If you support comics creators rights, you may want to avoid Time Square for the next few days.
The NY Post has the exclusive news that DC will be running an ad for its Before Watchmen prequels on the Times Square Jumbotron starting next week, as well as selected cable stations, including IFC, TruTV and TNT.
DC has had great success with its TV campaigns in the past — the New 52 was launched with a pretty extensive campaign that did very well, and the collections also had a smaller TV campaign.
Before Watchmen has met with middling reviews, and periodical sales were strong but dwindled as they went on. Given the longevity of the original Watchmen as a bestseller—it’s probably the best selling adult graphic novel ever in the US— where DC expects the prequels to live is as collections, so promoting that format makes business sense.
When first announced, the Before Watchmen books met with a lot of outrage from fans who felt that creating the books against Alan Moore’s wishes was an offense to creator’s rights, and a desperate mining of IP.
Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.
Will the background music be as bad as the New 52’s commercial?
It was a hit movie? That’s now how I recall it.
Sounds like A&E’s Bill Kurtis.
Booooooo
is that it heidi? sort of endid on an inflective note. so what happened, did the fans respond? azzarello & jeff jones on comedian ick i bet that was terrible, if not for jiz michelael stromboniczynski no talent at all are featured, right? lee bermejo HACK len wein BOO adam hughes SUCK amanda connor FEMALE darwyn cooke steve rude jae lee john higgins bill sinkeviecs andy kubert eduardo risso JOE KUBERT! yea no good reason at all for this waste of our time right. have you read any of the before watchmen stories? best bar none comedian will have you crying with eddie on the last page don t believe me? read it and tell me i m wrong. “not a fan of creator rights” or whatever you said has what to do with this advertisement in t.s.? don t joe kube, rest in peace, and his before watchmen creator peers have any such rights? like their beautiful efforts to homage your best friend alans really hood story maybe
OMG, this series was not good. What does DC not understand? I started reading almost all of them and the only one I finished was Ozymandias, the best I can say about it was it was ok, with good art. The Rorschach and Comedian books were horrible!
Boner, are you really surprised they were turds?!?
Oh, “the best-selling graphic novel of all time”, huh.
Hmmm, Tintin, Asterix, and others would like to disagree.
Larry Vossler:
But I did’t write that. I wrote:
>>>it’s probably the best selling adult graphic novel ever in the US
Lots of wiggle room. I think we argued about this before and no one has come up with a definitive victor. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some YA GNs were giving Watchmen a run for their money.
Look at the trailer and see my comment. things will make sense.
If I wanted to comment your statement (which is fair), I would have quote it as you wrote it.
http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2013-07-21/hardcover-graphic-books/list.html
I suppose I’d rather have this than Smufs 2, but it’s a pretty close contest, right there.