Smiley Spot: Before Watchmen Announced

Balls man, Balls.

Today on the DC Comics blog, they announced several prequel comics featuring the characters and concepts from Watchmen. For the first time since the story created by legends Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, the Watchmen characters will be receiving new stories from industry veterans. This is gonna cause a storm for sure. The rumors have been around for years, and now Dan Didio and Jim Lee are going through with it: the first attempt to re-enter the groundbreaking work, with an endorsement from Dave Gibbons himself.

Before we go further, we have to collectively say it again: Balls.

Now we will leave this groundbreaking news as it is for now with a follow-up later in the discussions. I am sure other UysFaber contributors (if not all of them) will have strong opinions, including those that hate this new move, arguing that the initial Watchmen is perfect and this is consumerism and people looking for a quick buck.

My own take: I respect the move and applaud the choice to do it. Granted I am not the biggest Watchmen fan, and while others worship the amazing talent of Alan Moore, I am not in love with him. I am in fact in awe of the DC editorial bravery for allowing a product that will really excite their fanbase and giving their top talents a big field to work in. If you love the original Watchmen, then read it, enjoy it. It will still be regarded as one of the most important works of all time. Still, the characters were creative interperetations of the Charleston characters from the '70s, Alan Moore was re-appropriating the work of legendary comic book creator Steve Ditko (SpiderMan creator). I wish that Moore could reap a bit more of the windfall for this project, but this is a bold step for characters that can never be owned by anyone.

Dov Smiley