Damon Lindelof's Watchmen

okay that's amazing

xp wait what? i only saw that thing about King spazzing out, confusing Jae Lee for a #comicsgater (which also makes him look stupid anyway, i suppose, but I get the misunderstanding regarding Van Sciver)

Today DC put out an alternate cover to Rorschach by Jae Lee, who has also done covers for comicsgate, a hate group. DC does not consult creators on alternate covers; I reached out to them to express my deep disappointment. Far as I'm concerned this is the cover to Rorschach #1. (posts other tulip cover)

Jae Lee’s “I didn’t even know Comicsgate existed” is pretty obvious bullshit, though.

also lol:

"Like the HBO Watchmen show and very much like the original ‘86 Watchmen, this is a very political work. It’s an angry work. We’re so angry all the time now. We have to do something with that anger. It’s called Rorschach not because of the character Rorschach, but because what you see in these characters tells you more about yourself than about them.”

completely fucking wild coincidence that there's a character called Rorschach in it, whose image appears on both the front cover that he approves of and the one that he doesn't. dude never even knew!

I called this comic Dr. Manhattan because everyone is talking about people getting sick in New York, duh

In the wake of the AT&T takeover, HBO Max flopping, and print DC mysteriously losing loads of money by deciding to pull out of the monopoly distribution system instead of exercising their contractual option allowing them to purchase it outright, DC Comics may be closing down as a publisher altogether at the end of the year.

Before the doors close, the fired-in-2009-to-make-room-for-WB's-Harry-Potter-brand-manager publisher who was directly responsible for repeatedly pulping, axing, or blocking Alan Moore publications during the decade Moore had been tricked back into working for DC, evidently just to fuck with him, is editing a $50 hardcover celebrating how "The ’80‘s were a truly rad time for comic books" in which "DC was killingit." 30 separate issues of the time are included.

The only authors credited are the writer and penciller of two of those 30, Alan Moore and the late Curt Swan.

The hardcover will also include, published legally for the first time ever*, Moore's pitch document for a DCU crossover event, including the possibility for merch based on multiple versions of DC IP. This is also included as a highlight of the solicitation, in lieu of any of the other writers, pencillers, inkers, colourists, layout artists, letterers, plotters or scripters who worked on any of the other 30 completed stories.

Also, the cover of this hardcover is from a 199ish? reprint of the two Moore issues, by the dead guy that drew them, so they don't have to pay anyone.

* reportage notes that this has been "leaked online" before; fuck that, it was circulating in paper APAs before the WWW existed.

buying watchmen in 2020 is like buying steal this book in 1990

"tbh probably unrelated, no one's putting out material doing Watchmen numbers because the best straight-up superhero book isn't going to be THE graphic novel non-comics readers read."

neither is Watchmen in 2019 tbh, even with the TV boost, it ranked mid 20s overall with 110k sold, triple its 2018 numbers. still the best-selling superhero comic though.

((Dav Pilkey's best-selling book was #1 with 1.1 million sold; he also had the #2, #3, #5, #6, #7, #8 and #9 2019 best-sellers, for a total of four million books flogged #copaganda #defundthepolice.

Pilkey's next issue comes out on Tuesday with a 5 million print run

Dan Didio would literally turn red and scream at people if they suggested DC should try to sell one single comic to people who weren't 40+ year old men

I don't know that a singularly popular kid's graphic novel is all that telling about the overall comics market? DC and Marvel don't exist publishing single issues without the direct market, which is not where most of Dog Man sells or where it could ever sell (it sells in big boxes and Amazon).

DC and Marvel could stop publishing floppies and go to an all-OGN lineup also marketing entirely in Target/Wal-Mart/Amazon (or in DC's ideal world, digital only) but that's not really going to be comics as anyone has known them for decades.

(wasn't quoting you to zing you, just for context btw)

Levitz and Berger spent 15 years setting up other distribution channels and audiences and book-format approaches, and Didio scrapped all that, instead of building on it, or even keeping it. Multiple creators and editors have talked about the tantrums he threw in response to suggesting that DC expand to kids graphic novels - kids are literally a growth market for superheroes, but he preferred to sell nine copies of the same floppy to one 50-year-old man than one million copies of a 96-pager to a million families and libraries. New audiences will go to comic shops once they actually read comics.

