Dc comics to publish watchmen prequels...

[RADIOACTIVE MAN]

How do y'all feel about this?

[Dr. Simon Hurt]

'Watchmen' Prequel Announced by DC Comics: 'Before Watchmen' [Updated Art]



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This morning, DC Comics announced its long-rumored new Watchmen project, a prequel titled Before Watchmen that expands on the characters and world of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's seminal 1986 comic book, which was adapted into a 2009 movie. Featuring a variety of top-tier writers and artists across the comics industry, it will expand on the history of the world of Watchmen and of many of the book's most popular characters.

Seven miniseries have been announced on DC's Source blog:

RORSCHACH (4 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: Lee Bermejo
MINUTEMEN (6 issues) – Writer/Artist: Darwyn Cooke
COMEDIAN (6 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: J.G. Jones
DR. MANHATTAN (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artist: Adam Hughes
NITE OWL (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artists: Andy and Joe Kubert
OZYMANDIAS (6 issues) – Writer: Len Wein. Artist: Jae Lee
SILK SPECTRE (4 issues) – Writer: Darwyn Cooke. Artist: Amanda Conner

More information and updated cover art follows.

The list of talent is packed with names of some of DC's most popular and talented creators, and original Watchmen editor Len Wein will not only be writing Ozymandias, but also "Curse of the Crimson Corsair," a pirate tale that will be illustrated by Watchmen colorist and appear as a two-page backup across the various Before Watchmen titles.

With the exceptions of Wein and Higgins, none of the creators involved in this initiative were involved in the original production of Watchmen. This announcement does clear up where quite a few popular creators, such as Jae Lee, J.G. Jones and Amanda Conner, have been working for the past year or so since ending other projects.

The publishing event will be capped off with Before Watchmen: Epilogue, a single issue by multiple writers and artists that will presumably bridge the gap from the prequel to the original series.

Tags: Adam Hughes - AdamHughes - Amanda Conner - AmandaConner - Andy Kubert - AndyKubert - Before Watchmen - BeforeWatchmen - Brian Azzarello - BrianAzzarello - Darwyn Cooke - DarwynCooke - J. Michael Straczynski - J.G. Jones - J.g.Jones - J.MichaelStraczynski - Jae Lee - JaeLee - Joe Kubert - JoeKubert - Lee Bermejo - LeeBermejo - Len Wein - LenWein - Watchmen - watchmen 2 - watchmen prequel - Watchmen2 - WatchmenPrequel

Read More: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/0...#ixzz1lAHRvnnc

not sure yet...part of me thinks it's blasphemy, but then i remember alan moore did 'league of extraordinary gentlemen' which had mr. hyde sodomize the invisible man and 'lost girls' which had a lesbian orgy with Alice, Wendy, and Dorothy. then again, those stories were taken public domain characters and using them in a new context, and not adding on to a work that was always intended to be self-contained.

The artists involved are all generally of a really high caliber, all of the writers are hit and miss for me, though, but I think they have huge balls.

i think Alan Moore is right to be pissed at DC and it's writers apparently not having any better ideas and the only thing this is likely to do is show that Watchmen (the original) is just light years beyond anything that most comic writers are capable of, even just from a structural and thematic level.



The art sho duz look purty, though...but I'm going to pass

DC Plans Prequels to Watchmen Series

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Published: February 1, 2012

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No hero’s tale ever really ends, whether it is Odysseus’ journey home from the Trojan War or Sherlock Holmes’s exploits after his tumble over the Reichenbach Falls. And now Watchmen, one of the most influential comic-book works of the last 25 years, is about to yield additional chapters, a plan that has already drawn the outrage of its original author.

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DC Comics

From the Before Watchmen mini-series.

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• Times Topic:Graphic Novels

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DC Comics

Dr. Manhattan of Watchmen, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.


