"Before Watchmen: RORSCHACH #1" Topic

Of possible interest.

link

Amicalement
Armand

Why?

What makes it of more possible interest than Before Watchmen: The Comedian? Or Before Watchmen: Nite Owl?

Or is it of possible interest because it's a blatant cash grab by DC, trying to wring a couple more dollars out of one of the few innovative (and 30-year-old) stories they have? That it's another kick in the crotch to Alan Moore after promises they made way back then? That they even tried to turn Joe Kubert's recent death into a chance to market the series?

What's your possible interest in it, given that it's been discussed into the ground months ago by people with an actual interest in it? Or are you just proudly depositing whatever you scrape from the underside of whatever rocks you happen to overturn, no matter what it happens to be?

Calm down sir, it's only a book, not a crime!.
Had a bad day?

Amicalement
Armand

What's your possible interest in it, given that it's been discussed into the ground months ago by people with an actual interest in it? Or are you just proudly depositing whatever you scrape from the underside of whatever rocks you happen to overturn, no matter what it happens to be?

How about you behave like an adult and stop attacking TMP members based on their preferences?

Wish there was a "like" button here Armand. Good job.

Interesting it is, dear Armand. Thanks for the heads up!

Back off, Warren B. Regardless of how you feel about DC and their Watchmen stuff, Armand is not responsible for it. He saw something he thought might be of interest to people on the Fantasy Media and Pulp Media boards, which are indeed meant to be about "media" (that is, books, magazines, comic books, movies and tv shows) which might be of interest to those gaming in these genres. Perhaps "Fantasy" isn't quite right, but Rorschach is very much cast in the vein of the classic "pulp" heroes like The Shadow, The Spider, etc.. So Armand used the board and TMP exactly as intended. You, however, did not. I would suggest that an apology is in order.

WarrenB has a point.

It was news to me, so cool to see.

The concept of the Before Watchmen series is one of interest. I debated checking it out for a while before deciding against it. I read several articles on it on both sides, it is kind of amazing how vitriolic people can get over comic books. The against arguments often focused on poor Alan Moore getting screwed over once again by the man at his own continued insistence at the man doing so.

The arguments for posited that the idea of Watchmen being more than a single story was something that had been discussed by DC and Moore when the original story was in production. I don't doubt that is possible, that it was discussed, but it does seem that Watchmen was written with the intent that nothing more be written after certainly and before probably.

Comic book companies are in a tough spot as far as market is concerned. How do you keep something fresh and have new ideas after people have been writing about a character for 40-60 years, month after month.

Even with changes in society it becomes more difficult to concentrate on things that made characters what they once were. For example the Punisher saw a huge up-swing in popularity in the late 80s. Crime was a huge issue at the time and people were concerned about it all over. Then in the mid 90s crime rates started to decrease. Cities really cleaned up their neighborhoods and crime wasn't that big of an issue any more. How do you keep writing the punisher? Does he still go after street crime? Do you introduce more super-villains to the story? Does anyone even care about him at all any more? Then there is his back story. He was a vietnam vet. Is he still going to be that 37 years after the Vietnam War ended?

Now the advantage they have is that most of what they are putting out there is being marketed to a demographic that sticks around for about 6-10 years and then moves on, so what is old is new again for a 13 year-old just getting into the biz.

So I can't blame DC for trying to revitalize this property. They certainly have the right to try to make money off of something they own. They seem to have put effort into making it good and I'm sure that if he had wanted to Alan Moore would have been welcomed back to write any or all of the stories involved. With open arms.

I'm not buying them for the same reason I didn't buy Dark Knight Returns II or go see Wolverine: Origins. The story is good enough for me as is. I don't need to add anything to what I got out of it. There is nothing else I need to know about Rorschach, Carrie Kelly or Wolverine's background.

Somethings are better left untouched and are better for being mysterious.

It isn't that I think that the story couldn't be improved on. I think the ending of the movie was superior to the ending of the comic, it made more sense and was more self-coherent.

Still I don't think there is anything they are going to do in this that is going to improve the basic story as a whole. With that the only way that the characters and the story can realistically go is down in my eyes, so I'm going to stay away.

Somethings are better left untouched and are better for being mysterious

Agreed. Midichlorians anyone? Highlander 2? Star wars Prequels?

Keep posting, Armand. If it's of interest to you, I guarantee it's of interest to at least a few TMPers.

