alan famously resides in his hometown of Northampton, sic. surprised at that from you

I base all my Alan Moore knowledge on the public statements of Zack Snyder, as fact-checked by entertainment media

Anyways, within a few decades people would still have forgotten the alien and the cold war would be back in effect, unless Ozymandias would keep bombarding the Earth again and again with new aliens.

just finished the tv show and saw this early thread comment !

ahh ... just re-read - its a quote from an AM interview.
that makes more sense now.

perhaps AM gave lindelof some pointers

Along with his blessing.

If Dr. Manhattan had just destroyed all nukes on earth, like the Star Child in 2001 or Superman in Superman IV, there wouldn't be a need for any of it.

that's not a quote from Alan Moore, it's a quote from Tuomas!

Wait...did no one ever tell you? Perhaps you should sit down for a moment.

alwayshasbeen.jpeg

morrisp you forgot Alfie O'Meagan from The Nth Man

I've never heard of that! (I specialize in Kubrick & Golan-Globus; I'm fuzzy on everything else.)

This is the I Love Comics board, what do you mean by coming over here with no knowledge of a series set completely outside the continuity of every other comic book in publication that only ran for 16 issues three decades ago

(did that sound like sic? if so please be assured I am only joking)

It totally did sound like sic! Lol

that's not a quote from Alan Moore, it's a quote from Tuomas!

― Piven After Midnight (The Yellow Kid),

so it is.
apologies.
thought he was referring to the AM interview linked above as opposed to quoting himself on a dead ilm board.

TBF, I'm sure many people who've read the comic have thought of Veidt's plan as being flawed in that way, Lindelof included.

If Dr. Manhattan had just destroyed all nukes on earth, like the Star Child in 2001 or Superman in Superman IV, there wouldn't be a need for any of it.

This is discussed in the comic, and Dr. Manhattan admits he probably couldn't destroy all the nukes in time before some of them hit their targets, so that option is off the table.

I don’t recall that, but not surprised it was addressed (why does he have to wait for their launch to be imminent, though? he can’t just teleport around the globe and vaporize them on the DL?)

(Tho I guess the nuclear powers could always just built more nukes... which is a variation on the continuous-squid problem being discussed. How do you truly end a cold war, etc.)