They're probably paying the people involved exta so better output, plus the expectations are way higher. They're not going to pull out all the stops for something they only expect so much from.

I would agree with this. DC has priced these issues $1 more than their regular issues, without a corresponding 33% increase in content, and I presume some (but not all) of the extra revenue will go to the creators involved.

Good lawd. FOUR BUCKS? That's some Elliot Spitzer level whoring going on right there.

I skimmed through this one in the store but didn't buy it.

I like Amanda Conner's art well enough, but her work isn't must-buy level for me.

The high school romance and dealing-with-mean-girls stuff seemed to have potential. On the one hand it was completely unmentioned in the original Watchmen, so it wasn't just retreading the original. On the other hand it's been done in every other teen comic, movie, book, and tv show, so it would have to bring something new in order to avoid retreading all of those. And my brief skim didn't show anything that really grabbed my interest.

Overall, it looked okay. I agree with the comments above that it looked superior to the average DC book but not at Watchmen level.

I have been re-reading Watchmen over the last week, both in single issues and collected form. It blew me away all over again. What an amazing comic.

I've also been looking at a few other tribute series over the last month, of one kind or another. Books where creators gave their own takes on favorite characters, like Hellboy, Rocketeer, Atomic Robo, and the Spirit, or indy takes on mainstream characters, like in the Bizarro World or Strange Tales anthologies. Those stories widely vary in quality, but overall the whole enterprise is both fun and respectful of the original work. If DC did the right thing decades ago and gave Moore and Gibbons full ownership of Watchmen (not likely, I know), there's no reason that we couldn't have seen some similar projects for Watchmen by now. Alternatively, if Alan Moore would give up his hatred of DC (even less likely), same thing.

This Comics Journal post has a very good discussion of BW and Watchmen in the comments. I especially liked this defense of Dave Gibbons' art after some earlier posts had questioned if he was really the best man for the job:



If Before Watchmen included scenes of the heroes turning to crystal or becoming apes, that might be a significant improvement of the whole enterprise.

Plus, see lots of other good points made by Eddie Campbell, Jeet Heer, Kim Thompson, and others.

"Give up his hatred?" That's sounds a bit unfair. Are you dismissing any legitimate issues Moore may have against the corporation's treatment of himself and others as some mere fit of pique, or a snit?

I'm apologize if I'm misinterpreting you here. And I agree it would have been very cool to see a Bizarro World-style anthology with indy creators making stories featuring Watchmen characters. In fact that may have been less controversial. But I think you do a disservice to the man if you cast him as some sort of grumpy old man who won't drop a grudge, and DC's role in this is no more than just of that pesky corporation that keeps annoying the crotchity old Mr. Wilson.

I don't know about Gibbons drawing people turning to crystal as a reason he was perfect for Watchmen.

I think he was perfect because the story needed someone who could draw somewhat realistically, not unlike Brian Bolland, but also caricaturize faces. Drawing crazy action poses or exaggerated effects would have gone against Moore's approach.

As for the pricing of BW, that's too much if it's only 21 pages.

You're right, I didn't mean to minimize the actual bad actions by DC that Moore is angry over. He has a right to be angry.

At some point, though, that anger becomes unproductive.

For example, Moore's anger with Steve Bissette still prevents any reprinting of the 1963 series. They had to go through protracted third-party negotiations to divide up their rights to the 1963 characters so that Bissette could produce new work featuring them. Since the original printing up to today, Bissette has not earned any royalties from 1963, a creator-owned series (nor have any of the other creators). Whereas his work-for-hire work on Swamp Thing still gets him regular quarterly checks from DC. A bitterly ironic ending for all of us who believed and still believe in creators' rights.

For another example, Rick Veitch had his Swamp Thing-meets-Jesus story scrapped by DC, arguably as egregious an insult as many of the insults that Moore suffered from them. It took years, but eventually Veitch was able to forgive DC for that, and able to make comics at DC again.

So compromise is possible. I admire Moore for sticking to his principles. I think DC is in the wrong. But the current impasse is not and does not have to be the only possible outcome.

I think that quote meant more that Gibbons drew in a manner somewhat similar to Kurt Schaffenberger or Curt Swan, with restraint and solidity in the way he drew figures. So it would remind the reader of those old fanciful comics, even though the story of Watchmen treated the world in a very different way. Those old stories had fantasy elements as an expected and unsurprising part of their world. Watchmen starts from a more grounded version of reality, so when the amazing fantasy elements start to come back in, they are surprising once again, their power to amaze is restored.

I think I get what you're saying, and I would tend to agree, but are you defining a decision to not want to work with or for DC again as unproductive part of anger?

Giving his honest opinion when asked in interviews, doesn't necessarily mean the guy is pounding his pillow every night and tossing darts at a DC logo all day. We are making assumptions about his so called anger.

The stuff about the 1963 reprints sounds a bit fucked up though. Could be spite, and I agree that sounds like some unproductive anger. But choosing to not work for DC again, isn't in and of itself, an unhealthy decision. Some might call it choosing to not risk getting played again. And giving his negative opinion of DC to the press might be considered unprofessional, but some might call it, "straight shooting," or even cautionary tales for others not to get caught in the same traps he did.