(Levitz was over-cautious and hobbled various attempts to sell OGNs to teen girls and manga readers too of course, but he didn't break actual doors over the proposals)

DC has been doing those Super Hero Girls GNs recently (unless they gave up on those)?

DC started to expand their all ages offerings when Didio was still in charge - and he was EIC or whatever when they were trying to push the 5G initiative that was controversial because it wasn't just going to be the same old same old. Whereas the new regime is rather pointedly moving in the opposite direction, much more traditionalist in superhero presentation.

I don't know the extent to which Didio was opposed to all ages stuff (my default attitude is that I dislike and distrust everyone at Marvel and DC whose job is to sell their product) but what I've heard from people who'd have some idea is that his objection was to the move away from single issues/printing at all to a digital/OGN format that the new regime seems to favor. If you're going to keep publishing single issues, you need those 50-year old men. (They're not the primary demographic buying anymore, but they do make up a bigger chunk of the whales that keep stores in business.)

Comics as readers know them can't exist without the direct market - like, we're not a notable account and our new comic wall in one location is 60 feet long @ five shelves high. That kind of space will not ever be given to comics in the mass market. They're fragile, they're difficult to order, buyers have high expectations in terms of service.

It should be both, obviously - but the two concepts as markets don't overlap much (as I said about Dog Man).

Dog Man is good stuff (“Petey” is a truly great character) but I don’t really think of it as comics.

I don't know the extent to which Didio was opposed to all ages stuff

There was a really detailed account from one of the driven-out female editors in the last two weeks, that I can't find now. Here's a classic though, even more direct than I remembered:

Asked by Yang if he had tried to do an all-ages book with a franchise character, Paul Pope said he did test the waters, only to be knocked back. "Batman Year 100 did pretty well, so I sat down with the head of DC Comics. I really wanted to do 'Kamandi [The Last Boy on Earth]', this Jack Kirby character. I had this great pitch... and he said 'You think this is gonna be for kids? Stop, stop. We don't publish comics for kids. We publish comics for 45-year olds. If you want to do comics for kids, you can do 'Scooby-Doo.' And I thought, 'I guess we just broke up.'"

So he did his Kamandi ideas as Battling Boy instead, an OGN that he owned the copyright on, and had an NYT #1 bestseller, touring art exhibition, and various spin-off books.

(Then got cancelled for sexual creepery and various drunken assaults. If only he'd been an editor, Didio woulda backed him!)



DC started to expand their all ages offerings when Didio was still in charge

Yeah, but in his last year, after 16 years there, with imprints that were axed after a fistful of months, and the editor who ran them has now been appointed EiC after he's gone, all of which might point to it not representing a major sea change in his attitude

That's kind of what I mean, though? They do sell comics to adults (though IME the middle-aged stereotype is largely wrong). No $3.99 kids comics sell very well. If he had published his OGN as a series of individual comics they would have been just another one-paragraph filler solicit in Previews that most likely didn't make it past 3-4 issues.

The kids OGN market just really isn't the same category. They did publish a Kamandi miniseries after Rebirth that did pretty well, aimed at the same 13-65 age range as every other mainline DC/Marvel title.

I want them to do both but if you're fighting against people who want to eliminate it because they want to eliminate single issues completely, I kind of get his emphasis on them? It's better for DC (as the company everyone knows) - DC as it is now is heading toward an empty name under which to aggregate IP.

I want them to do both

yes, the point would be for them to want to sell single issues (and tpbs and massive omnibus hardcovers) to 58-year-old men (as those 45-year-olds now are), and also want to sell OGNs to kids, and all sorts of works in various formats to the same kids across the intervening 14 years to 2020, and for another 14 years into the future, maybe even long enough that there are some 45-year old men to buy the latest IP revamp in 2045

Right, but if, as he seems to indicate, Pope was pitching a kids' comic series not a one-off OGN, that's not necessarily proof of Didio being rabidly anti-all ages... that's reading correctly that the hottest kids single issue comic sells about 1/10th of Detective Comics. (Sidestepping the question of who buys all ages comics at all - the average age of the Lumberjanes reader AFAICT is about 30.)

