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BIG BIG ups to Dustin for making a solid, reasonable summary of the argument against the project.

Again, the quality of the books themselves is not the point people are making. The quality of the books doesn’t matter if you feel DC has screwed the original creator of the concept.

@citizencliff Yes! Thank you! He was offered a bad deal, but thanks for realizing that he, indeed, signed that deal. No excuse to complain now.

Of course DC and Marvel have screwed a lot of creators. That’s what happens when you deal with large corporations. If you don’t know that, maybe you shouldn’t be dealing with large corporations.

That’s why companies like Image, Dark Horse, Top Shelf, etc. exist. To help sustain creator owned books.

If you want to own your own characters, it’s probably a pretty bad idea to create them for a huge conglomerate.

“This constant Charlton comparison is saying it’s raw material and not the chef that we should take into account.”

On the other hand, *this* argument that ONLY the contributions and wishes of the putative ‘chef’ (Moore) should be taken into account — and what the ’sous chef’ (Gibbons) and the folks who provided the ‘ingredients’ (Charlton, though Moore did tweak the ‘recipe’ a bit) and the ‘kitchen’ (DC) contributed is without value or merit — seems equally ill-conceived and cynical in its own way to me.

How quickly things start to look like Newsarama around here. And this place is supposed to be above the “fanboyish” dialogue. Ha.

@Blackcatgreg: “Of course DC and Marvel have screwed a lot of creators. That’s what happens when you deal with large corporations.”

It’s obvious that we’re on two different sides of the river here. On the other hand, it’s clear that there’s a bright future for you in DC’s marketing division.

“3) the event itself as emblem of DC and Marvel’s extraordinarily short-sighted thinking in this age of event comics. Why detail some of your most high profile, respected creators, and J. Michael Straczynski, to make new stories that weren’t necessary, that predate a comic that hasn’t been timely in 20 years? Why not make NEW CHARACTERS, NEW STORIES, NEW ADVENTURES, instead of exhuming the same old corpses and fondling their over-handled remains again and again?”

Respectfully, this is a rather silly argument. New Characters/Adventures vs. Old Characters/Adventures is a false choice. I like a great deal of the new creator-owned work being done today (Chew, Fatale, Bendis’ Scarlet, etc.), but I also like reading a good Batman yarn now and then — and I suspect most comic readers are like me in that regard.

Shared-world universe stories (with superheroes) are a unique artform unto themselves, and as such have a certain unique appeal. That really shouldn’t be that hard a concept to grasp.

As for ‘necessary’ — who and/or what criteria should determine whether a story was necessary? Was Batman: LOTDK ‘necessary’? Was Daredevil: Born Again? Or about Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier (or his Parker adpatations, for that matter)? How about Moore’s own ‘Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow’?'Necessary’ or not, I’m glad those creators used those ‘old’ characters to make some great comics.

There’s a lot of great creator-owned work out there, and I’m happy to extol its virtues — but I’m equally happy to roll my eyes at those who think they have to trash classic characters and/or the practice of WFH in order to do so.

This is great news. I have a lot of respect for these people. It’s never okay to screw the creator. Glad people are starting to finally take a stand against it.

Yes yes yes, its a complex and nuanced issue, but my first gut reaction “i’d be more likely to go to a store because they didn’t stock Before Watchmen”.
The Wednesday crowd are unlikely to abandon their loyal lcs because they don’t have any copies of a specific issue. Probably happens all the time with the surprise hits.
But for people like me?
They just became a destination shop.

Will, I’m not saying no one should make comics with existing characters, but Watchmen? It’s like doing “The Early Adventures Of Jay Gatsby”–it’s not necessary because Watchmen is a closed circuit, a finite, wholly contained story. Batman and Superman and Spider-Man are existing characters whose stories have always been episodic genre tales, often retreading the same old ground because biff-bam-pow, comics are usually for kids. But Watchmen is for adults.

Another way to come at it–Watchmen was a piece of art, whether or not you like the art, or whatever its flaws might have been. It grappled with issues both in and out of its pages, both contextual and subtextual. Before Watchmen is just money–it’s just a book of coupons. There’s no reason for it to be there, except for fan service and DC’s bottom line.

