That's actually an interesting moral question: does giving blood money to charity make it okay? I guess a utilitarian might say yes.

Not trying to be a prick or anything, but regarding the "shunning" of artist's working on Before Watchmen, is that really fair? Shouldn't we shunn those working on Superman too?

I mean if we are tossing around terms like "rape" and "blood money" Alan Moore is by far not the only victim of the big two publishers in the comics industry. If anyone is contemplating shunning anyone, shouldn't it be anyone working for DC or Marvel, not just one series? And how do you not take that to the level of anyone who ever worked for them, that didn't get royally screwed?

Again, I'm not trying to be argumentative, by I'm honestly asking why the distinction. One could argue Kirby has been screwed way more than Moore, why shun just the Before Watchmen crews, why doesn't the logic apply to DC and Marvel as on the larger scale?

Why is it ok to buy Avengers Vs. Xmen, but not Before Watchmen, why shun the Watchmen crew, but not the Avengers movie, or Avengers Vs. Xmen comics. Kirby isn't getting a penny from those. Joe Simon doesn't get royalties from any Captain America book, etc...

I'm having a hard time not seeing this as anything but an all or nothing thing.

I'd buy Watchmen versus Avengers.

I think that story may have already been done as an issue of The Authority.

Interesting point.

However, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Yes, DC and Marvel fucked over many of their original creators. Yes, any of us who have paid money to DC and Marvel -- including me -- have supported these corporate creeps, and we probably should not. But I don't think Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster expected Superman to be theirs forever; nor did Jack Kirby expect the Fantastic Four or the Incredible Hulk to end their adventures when he moved along. WATCHMEN, as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons produced it, was a different kind of comic. Or so they, and most of us, were led to believe in the 1980s, in part based on DC's own comments proclaiming creators' rights. WATCHMEN was supposed to be DC finally doing right by creators. That gives the corporate bastardization, over Moore's angry objections, a special Screw You quality.

Also, creatively, BEFORE WATCHMEN just seems worse than a thousand Superman comics projects. Siegel and Shuster hoped Superman would appear everywhere. They were delighted to have this open-ended serial adventure, and sure enough, that's what it turned out to be. Whereas Moore and Gibbons thought they were telling a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, and after that, it would stand alone, untouched.

For the immediate now, anyway. In the long run, however, they're contributing to the notion that the content of comic books is nothing more than retreads and reworkings of existing material.

Probably the biggest is that 1) we weren't as aware of it back then as we are now, because we're older, access to the interent, etc.

and 2) Watchmen was a standalone story told by one the best mainstream comics writers and the sequels are written by lesser writers. So it's easy to be against something when you don't have much interest in it in the first place.

I don't see how it's much different though. Siegel & Shuster signed a bad deal not knowing fully the success of their work. Same with Alan Moore.

There's some small differences because situations are rarely ever the exact same. But if it's about supporting the aritists and writers over the corporation, why split hairs?

People have known for years that many of the creators from DC got screwed, knew that Alan Moore got screwed, but still bought DC Comics.

Possibly the logical conclusion to this line of questions would be, "If we know that DC and Marvel are scumbag corporations that lie, cheat and steal, always have and always will, in direct contradiction of the lofty ideals of their fictional heroes, then why do any of us buy their products or agree to work for them?"

Aaaaand ... the answer is, we probably should not.

I've said before that I'll miss the work of Adam Hughes, Jae Lee and Lee Bermejo, but now I can't seem to think of anything any of them have done recently that was in any way noteworthy.

Why, indeed.