Photo by Jose Villarubia
I wanted to finish up a few things on Before Watchmen and then, hopefully I’ll wrap this up. I finished Monday’s post while I was hopped up on Benadryl and that is not something I recommend for anyone. I was not able to articulate my name the main reason why Before Watchmen (BeWa) can be viewed as a depressing reality for the comics industry.
I’ll start with reprinting one of my comments on the previous thread:
The contract that Moore and Gibbons signed is actually pretty standard in publishing — the rights revert when it goes out of print. Pretty common.
Where it differs is in this: In the book publishing world, in general, when an author such as Alan Moore writes a worldwide smash that is quickly enshrined as a future classic….you try to keep that person working for you so you can make even more money off their future works.
DC, for reasons probably buried in their DNA from Jack Liebowitz, proceeded to alienate Moore by chintzing him on merchandise monies, and then subsequently alienating him by making him change The Cobweb stories and trashing an entire print run of LoeG.
Is Moore a high maintenance creator? Absolutely.
But you’ll note that the main reason Diane Nelson, DC’s current president, was given reign over the company is because she was so good at handling another very high maintenance creator, J.K. Rowling.
Would WB treat Rowling the way DC treated Moore?
I don’t think so.
In one of his searing posts on the matter, David Brothers presented a timeline:
1. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen is an enormously successful comic book, on creative, critical, and commercial levels
2. Moore and Gibbons both signed a contract that gave DC the rights to Watchmen until the book went out of print for a year (I believe), at which point they’d receive the rights back
3. Watchmen was an unheralded success, and the book has yet to go out of print. As a result, Moore and Gibbons never got their rights back.
4. DC promised to share revenue from Watchmen-related merchandise, and then went ahead and produced merchandise and classified it as promotional and didn’t give M&G anything
5. These shenanigans, along with a coming ratings system that Moore disagreed with, led Moore to cut ties with DC entirely
6. DC brought Wildstorm, which came along with America’s Best Comics. Moore felt that leaving DC again would screw his artists over, so he stuck around
7. DC continued screwing with Moore over the years, from pulping his comics to either sabotaging (or botching to such an extent that it might as well be sabotage) the release of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier
8. Moore cut ties again, and has consistently refused DC’s money, overtures, and renegotiations.
9. Before Watchmen is a series of prequels to Watchmen, some thirty-five issues that will shed light on characters from15 Comments on The creator’s position viewed through the lens of Alan Moore, last added: 4/25/2012Display Comments Add a Comment
Did any site other than IO9 make a request to DC for a Spaceman preview?
This article encompasses so many of my feelings and conflicted views of today. Thank you for writing it for the world to read.
I had been working at DC when they bought WildStorm, and the Alan Moore conflict of interests didn’t even occur to me until someone pointed it out later in the day. Then came the plane trip to England by Jim Lee to discuss and reassure Alan. I do think that senior management understood the VALUE of WildStorm as a separate studio operating in different offices. It’s my belief that part of the reason that WildStorm wasn’t folded up sooner was the understanding that Alan would do business with them, but not DC central.
I’m totally on board with not hating the creators behind BeWa, but I simply won’t look at it. I’d rather read a new crop of IMAGE books with that money. There are so many great ones that just started…
Saga
Thief of Thieves
Fatale
older ones like…
TURF
WALKING DEAD
SHARKMAN
INVINCIBLE
the new MillarWorld books like…
Secret Service
Supercrooks
Superior
Believe me, there’s GREAT comics out there…and I’ll just pass on the BeWa product. It’s not for me. I’d rather read old issues of Alan’s SUPREME, or 1964!
Kevin,
>I’m not sure I can think of any backlist titles as successful as WATCHMEN where the publisher and the writer were no longer working together, but there might well be some.
Usagi Yojimbo is not of the same stature as Watchmen, but volumes 1-7 are still being printed by Sakai’s first publisher, Fantagraphics, while the rest of the library is printed at Dark Horse. It’s a little similar to your Gor example.
