Last week, BuzzFeed, the hugely popular “viral” media site, went on a photo tour of DC’s offices, including a slideshow that we now can’t find that included shots of publicity VP David Hyde’s office. EDIT: It was on CNET, that’s why. Which was ironic, since early last week it was announced Hyde was leaving DC.
Well apparently, while on that tour someone held open the ultra-secret notebook of Watchmen art, which was handcuffed to Bob Wayne’s wrist at the retailer summit week before last. Here’s a bunch of concept art and stuff but not the “Rorschach’s face in the clouds” page other alluded to.
We’re not going to spotlight all the art except Amanda Conner and Lee Bermejo, Conner because she’s the one who’s sticking closest to the original, and Bermejo because he’s quietly become one of the best mainstream artists working in the last few years with his Joker and BATMAN: NOEL graphic novels.
Our opinion: this all looks like nice stuff. Very nice. Nice enough to sell your soul?
No.
But see next post.
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed has also been made privy to “leaked” photos from the New 52 Second Wave.
How exactly are these “leaked” when someone stood there with the notebooks open? Is it like the moment in the adoption agency when the nice lady tells you she can’t legally tell you who your birth parents are and then leaves the room with the file open on her desk? Did BuzzFeed use their secret spy glasses to take the pictures? Did David Hyde hold the book open before packing up his things?
Anyway here’s a page from “Dial H” written by Chinia Miéviller [sic], illustrated by Mateus Santolouco.
The fact that they didn’t know how to spell China Miéville is a little weird, granted. I guess it’s hard to spell when you’re using your spy spectacle cam.
Dial H looks great. Looking forward to it and Earth Two.
Handcuffed? Really? So sad.
I’m gonna spend my money on some vintage 70’s DC books this summer while at SDCC. Better money spent.
Fuck this shit.
Handcuffed was a metaphor. He did have a death grip on it, however.
I want Bob Wayne in handcuffs for my sex dungeon.
I suppose it might not be worse than The Two Jakes.
“Bob Wayne” and “sex dungeon” used in the same sentence? I’m done with the internets today.
Remember the prequel they did for The Two Jakes? They called it “One Jake”.
No, it was just called “Jake.”
The sequel to “The Two Jakes” is called “Two Jakes and a Jill.”
I got here after my usual Googling of “Bob Wayne sex dungeon” and… what is this about?
A snow globe homage to the Watchmen button? Really?
The Rorschach page actually looked pretty cool.
The more I see of Before Watchmen, the less I think of the creators involved.
Just looking at that Silk Spectre page makes me feel queasy. It just looks WRONG for that to exist.
And I’m not even a huge fan of Watchmen. I wasn’t all that outraged when the Before Watchmen project was announced. I wasn’t going to buy it, but it’s not like it made me angry or anything.
I’m still not angry, but the more I see of it the more disgusting the whole project seems to me. Totally unnecessary. Total sellout crap. I mean, if you’re going to put out THIS, what WOULDN’T you put out?
This will be the most successful FanFic ever produced.
The ‘accidental’ teasers are interesting. I will have a look at the finished product in the comic store, and decide then if I want to buy any of these PreWatchmen comics.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/top-secret-look-at-before-watchmen?s=mobile
(via DC facebook post)
I love how this stuff is annoying the crybabies. Don’t worry we know you would not buy DC anyway, my co-horts and i will buy multiples to spread the word, it is going to be a fun convention season with so much great DC product to sell!!
Honestly, I cannot fathom why people are getting SO. UPSET. about this. “Nice enough to sell your soul?” Geez Heidi. Hyperbole much?
Listen, I love Watchmen. I’ve read it more times than I can count, given it as a present to many comics newbies, prodded a book group to read it. (All long before the film, too, of course.) That doesn’t make me special, I know. I’m just saying: I get why we think it’s special. Because it is.
And I’ve never really been interested in reading more Watchmen, and I don’t intend to buy these comics. Rorschach’s a great character, but I had plenty of his nihilstic vigilante action the first time around.
But I’m not at all surprised that these sequels (prequels) exist, and I can’t fathom the degree of outrage. These creators, most of them a supremely talented bunch — well, they like the money, I’m sure.(And, once the paycheck was big enough, they were probably intrigued by the creative challenge.)
That probably makes them sellouts, yes. (Aren’t most of us, in some form, sooner or later in our lives?) Being a sellout doesn’t make any one of them a hack. (True, a couple of them might’ve been hacks to begin with, but that’s a different debate.) It’s highly doubtful that a book made by Darwyn Cooke or Amanda Conner or Lee Bermejo or Jae Lee will be “crap.” More to the point, I do not condemn them for getting paid for making comics.
Speaking of getting paid: Corporations like money even more than people. This is not a news flash.
Listen, DC is not Monsanto. It’s not BP. It’s not Pacific Gas & Electric. In other words: This is not life and death. DC is not, to my knowledge, giving people cancer or poisoning the environment by commissioning and printing Before Watchmen.
I can’t fathom feeling “queasy” about this. The world has a million more important issues than what DC and this small coterie of writers and artists and colorists are publishing this summer. Queasy is the way I feel knowing that people are profiting off of other human beings getting ill, or denying them the health care they need because they don’t have enough money. The world will be better served if you channel your outrage to a villain that truly deserves it.
And at the end of the day, Watchmen fans, Alan Moore still has a pretty good life (although he’d probably be healthier if he weren’t so bitter). He’s not living in poverty. He’s not taking toiling away into his winter years like Siegel and Shuster to pay the bills. And next year, after all these mini-series are memory, we all still have Watchmen. It has already stood the test of time, and it will not spoiled or ruined by the fact that these other stories exist.
“The fact that they didn’t know how to spell China Miéville is a little weird, granted. I gues it’s hard to spell when you’re using you spy spectacle cam.”
Funny. I see two typos in those two sentences. Must be pretty hard to spell when you’re sitting on a moral high horse.
Take a deep breathe, it’s only a comic book people! And if The Beat is so against this project, how about not covering ‘Before Watchmen’ at all?
This is as much of that Watchmen shit as I’m ever likely to see. I’ve lost a good bit of respect for Darwyn Cooke due to his deep-dish involvement with this scam.
>> And if The Beat is so against this project, how about not covering ‘Before Watchmen’ at all? >>
If you run a news/commentary site, do you only cover or comment on news you like?
I think that would be bad policy.