I’d argue DC could expend the same amount of energy, marketing, fake viral “buzz”, etc., and create new characters, new IP’s, new directions that over time would make MORE money for the company, in whatever markets or media or venues. If DC wants to be purely about their bottom line, I think that’s perfectly fine. But doing it this way, in such an unnecessarily exploitative way, engendering so much ill will toward the company and by extension the creators who work for that company– it’s stupid. It’s bad business. It’s smoke and mirrors, and behind the smoke and mirrors are just more smoke, more mirrors, and nothing of real value or import.

I don’t blame anyone who’s excited about Before Watchmen. I don’t think it’s bad at all to want to read it or buy it or whatever. I do find the whole project reprehensible, cloddish, and backwards, but there are a lot of comics I don’t like. That’s just my opinion, for what that’s worth. But I think when people like Chris Roberson and shops like Bergen Street make a stand on issues they find unbearably problematic, I think it’s worth something.

We tend to view these issues as if we all had law degrees– “now now, hold on, we all know he signed that contract, too bad dumdum”, but that’s frankly gross reasoning. If you think that comics are art, then it follows that comics are artists. And if you value people making art, don’t act like bad contracts are zingers that big bad corporations should be expected to throw at artists! Don’t act like Siegel and Shuster had law degrees and were savvy businessmen. Don’t pretend that Jack Kirby didn’t build virtually the entire Marvel Universe in just a few years, only to later have most of his originals stolen while under Marvel’s care, and have to renounce all rights in order to get the few remaining pieces back. Jack Kirby was a soldier and an artist and a visionary. Alan Moore revolutionized “literate” comics a dozen times in the 80’s and 90’s. We should treat these artists with the respect their creations and their sweat have earned, not line up to come up with clever reasons why they deserved what they got.

I agree with Citizen Cliff’s point. Stores are in the business of selling, not censoring. If I hear of a favorite writer or artist putting out a book called Hitler and the gay bashers rape some babies, with the proceeds going to the KKK, I really don’t care. I want to read that book. I like comic shops that sell EVERYTHING. If a shop doesnt’ want to be obvious about promoting BW, then that’s awesome. If a comic shop only want’s to promote Indies, then that’s awesome too. But carry everything or chances are I won’t be buying stuff at your shop because I don’t care at all about your personal morals or lack of them.

Regarding the tangent about Charlton and Chefs and Songs and what not, I’ll just say that this comment by Will Naslund says it all:

“On the other hand, *this* argument that ONLY the contributions and wishes of the putative ‘chef’ (Moore) should be taken into account — and what the ’sous chef’ (Gibbons) and the folks who provided the ‘ingredients’ (Charlton, though Moore did tweak the ‘recipe’ a bit) and the ‘kitchen’ (DC) contributed is without value or merit — seems equally ill-conceived and cynical in its own way to me.”

This. Period. It takes a village. You hippy creators lining up for Kickstarter funds should know that.

Dean
>> Sure, I figure most [if not all] merchants curate what they sell but I used to “believe” I had the latitude to browse and “shop” for anything that was published any given week, as long as I was diligent and arrived the day it was officially released [when I dare skip the weekly release day, I check online to see what came out and contact my LCS and ask 'em to kindly pull and hold my desired choices]. >>

The number of comics stores that carry everything that’s published any given week is probably zero. If you believed that you were seeing it all by shopping early, you were probably missing out on a lot of stuff that never made the shelves at all.

Cliff:
>> I don’t believe it’s the place of the shops or online stores to boycott or sensor which books are available to the customers.>>

Every store limits what books are available to its customers. Heck, even grocery stores limit what groceries are available to their customers.

>> Alan didn’t pass on being brought on to write Swamp Thing, a seminal comics character created by Len Wein, and he did a terrific job. He didn’t say ‘No, no, I can’t, that’s Len’s character.’>>

Considering Len was the one offering him the job, it would have been a very odd response.

