Amanda Connor Silk Spectre II art work. http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/12/31/silk-spectre-art-by-amanda-conner/ Something definitely seems to be up regarding this project whatever it is hopefully announced soon. Bleeding Cool was correct regarding the relaunch so who knows what this is.
...and down it goes!! http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/01...-touch-over-amanda-conner-watchmen-2-artwork/
Bleeding Cool: Oh, woe is us! The evil DC Comics bullies have forbidden us to post an image that we don't have legal ownership of! Now, we have legal standing to keep it up, because we say so (so you should believe us), but we are taking it down anyway, because we are better people than those at DC.
Rich's antagonistic reaction to DC is amusing. I noted it when he broke the relaunch story line but he really seems to not really like them at all lol. There really must be some kind of back story I'm not getting here.
An interesting argument as to why Watchmen 2 can and should happen by an avowed Alan Moore fanatic who was initially very much against the idea.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with it.* Not DC's fault if Moore can't read a contract properly. And if Watchmen prequels suck, who cares? Watchmen's still there. Anyway, I can't say I'm much interested in Watchmen prequels. I mean, I already got Watchmen prequels. They were called Watchmen #2, Watchmen #4, Watchmen #6, and Watchmen #11. They were pretty good! I'd actually be far more interested in a genuine Watchmen 2, taking place in post-squid world. (Of course, what I think would be the most interesting thing to do with the story would be to have Moore and Gibbons do their proto-Watchmen with the Charlton characters as originally intended. A lot of work just to satisfy an historical counterfactual? Perhaps. But I'd buy that mother.) *Oh, except this bit: Firstly, I don't know how "standard" choice of forum clauses were back in 1985, and how likely DC would have been to use them. But, yeah, it's certainly standard now to have choice of forum and choice of law clauses. Fair enough. Secondly, in a civil matter, you don't have to personally show up to court. That's retarded. You hire a NY lawyer and he does his shit and at worst Moore gets deposed at some solicitor's office in Northampton. It's not Alan Moore on trial for murder, it's Alan Moore v. TimeWarner in the S.D.N.Y. (And fwiw, if there is no choice of forum clause, or arbitration clause, Moore could just as easily sue in England. New York contract law would be likeliest to apply, but that doesn't mean an English court has no jurisdiction. Totally different things. TimeWarner could attempt to move it to a U.S. court through various legal methods, most of which I forget now, but it still doesn't mean Moore has to get on a plane and fly to America.)
Yeah, there actually is a lot to be explored there. Either Rorschack's diary or the drawing of the squid, dated 3 days before the event, by the artist that Ozy blew up on the boat (a sub-plot absent from the movie for those keeping score) could threaten to undo Veight's conspiracy. Suppose both came to public attention? Would the fragile peace shatter? Would the world turn on Veight? Would Veight have to go into full-on super-villan mode to save his own ass and bring the world back together? Would it be costumed heroes, old and new (Maybe even a corps of Rorschack cultists) who stop Veight's evil plans, thus insuring world peace and bringing costumed heroes back into public favor? And could that have been Veight's plan all along...?
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I don't feel like that story's necessary, and certainly doesn't fit in with Moore's intent to leave the ending ambiguous, but there's more that is inherently interesting in that than how, say, Rorshach and Nite Owl hung out in the mid-70s, or what kind of sex a 17 year old girl has with a glowing blue guy, or the Comedian setting Vietnamese people on fire.
Darwyn Cooke is supposedly "Showrunning" these mini-prequels and if that is the case, combined with the rumoured talent then I'm at least very open to whatever this so-called codenamed Panic Room is. Bleeding Cool has been chirping about this for a good year now I think and DC has now asked Rich to remove art twice from their site so something is happening.
^ Yet expected I'm afraid. I really don't understand this notion that "Watchmen" is untouchable. I get that it revolutionized comics and was critically acclaimed. It is an awesome story. It is one of my all time favourites...but if this happens and the talent rumoured to be part of it is true then I'm kind of interested myself.
Actually, you know what's sad? Any artist or writer who goes against the wishes of the original creator and participates in this project. I don't care if it's Darwyn Cooke or Rob Liefeld or Stan Lee himself. It's quite simply disrespectful. Just because they and DC have the legal right to do it doesn't mean it's morally right. And if you think it's morally right, I can't help you. Is that enough "elaboration"?
Didn't Moore wash his hands of Watchmen? If he doesn't care why should we? Hell, even the characters aren't that original. They're pastiches of the Charlton heroes.
I'm not going to feel ashamed of something that hopefully entertains me. This is the only criteria I consider when reading or watching or listening to something. What exactly has Moore stated about "Watchmen"? As Kang stated I kind of was under the impression that he is done with it. I know that he intended it to be a stand alone story and thought it would be unacceptable to film and that it was essentially a cinematic comic book. If great care is taken to make the material entertaining and fun and in the same sort of tone that the original was created...then I don't see what the problem is. Are fans just overprotective of Watchmen's prestige or something?
Conclusory statements don't pass muster. OK, I'll quit being a dick. I actually sympathize to some degree--I like the idea that a work may be "untouchable" to the degree you hold Watchmen in. And if any work was to be untouchable, damned if Watchmen isn't the work. It's the closest example of "perfecting a medium" that I've seen. There are movies that are really good, novels that are really good, paintings that are really good, but nothing that I think approaches the ideal of the form like Watchmen does for comics. And yet--it'll still be there, and shall always be so for as long as our civilization endures. They're not taking it away. And it was made by men (and Jeannette Khan). Men who have profited from it; men who intelligently allocated their rights to it by contract. There is no one whose rights are being violated. If no rights are violated, what morality is there to invoke? The immorality of crass commercialism? Of aesthetic blunder? Unsteady support for such vehemence, I think. But, no, let's assume someone's moral rights to the integrity of their work are being violated. Very well. Certainly no more so than when Alan Moore violated Mick Anglo's "rights" by turning his Marvel Family ripoff into brooding transhumans (one of whom was an irredeemable psychotic butcher): Miracleman. Certainly no more than when Alan Moore violated J.M. Barrie's, Lewis Carrol's, and L. Frank Baum's "rights" by turning their heroines into the protagonists of a porno comic: Lost Girls. And certainly no more so than when Alan Moore violated Steve Ditko's "rights" when he took his objectivist Charlton monsters and turned them into a crazy libertarian madman who smelt like feet, a fat ornithologist who had erectile dysfunction, and various other unpleasant reimaginings: Watchmen. Now, maybe such a "right" to maintaining the artistic integrity of a work, in perpetuity, does indeed exist. What I want elaboration on is, why is it cool when Alan Moore does it to someone else's work, with enthusiasm, aplomb, and a discernible glee, but it's a fucking war crime when someone else does it to him? Watchmen Is Special. It has nothing to do with how corporate-owned fiction is created Because It's Watchmen. The fact is, if one thinks that Watchmen 2 is a moral abomination--as an aesthetic abomination, I'm rather expecting it will be, regardless of the talent involved--they should not read any Marvel or DC comics. Nor watch Star Trek. Nor the Transformers movies (shouldn't do that anyway, but there's another reason). Nor avail themselves of a great percentage of our society's fiction. Because that's how it's made: by standing upon the shoulders of giants, whether they like it or not. And not just our society's. Where's all the hate for Virgil's Aeneid? Motherfucker resurrects Homer's franchise eight hundred years later? It's simply not morally right.