Heidi,
Thanks for adding your own historical perspective here. I was thinking the other day how sad it is that fan culture, whatever its pros and cons, has gone from celebrating creators to regurgitating corporate values. Arguably, the major achievement of early fan culture was celebrating artists and writers who had often labored in obscurity for low wages and no long term prospects. Fan culture made Jack Kirby feel like the valuable artist he was after a career’s worth of contentious relationships with publishers. Fan culture brought Carl Barks and John Stanley out of obscurity, remedied the neglect of their publishers, and gave Barks a more or less happy ending to his career. Fan culture made people like Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, and Bill Everett — who all led difficult professional and personal lives — feel appreciated for their cultural contributions. Fan culture couldn’t fix these people’s lives or give them everything they deserved, but to the best of its ability fan culture recognized and celebrated the achievements of creative individuals who didn’t receive similar recognition or commensurate compensation from the industry they worked for. Clearly, something has changed, and I’m sure there must be many reasons. I think the shift must be strongly tied to the evolution of something like the San Diego Comic-Con from a gathering of people with shared enthusiasms to a media event that markets marketing as entertainment. It’s too bad.
Bill Kartalopoulos
so i take it we’re still waiting on word about Watchbabies in V for Vacation?
anyone else fine with what DC AND Alan Moore’s position here? worst case is the BeWa books suck, the market ignores them but the creators still get paid and DC loses some money. and probably retailers, which would be the worst of it. best case is they’re alright to great, some non regular comic buyers spend some dough that would otherwise not be circulating through the industry and everyone gets paid. the legacy of the original series should be fine. didn’t they release a ton of substandard Lord of the Rings material after Tolkien died? i dont think that diluted the stories any.
a potential positive corollary to all this is altho BeWa may not be comicdom’s finest hour, it may draw attention (though great articles like this one) and shine more light on comics history and get people to pay more attention to the mountain of awesome original material being produced in the comics medium every week.
also alan moore can say whatever he wants. whats the point of getting mad at him for voicing his opinion? hes not actually stopping DC (or Marvel) from publishing anything. its ok if he has different opinions or thinks differently than you or I, thats why hes able to write such mind blowing radness.
also when are we going to see Sir William Gull actions figures?
One thing to keep in mind is that all of this is down to decisions made by people. It’s not “DC” and “Marvel” who make most of these decisions, but responsible executives and editors and creators working at and with these companies. As long as these individuals don’t change their behavior, the rules in the industry won’t change.
As long as those responsible soothe each other with the notion that “this is the way things are,” nothing’s going to change for the better. It’s a bullshit excuse. Everybody’s responsible for their own actions, no matter the circumstances.
One thing I’d like to hear from Jim Lee, for instance, is why exactly he thinks the position he’s taking is ethically justified. Surely, as one of the founders of Image Comics, he must have an opinion on that.
Great article, Heidi, and I’m not going to disagree with most of what you said.
What I do want to say, though, it that every situation is unique. In the case of Watchmen, it was a genre-defining book, but no one could have known that when the signed the contracts. DC is owed much for the success of Watchmen, just as the publishers for JK Rowling is owed much for the success for Harry Potter, because the company allows the creator to reach a level of popularity that would be difficult to reach on ones own.
What’s funny is most of the destruction of Alan Moore’s relationship with DC was at hands of Paul Levitz, not the current administration. From what I remember, and please correct me if I’m remembering this wrong, it came out Moore was approached by DiDio to write more Watchmen, which they’d then sign the rights to the characters back over to Moore. He refused, so DC continued on without him.
Funny about Neil Gaiman and Sandman. I love Sandman. I love Neil Gaiman. Gun to my head, it’s my favorite comic of all time, and Gaiman is my favorite creator of all time. But at the end of the day, Sandman is a DC character, owned by DC Comics. They could do whatever they wanted with the character. Is it right? Would it be good? Who knows, but it would be DC’s right to do whatever they wanted with it. I’d argue that it’s impossible to know what the “best” version of a character is, because no one knows what the future will hold. Do you get mad at Geoff Johns for “ruining” Martin Nodell’s original creation? Maybe Gaiman ruined Kirby’s Sandman for someone.