Secrets behind the comics revealed: When I was trying to sell stuff to DC, Len invited me to come up with SWAMP THING and JLA fill-in ideas, because he’d offered Alan whichever of the two books he wanted. Whichever one Alan didn’t take, he’d need a fill-in for. So Alan took SWAMP THING and I got to write JLA #224. [My Swamp Thing fill-in ideas made it into other works, none of them involving Swamp Thing.]

kdb

@Dustin Harbin–re: “if you think of comics as art, you must then agree that comics creators are artists”, I agree with that.

But it raises an interesting distinction–can a corporation make art? Can it hire craftsmen–and subvert their artistic identities to its own commercial whims–and still make art? I don’t want to say it can, but I sort of think it can.

It further raises the question of whether something conceived out of non-artistic motives can become art, which again, I think it can.

Maybe in the long run we should consider there to be two creators of a given mainstream comic–the “artist” and the “corporation” (however many people there are on the artist side and however many people on the corporate side). Certainly I’d say that’s the case with Before Watchmen, and I’d argue it’s also true of virtually any superhero comic from Marvel and DC.

(hope it comes through that I’m not trying to refute anything you’re saying; I agree with EVERYThing you’re saying, and it leads me to this next stage of questioning)

I’ve been informed that my local shop won’t be carrying ‘Before Watchmen’ either except for subscribers. They actually went so far as to remove the cover of this month’s Previews catalog (featuring a Jae Lee drawing of Ozymandias) from the store copy. Strikes me as leaving money on the table, but I understand the decision.

Then again, I wasn’t going to buy them anyway.

Alan didn’t pass on being brought on to write Swamp Thing, a seminal comics character created by Len Wein, and he did a terrific job.

These arguments about Alan Moore and Swamp Thing never make sense to me. Moore was at least the fifth writer to use the character in an extended run (including throughout the end of the Challengers of the Unknown series before Martin Pasko’s run). Swampy was clearly meant to have ongoing serial adventures like the other umpteen dozen DC heroes.

Matt:
>> Maybe in the long run we should consider there to be two creators of a given mainstream comic–the “artist” and the “corporation” (however many people there are on the artist side and however many people on the corporate side).>>

If you do that, it naturally extends to considering Maxwell Perkins the co-author of all the books he edited, by promoting anyone who has input into a project to the level of co-author. The work-for-hire deals already make the corporation the legal author of the work; I think that’s more than enough.

Side example: I once, at Norman Mailer’s request,* wrote a long letter advising him on how to finish HARLOT’S GHOST. Does that make me a co-author?

[*not a direct request - Mailer asked his agent for advice, his agent farmed the job out to one of the VPs, and the VPs dropped 750 pages of manuscript on my desk and told me to get going.]

Or, on the Charlton’s rights side of the equation: Lawrence Block once wrote a novel about a private eye named Markham, a licensed tie-in to a TV show. When he was done, his agent and editor thought the novel was good enough to stand on its own, so Block reworked the manuscript so it was about a PI of his own invention, and sold the book as an original. [He also wrote another Markham novel, to fulfill that contract.] Does that mean the TV company that made the Markham series has some sort of right to Block’s new PI character? He didn’t change the characters at the proposal stage, after all. He wrote the whole book, finished it, then rewrote it to be a new character.

I think various people inspire, advise and suggest, but that doesn’t make them co-authors. Ditko owns Mr. A, DC owns the Question, and Rorschach is tied up in whatever the Watchmen rights are. But even though they’re creatively related, they’re different characters, as are TV’s Markham and Block’s “Ed London,” who took his place in Block’s manuscript.

kdb

That two million is only since the movie trailer pushed it. It probably sold another two million in the twenty years before that.

But yeah. Each Asterix sells more.

Also, how do you think JMS would react to Warners making Babylon Four when he didn;t want it?

Hmm, I think I’ll ask him.

“But do you really think any of these creators stayed up at night for years wishing they could have a crack at Watchmen 2? Do Moby Dick or The Bible need an update to stay “relevant”? And how are books set in the past of the 80s relevant to today anyway?”