On Wednesday DC Entertainment is expected to announce that its DC Comics imprint intends to publish seven comic-book mini-series that will continue the stories of the adventurers introduced in Watchmen, which was written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.
Serialized from 1986 to 1987 and since collected as a graphic novel, Watchmen chronicles a group of crime fighters who, amid the real history of the cold war, find they are as powerless to solve their personal problems as they are to prevent the seeming inevitability of nuclear holocaust.
The new mini-series, collectively called Before Watchmen and scheduled to start in the summer, will not be direct sequels to the original, which has been widely praised for its sophisticated storytelling and for its emphatic (if deliberately ambiguous) ending. Instead a new group of writers and illustrators will expand on the back stories of the costumed vigilantes like Rorschach and Nite Owl.
DC Comics seemed to understand how this announcement would most likely be received by Watchmen devotees; in a news release the publisher said the Before Watchmen installments were “as highly anticipated as they are controversial.”
Mr. Moore, who has disassociated himself from DC Comics and the industry at large, called the new venture “completely shameless.”
Speaking by telephone from his home in Northampton, England, Mr. Moore said, “I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.”
For DC Comics, the lure of revisiting Watchmen, even without Mr. Moore’s involvement, is understandably irresistible. The graphic novel has been a perpetual best seller, with more than two million copies sold, and its critical success has brought renewed attention to comics, particularly in Hollywood, where it has helped to spawned countless blockbuster superhero movies. (That includes a 2009 adaptation of the graphic novel “Watchmen,” directed by Zack Snyder, that was both praised and panned for its faithfulness to the source material; costing an estimated $130 million, it brought in a disappointing $185 million at the global box office.)
DC has become an increasingly crucial part of Time Warner, whose film studio, Warner Brothers, is preparing new big-budget Batman and Superman movies. And the publisher has enjoyed increased sales from a recent initiative that restarted its superhero comics at issue No. 1.
“It’s our responsibility as publishers to find new ways to keep all of our characters relevant,” Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, the co-publishers of DC Entertainment, said in a statement. “After 25 years the Watchmen are classic characters whose time has come for new stories to be told.”
Brian Azzarello, a comics author who is writing the mini-series for the Watchmen characters Rorschach and the Comedian, said he expected an initial wave of resistance because “a lot of comic readers don’t like new things.”
“I think the gut reaction is going to be, ‘Why?’ ” Mr. Azzarello said in a telephone interview. “But then when the actual books come out, the answer will be, ‘Oh, that’s why.’ ”
Some admirers suggested that more nuanced reactions were possible. The novelist Jonathan Lethem admitted in a telephone interview to “an instinctive, protective scorn” of any effort to revisit Watchmen.
“That story was absolutely consummate and an enunciation as complete as any artwork in any realm,” he said. “And it’s just inviting a disgrace, basically, to try to extend any aspect of it.”
Yet, Mr. Lethem added, the referential nature of the original Watchmen — which was inspired by earlier superhero characters and drew upon a grab bag of influences, including the Bible, the sonnets of Shelley and “The Threepenny Opera” to tell its story — begged for the graphic novel to be reinterpreted.
“In the greater scheme of things,” he said, “there’s an ecological law, almost, that it ought to be.”
Not to Mr. Moore, however. To him Watchmen is not a proud reminder of the role he has played in legitimizing comics as a serious storytelling vehicle. Instead it evokes memories of what he says were “draconian contracts” he signed with DC in the 1980s that give him little control over the work he created, and his gradual falling-out with the publisher over the film versions of “Watchmen” and another of his graphic novels, “V For Vendetta.”
While he was unaware of DC’s specific plans for Before Watchmen, Mr. Moore said he has over the years resisted overtures from the publisher to approve sequel or prequel projects.
Still, Mr. Moore said he was unlikely to stand in the way of Before Watchmen or to fight the project in court, where he said DC Comics would meet him with an “infinite battery of lawyers.”
“I don’t want money,” he said. “What I want is for this not to happen.”
Mr. Gibbons does not share those feelings. Though he is not participating in Before Watchmen, he said in a statement: “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.”
But Mr. Moore was unconvinced, saying that the endeavor only weakened the argument that comics were an authentic form of literature.
“As far as I know,” he said, “there weren’t that many prequels or sequels to ‘Moby-Dick.’ ”

[RADIOACTIVE MAN]

Thanks for adding on fam...big ups

[DVSK]

smh

[MaskedAvenger]

I'll give it a chance

[main_man]

its seems dc is out marveling marvel in recent years. lol


alan moore is in kill mode over this.

honestly, some of the teams on these books look promising. the rorschach & manhattan ones in particular. they went with some interesting choices.

straight up money ploy though.

[RADIOACTIVE MAN]

can't lie tho, I'm interested in seeing what direction they are going to take with the roscharch story

[Construct]

Alan Moore created a classic untouchable piece of art with Watchmen. I'm not too optimistic about this stuff but I'll check out the Rorschach issues first. If they are good I might try the rest, but if it doesn't live up to the high expectations I have for anything Watchmen related then I won't consider it canon personally. I thought the movie turned out pretty good, but it didn't affect me the way the book did.

It's been a while since I read Watchmen, but whats with Ozymandias levitating? I thought only Dr. Manhattan had powers?

[RADIOACTIVE MAN]

Good question right there..I hope they don't butcher the original concept of the comic

[Creepshow]

I can never understand what the big deal is if DC decides to make more books of a product they have the rights to. As long as they don't "Remake" Watchmen, it's cool with me.

[Construct]

Originally Posted by Creepshow

I can never understand what the big deal is if DC decides to make more books of a product they have the rights to. As long as they don't "Remake" Watchmen, it's cool with me.

Yeah its not a big deal to me. It just sucks whenever a company decides to follow up a classic with spin offs so they can milk the franchise for more money. I'll be annoyed if this ends up watering down the franchise, going away from the original concepts, and giving new fans the wrong idea of what Watchmen is about. It sorta turns me off to the whole thing when Alan Moore is against it - its like someone making another Godfather movie against the wishes of Coppola and the actors.

That said, they did pick an interesting group of people to work on it so it may be end up being a legit soulful addition to Watchmen. Either way I'm sure Alan Moore, Gibbons and Higgins will be gettin paid off the whole thing.