Well, it certainly made me go look.

Keep it up Armand!

Abrazo,
JohnG

P.S. As to "The Watchmen," I might point out that, whether he knew it or not, the basic plot is not original to Alan Moore. I first encountered it in a terrific science fiction novel by Alan Dean Foster— The Man Who Used the Universe, published in the very early '80s. The premise itself may be older (not much older, though, as it all revolves around Cold War hysteria and fear of nuclear devastation). Moore fitted it into a gritty superhero setting rather well and with strong and different emotional and philosophical underplay than Foster's (though he has many of the same philosophical elements at work).
In the end, I prefer Foster's story. Some elements of Moore's work are clearly intended for shock value and even cheap grostequerie, and his political notions are one-sided, simplistic, and unrealistic, relying on emotional exaggeration and straw man rhetoric rather than logical argument (hardly surprising, given his often strident views and personality). *Sigh* Not atypical of the artistic world in general, but I digress.
Despite that, it is a seminal work, and I think the exploration and exploitation of the various characters is ill-thought. The Watchmen is not a comic book, nor are its "heroes" intended to be comic book heroes with serialized stories. One might as well write a sequel of To Kill A Mockingbird. In my opinion, such things cheapen the original work, especially if they would clearly be against the artist's wishes.

(Having said that, as I said before, I don't blame Armand for bringing the topic up or linking to the article, and if someone wants to buy the books, well, I wouldn't stop them, even if I wish the books weren't being done.)

Alan Moore DID know, he found out after he'd written it and added the one panel near the end with the Twilight Zone playing in the background. Yes, it was originally a Twilight Zone episode.

Many thanks for your kindly support guys!.
Parzival… great thread!.
Sorry, but I missed the " given that it's been discussed into the ground months ago by people with an actual interest in it? "
If there were a thread, I never read it.
About " are you just proudly depositing whatever you scrape from the underside of whatever rocks you happen to overturn, no matter what it happens to be?" this is something really wrong.
No second intentions to post a thead showing a book of possible interest about a comic!.
Who can think that?.
Sounds like a witch hunting!.

Amicalement
Armand

I'm with Warren on this.
Then again luckily this ain't one of those annoying repostings cluttering TMP.

I follow around 80 comic titles each month.

Should I also start posting for each threads with great posts like:

"Of possible interest"
Followed by a link

TMP is a huge communituy, obviously every link is possible interest to someone. Every now and then Iäve found some great stuff behind one of Armand's links but the rampant reposting isn't really necessary.

For me Parzival mostly nailed it. I might disagree with some of his points, but the important point is that Watchmen is not a comic book series. After all Alan Moore wrote Watchmen, because he wasn't allow to use a comic book series set of heroes.

As for WarrenB, well meant comments, even if the presentation overwhelmed the message.

Tango01, Armand it's good to post, but sometimes it's better to have reasons for posting i.e. context with content of your own making.

Paint it Pink and Lonkka hit the nail on the head.

Dammit, ot was news for me, of interest. Lot more interesting than other threads at TMP. But I don't go complaining, just don't open the thread and go my way. So I cannot understand at all why someone takes time just to disagree with the thread being started.

Armand's thread has made me a service, even if I could have lived without it; as have done so much TMP threads before, and will after. WarrenB's and Lonkka's definitely did not add anything worth by any means. No offense meant nut just a suggestion for reflexion, ladies and gentlemen.

One might as well write a sequel of To Kill A Mockingbird.

Shhh, quiet. Don't give them any ideas.

Mockingbird 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Scout and Dill both grow up to be writers. Jem becomes an Army officer, serves in WW II and eventually becomes a lawyer like his father. How's that? Just send my check care of The Shadow. (-:

Cripes…let's not shoot the messanger, here; Armand found something he thought was of interest and therefore thought it may be of interest to others in the community.

It may (or may not) be of interest to you, but I don't think he should be excoriated for passing along information.

It's not like he asked the color of the gun carriages of "Battery B, 3rd Brigade, RHA" at Colenso or some such…

Armand is a treasure…he sifts through tonnes of "junque" on the internet and while we may get the stinking corpses from time to time, at least some of them still have expensive jewelry on their personages…sometimes just take the good with the bad and head off to the pawn shop with the goodies and an evil grin…

One man's treasure…