“Do Batman and Superman need an update to stay ‘relevant’? And how are books set in the past of the 1930s relevant to today anyway?”

Fixed it for you.

“Also, how do you think JMS would react to Warners making Babylon Four when he didn;t want it?”

Well given that JMS told the story of Babylon 4……

They should probably go for more truth-in-advertising, and umbrella call these works WATCH MEN MAKE YET ANOTHER CYNICAL CASH GRAB AND PRETEND IT’S SOMETHING ELSE.

It’ll probably sell a lot of copies, but I’m not much interested although some talented people are working on the different books. I wonder how DC decided which series deserved 4 issues & which deserved 6? Maybe when the books are released I’ll re-read Watchmen.

Watchmen is overrated, but i enjoyed the movie quite a bit :-)

Diego, you’re not my friend anymore!! :-)

“Watchmen is overrated.”

Right. Millions of copies sold. Defined a generation. Broke the mold. But it’s overrated because YOU didn’t like it. If we were gushing over Secret Wars II, then you have the right to say it’s being overrated. Watchmen has proved itself over and over. Thanks.

As to this comment: “But do you really think any of these creators stayed up at night for years wishing they could have a crack at Watchmen 2?” – well why don’t you ASK them? Especially since you stated: “Many of the creators working on these books are friends of mine — several, I would characterize as dear friends”. In other words, you can’t throw out such a generalized statement and see that as some kind of talking point to further your argument. Maybe they did wish they could play with those characters. Maybe they didn’t want to say no. DC is good at paying their creators well with royalties and such – why begrudge someone the chance to make money WHILE telling a kick ass story?

You know, if there’d been an Internet in the old days, it would have split apart when Steve Ditko left Marvel. People would have said that Spider-Man was untouchable after he left because it was such a personal work. Yet somehow, here we are decades later after Ditko left and Stan Lee left (mostly), and Dan Slott and a bunch of other people are making a comfortable living off Spider-Man.

“Watchmen” has become this sacred volume and any idea of continuing stories in that universe is considered anathema. Consider, fans felt burned twice when Frank Miller returned to tell more stories about Batman. Why invite another possible disaster? I mean, they put both JMS and Adam Hughes on one book together? Really? I hope DC gets all those pages in before they publish that one…

The ones I’ll be putting my money behind are the ones with Darwyn Cooke’s name. You know why? Because I trust him to get his work in, I enjoy his voice, and he’s promised a different look at a character that might have deserved a little better. That’s something he did in New Frontier, and both Hal Jordan and Barry Allen took off like rockets after that.

JMS got some good points in by reminding everyone that Alan Moore got far by playing with other people’s toys. Well, now we get to see what other people do with the Charlton characters he played with. Sure, this could be the next “Scarlet”, but it could also be the next “Seven Percent Solution” and that wouldn’t be too bad.

I think Slott and commenter Sam got it exactly right, but here’s another thing: People wanted MORE Hobbit/LOTR stories, at least I did, which is why I read those jumbled and confusing note complications. But did anyone read Watchmen and think :I really wish I could read MORE adventures of the Watchmen”? I really don’t think so.

“Right. Millions of copies sold. Defined a generation. Broke the mold.”

You realize your defense of it in this manner is actually evidence for why some people consider it overrated, right? Obviously it’s his opinion that it’s overrated, he said it.

He has just as much right to his opinion to think its overrated as you do to think its not. That’s what makes opinions so great. Neither one of you is any more right or wrong then the other. It’s a subjective term.

*compilations, not complications

I’m not saying it isn’t good, i’m saying it’s overrated because the fans of superhero comic-books (mainly 40 year old men in 9 y.o mindsets) don’t know any better… and like Mr. Moore himself mentioned, still cling to old ideas :P

@Steven Stwalley

Yeah, I’m with you…this is mostly just boring. It’s sure as Hell not going to appeal to people who aren’t already in the fold as comic readers. I’m not exactly sure what audience they’re going for here.

I’m sitting out for ethical reasons…but to those who want this? You and I will never see eye to eye, so enjoy.