I guess I just don't see the relevance of a small number of superstar kids graphic novels to the comics market, any more than the MCU box office tells us anything about expectations for a new Spike Lee movie.

if there weren't a pandemic on, young people who loved the Black Panther movie might have gone to the cinema to see Chadwick Boseman in the new Spike Lee movie

Kids want to read comics. At least, from my perspective in the library world, they love superheroes, they love teen and young adult stories, they love Marvel characters and manga. It's a massive failure from Marvel and DC not to capitalize on it.

Yeah, it’s bizarre. Nearly every boy in my sons preschool was dressed as Black Panther or Captain America for Halloween, but I can’t find age appropriate superhero comics

These early readers are what they offer for the preschool set:

https://d1w7fb2mkkr3kw.cloudfront.net/assets/images/book/lrg/9780/3162/9780316271448.jpg

There are a bunch of Little Golden Books for Marvel (and maybe DC now)

DC does them, with this irritating art where the characters have super big feet, etc.

https://images3.penguinrandomhouse.com/cover/9780385384407

In terms of actual comics for kids (when they’re ready for them), Warner/DC does well on that front—with stuff like Scooby-Doo Team-Ups.

Marvel offers a Super Hero Adventures series which is good. A guy named Sholly Fisch seems to do a lot for writing for both (DC & Marvel)—his style is instantly recognizable, and he had a knack for dialogue.

*has

(Also, the light in-jokes are genuinely funny to the adult reader.)

Here’s an example of a few panels. It’s cute stuff: https://imgur.com/a/4YBBsRr

Since we were talking about Dog Man here (for some reason)—the new book has 3-6 big panels per page, and very little dialogue... it’s a 10-15 minute read for a second grader. C’mon, Pilkey!!

The kids cannot get enough of it... but man I wish they were actually good

I think they’re pretty good! They have some funny stuff—at least the early ones—mixed with some genuine poignancy.

completely fucking wild coincidence that there's a character called Rorschach in it, whose image appears on both the front cover that he approves of and the one that he doesn't. dude never even knew!

― Steppin' RZA (sic), Monday, July 27, 2020 3:35 PM (one month ago)

I called this comic Dr. Manhattan because everyone is talking about people getting sick in New York, duh

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Tuesday, July 28, 2020 12:42 AM (one month ago)

turns out maybe Rorschach doesn't actually appear in King's Rorschach comic, also loooooololol forever

The interior art is pretty meh and they just made it returnable out of desperation.

This is going to be a big ol' bust.

also loooooololol forever

Since I've spent half my career ripping him off, it's not a shocker that I worship Alan Moore and Watchmen. I wrote Omega Men, which is like almost the direct one-to-one rip off of Watchmen — I mean, I used to joke that "Who Omegas the Omega Men" should have been our title for The Omega Men. I sort of come from the School of Alan Moore. I mean, he's my guy.

At least he’s honest about it

hah, true that

I like King's earlier work better than his recent stuff. But none of it's *anything* like Alan Moore.

To cycle back to the thread topic—a guy who works in “the biz” told me recently that at a preview screening of Zack Snyder’s 2009 Watchmen movie, Lindelof was sitting in the audience, weeping with joy after the opening “stage-setting” sequence.

I like King's earlier work better than his recent stuff. But none of it's *anything* like Alan Moore.

advertising your authenticity as a writer by claiming you did war crimes for the CIA is totally a School of Alan Moore move

tbf that was by far the best / most inventive part of the movie lol xp

yeah, i really like that intro actually

(ftr, I presented that anecdote without judgment... just thought it spoke to DL’s investment in the material.)

He was good at that. The pre titles sequence of his dawn if the dead was the only good part of the movie.

just thought it spoke to DL’s investment in the material.)

in that he could be insanely moved by separating "the material" from it being ideas and words and lines made on paper by specific authors? sure does :)



turns out maybe Rorschach doesn't actually appear in King's Rorschach comic

also turns out that King will lie to disparage the work & personality of the other character's creator too. another CIA psy-op!

As part of his research for the series, King did a deep dive on Ditko. “You can see Ditko slowly going, there’s no other way, but slowly going mad as he goes forward and forward. But he’s going mad in the most artistically beautiful... It’s like watching Van Gogh. You’re watching a madness poured out on a page where it gets more and more intricate. [...] He eventually trapped himself in his apartment for 30 years, basically left just to get groceries and ignored the outside world except to grumble now and then.”

this is some deep level concern trolling

if you mean King's quote, otm