Have you heard of this WATCHMEN thing?

Nice… a literal translation of the old black-and-white comicshop posters.

Ooooh…. Bubastis!

I’m just waiting for the first person to “revision” the various ads with snarky images and quotes.

I can’t fathom why Alan Moore doesn’t want to be associated with the movie as time goes on. Synder’s doing everything right.

These are awesome. Well, except the excessive buttcrack on Dr. Manhattan, but other than that… awesome.

omg guys we can FINALLY stop wondering who “watches the watchmen”- it’s Ozymandias! They show him rite on the poster WATCHEN ’em! I’ve been wondering that for SO LONG

Okay, but seriously, for like six seconds I tried to figure out what they were trying to say by showing that. Then I realized it was just stupid.
I hope they don’t muddle the themes up as bad in the film… but I ain’t holding out to much hope.

Well, there are two things that are not being done right that I want to point out. The doomsday clocks should be yellow. Why is that important? Because the clocks and the bloody smiley button are supposed to be related images! The buttons on the posters at Comic-Con showed a realistic blood spray that did not resemble the hands of the clock either. Alan Moore nixed using a realistic blood spray on the cover of “Watching the Watchmen.” I guess nobody was paying attention…

Somebody missed this bit of symbolism big time, and it is not an easy thing to miss if you look at the spine of The Absolute Watchmen, where the yellow clock is at the top and the button is at the bottom.

cool posters! :)

I like the posters, and as time goes by I also wonder why Moore wants to pull away from this. Not that he has to gush all over it, because I’m sure it will gloss over a lot of details, but at least accept something for the massive effort that they’re trying to get right.

Dude, if you want to pick apart the botched symbolism (or metaphors or whatever, i r not smrt) in these posters, you’re going to drive yourself crazy. Besides the aforementioned clock color and Ozymandias’ TVs, what is the photo of Jon and Janey Slater doing on the Silk Spectre’s floor? Nite Owl’s looking a bit fit as well…
People are either going to have to choose to not care about the delicate themes in Watchmen getting ruined and get ready to see an action movie, or ignore it all together. So, it’s just like any adaptation ever, I guess. This one’s just a lot more important to a lot more people.

It might help folks understand Moore’s disinterest if they understood that he generally has a low opinion of all film and TV. I remember an interview once years ago where he said that, if he were to rate all the various mediums, film would probably come in 5th or 6th. I suspect it comes down to their lack of depth and emphasis on shallow manipulation.

Of course he’s mentioned exceptions. He said some nice stuff about The Sopranos years back, and more recently talked about how much he loved The Wire – largely because it was novelistic in structure.

Mostly, though, he seems to think movies are a kind of crap medium. He doesn’t get excited for them the way most of us do, so he’s certainly not gonna be excited to see his own work translated and potentially changed or dumbed down.

Uh, the original issues of Watchmen, the title and the clock were done in a different color for each issue. Yellow just happened the color that the TPB used, thus it’s the color most associated with the logo.

Considering how many interviews and clarifications Moore has made about why he doesn’t like movie adaptations of his comics and why he doesn’t want his name in the credits, I don’t understand why so many people still get the reasons completely wrong or fail to understand why he chooses not to be associated with those adaptations. His reasons are perfectly consistent and really not that hard to comprehend, even if you happen to disagree with them. I’m pretty sure Heidi herself pointedly asked Moore about this on this very blog, though I can’t find it in the Beat’s search engine now.

Google wants to make you smart. Using it to search for “Why doesn’t Alan Moore want his name on movies” turns up dozens of pages where the man answers the question himself (none of which really seem to have any deep, inherent disdain of film or TV).

Regarding the color of the clock… there are numerous allegories to the smiley face, many of them not color related. The Argyre Planitia. The Radar monitors at NORAD. The butterfly at Karnac.

Hurm… the posters are sequential.

Glad to have snagged 2/6 they were giving away at the Con, signed by Gibbons and the actors portraying Ozy and SS2 at the DC booth— but wish I had those Snyder with Rorschach/Night Owl/Comedian ones instead!

Now… will Gibbons do a “comics” version of that Carla Gugino one?

I hate to gush like a fanboy, but jeez, these look terrific. I’m starting to get excited about seeing this.

The posters are sequential, but not in the order presented here. Check out the clock in the upper left corner of each poster to figure out the order.

Or do it from memory, for those who are that retentive.

Yes Mistress Gugino – I will obey.

I shall surrender myself to the authorties immediately.

No – please don’t stop with the whip.

~

Coat

By “released” do we mean “available for viewing on websites” or can we actually buy these things? If anyone knows how to do that, please let me know!

Oh-ba-ba-Boy!!!!

# 9 on Amazon, too bad you can’t buy it. It’s the only book in the top 25 that is not in stock. Can you say missed opportunity!

I can’t wait! Mystery Men II!

@Scott Normington…

Missed opportunity? What are you talking about? It’s not in stock because they can’t keep it in stock. It is constantly selling out every time they get new shipments in. Just because it said “not in stock” the moment you looked at it doesn’t mean they aren’t selling any. In fact how do you think it got to #9 on Amazon? It couldn’t have done that without selling MANY copies in a short period of time. My buddy ordered it from amazon when it was supposedly out of stock and had it in a week. He looked for it in stores and it was sold out everywhere. I was at Borders this week and now they had dozens of copies. I’m sure DC was totally caught off guard, and has had to go into overdrive printing new copies. But who could have guessed they’d see that kind of sales from a teaser trailer for a movie that is still 9 months away? I could see sales increasing closer to the films release, but this is really crazy and unexpected, and you can’t blame them for not being ready for it.

“Most of the San Diego love came from the source material, not Zach Snyder. For instance, if you’re old enough to remember the actual Muhammad Ali, the Michael Mann film “Ali” was nothing more than Will Smith pretending to be Muhammad Ali. Watchmen won’t be in theatres until next year, but the trailer has what appears to be an error …”