Is it morally right for DC to publish Before Watchmen? That’s debatable, as we’ve seen. Is it legally right for DC to publish Before Watchmen? Yep. Last I checked, DC is a for-profit company, and at the end of the day, they’ll do what makes them money. Some people will boycott and refuse to even look at them, some people will think they’re the best comics that have ever been published. Time will tell if this was a good move or not, we’re too in the thick of it to see.
Fantastic piece Heidi. We need to find the audience for original comics and make it grow. This constant retreading of stories in comics, film etc. is appalling. I guess it’s the same short sighted business approach behind the great recession, a frantic grab for short term profits at the expense of industry health.
I’m sure I’ll have more to say later, but I really enjoyed reading this, Heidi. Thanks for writing it.
I didn’t expect it at all, but your Spaceman example is crucial. I took a look around. CBR posts every preview that DC puts out, and the most I found was the preview for Strange Adventures #1 back in MAY as far as Spaceman material. io9’s preview was for issue 2. If you’re curious about Spaceman, good luck, sucker, because you’ll have to seek out an entirely different comic to find out what it looks like. There was a USA Today feature with no interior art, too.
This seems like such a failure of imagination. You have a bankable series by proven creators who are HOT off the back of a well-received crossover book (which got nommed for an Eisner the other week) and you don’t even show the insides of the comic like you do EVERY other comic? Pathetic.
Because primary industry outlets are dominated by two companies that are pummeling the creator/publisher synergy into ethical oppression, then the only recourse for the humanely perceptive among fandom, creators and the comics press, in order to influence towards improvement, is to raise a strong public voice for fairness that will reverberate through the entertainment media and hope to discourage the destructive trends. Hats off to this inspiring and beautifully articulated commentary, Heidi.
Thank you, Heidi. Excellent article.
Goal!
It’s interesting you bring up Spaceman, because I ordered a good amount of the #1 issue to give away to customers and fans of 100 Bullets. Almost universal disinterest for the series, no one liked it. I sell a handful of copies, and most people that are getting it get it because it’s Azz. A few have told me they don’t even like it, they just want to support the creators. Maybe DC knew it was gonna bomb and decided to wash their hands of it and not bother promoting it?
I am glad to see reasoned discussion about this issue, and not just hype over the project. Props to Brothers for helping to raise awareness of the issue, and props to Heidi for bring more “mainstream” attention to it.
I guess I echo what many have said before, I respect and enjoy the work of many of the creators involved in BWM. I don’t respect some creators attacks against Moore. I personally won’t be buying any BWM material for moral reasons, and in some cases I will be avoiding the work of some of the creators that have unleashed more of the vicious attacks against Moore, as that was uncalled for.
If my neighbors house is robbed, thats no excuse to rob mine. And if my house does get robbed, I really hope people won’t insult me for complaining about it regardless of where I live and how often my neighbors get robbed. Wrong is still wrong no matter how often it happens.
I wish I knew what was in Lee’s head on this to be honest. To date, all he has really done is spout the company line, and I guess I expected better of him then that. I can understand why the company is going down this road, but I guess I expected more out of some of the people involved, and I am really disappointed in the whole mess, and in a number of the people on a personal level.
On the flip side, there are a number of projects that are out at Image that I plan on supporting. And I am excited about some of the new stuff Dark Horse is doing too. Hopefully some of this annoyance with the larger corporate publishers will drive interest into some of these well deserving books coming out.
Great well thought out piece Heidi.
For better or worse we are not in the same place we were 25 years ago. Corporations have gobbled up the world’s resources and the age of innocence has long passed us by.
In this industry more than any other I can think of we hold fast to two diametrically opposed points of views;
1/ The Creator as God. We love you! Love all your work!! Now do more Batman/Spider-Man.
2/ Creator as the Devil. How dare you deny us your creations! Love for the creator to get credit and money just as long as it doesn’t effect my reading habits.
Now these points of view are just threads on message boards. No one outside our community cares. Little Johnny wants a Spider-Man costume to wear at Halloween and his birthday party. Who cares whether Steve Ditko or Jack Kirby designed it? Who cares that Marvel editors made more money selling Jack’s artwork than he did?
Just bring on Avengers 2!! Maybe it will include Marvelman on the team…