I kind of want “Watchmen Babies” from The Simpsons to be canon, too.
More As to your Qs:
Rich monkeys around with
“I’ve recently been doing some Watchmen research for an upcoming book. Other than the original Alan Moore series, the Zack Snyder film, Before Watchmen, the three RPG books, the New Frontiersman website, the viral videos made to promote the film, the mock New Frontiersman and Metro newspaper promos, the three video games, and the two Who’s Who in DC issues, do you know of any other in-universe Watchmen lore? I’m trying to be as all-encompassing as possible. Thanks!”
Well, that seems pretty comprehensive to me. I looked at my Watchmen Heroclix set in case there was any in-universe flavor text-type stuff, and no dice there. There’s also this card-game thing that I don’t own, but maybe there’s some supporting text there, too, maybe? I’m not sure. (Frankly, I didn’t know there were three video games, so I’m not as up on this stuff as I’d thought.)
A while back I did a post about this ad for what seems to have been an unauthorized RPG game and/or story. Like I said there, no idea if this was ever released in any form…and it wasn’t an official thingie anyway, but might make an interesting aside in your project.
Another interesting aside may be this “crossover” in The Question #17, which, again, isn’t technically “in-universe” but weirdly neat nonetheless.
The only other official addition to the in-universe narrative were those promo posters, which offered brief glimpses into the lives of various characters from the series. They were just single shots, and it wasn’t so much narrative as “here’s what THIS character is like!” but they were pretty cool just the same. They’ve been reprinted in the deluxe editions of the graphic novel, so those aren’t particularly obscure but easy to overlook.
Of course, there was also this, which is totally official in my personal head-canon.
Paul polls me with
“In this vital election year, would you vote for a Lex Luthor-Pete Ross ticket?”
This year especially, I’d almost prefer the Lex ‘n’ Pete power pair. VOTE LUTHOR: MAKE AMERICA MANIACALLY VILLAINOUS AGAIN
Mike wonders
Do you think the super-hero genre can continue to evolve? We’ve gone from good vs. evil to soap-opera to deconstruction/ post-modernism to reconstruction and everywhere in-between. We’ve been through parody, stories without any traditional costumes or physical action, super-heroes as metaphors, distillation to the lowest common denominator, and tributes to every previous era. Has the idea well run dry?
Ooh, I never want to say the well has run dry on any creative endeavor. You never know what the future will bring, in terms of new ideas brought by new creators to apply to the superhero field. Yes, there will always be some percentage of titles just running in place, or just filling a space on a rack or maintaining a trademark, but I think there’s still a good chance of a fresh perspective on that old genre. What the next permutation will be exactly, I have no idea, but I’m sure folks working on superhero comics in the 1940s could never have predicted what would come decades later.
Dan battles me with
“The main thing Ive been collecting the last year or so is back issues of Warren mags; Eerie, Creepy, Vampi, etc. I would love to hear your take on these. Did you read these when they were on the newsstand, how often do back issues come into the store, and any other thoughts or comments. Thanks!”
I never personally collected many of these, no, though I may have read a few too many issues of 1984/1994 when I was far too young to have those in my possession. I did however read reprints of Berni(e) Wrightson’s work from those early Creepy/Eerie mags, especially in that Pacific/Eclipse-published Berni Wrightson: Master of the Macabre mini-series. Beyond that, I never really got into them, even though it seems like, given the talent involved, they would have been right up my alley. Probably just one of those “well, I can’t collect everything” kind of deals.
At the new store (that would be Sterling Silver Comics, located in Camarillo, CA) I actually haven’t had too many of the Warren comics mags come through, though I did acquire a huge pile of Famous Monsters of Filmland which sold out in short order. The previous place of employment, on the other hand, had many Warren mags passing through over the decades, but then that shop’s been around longer and has had more opportunity to have those items show up. Ask me again in about 30 years and we’ll see if I’ve seen more Warren magazines in that time!
I should note that, after processing tons of these mags for sale over the years at that old job, I have gained a strong love for their cover blurbs.
Love the website. Keep up the good work!
Have you seen the Easter Egg in “Hero Hotline #5” (1989)? Shows a signed framed picture, on Tex Thompson’s celebrity wall, of Captain Atom and Dr. Manhattan together. I always liked regarding this as proof of Dr. Manhattan’s one and only jaunt through the DCU proper after leaving his “Watchmen” universe behind to travel the multiverse, cosmos, and beyond.
There’s a nice article with pictures here:
http://toobusythinkingboutcomics.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-sacrilege-of-after-watchmen.html
Thanks, Mike and C. Colsher. I had not heard of the unpublished “Harlot’s Curse” story, nor did I know about the Hero Hotline cameo. Much appreciated!
Don’t forget the blood spattered smiley face button.
As I started thinking about “Harlot’s Curse,” it sounded familiar to me for some reason. So I checked my notes, and sure enough, there it was–that’s the original title of Ray Winninger’s Watchmen RPG module Taking Out the Trash, which Winninger discussed below:
http://www.watchmencomicmovie.com/091108-watchmen-roleplaying-game-winninger.php
So it’s interesting that Gateways apologized for using the phrase. My guess: They ran the wrong version of the ad, which contained the earlier title of the module.
A general observation about the Warren magazines is that they had their moments of being very good (most obviously at the start, when Archie Goodwin was doing most of the writing, and people such as Alex Toth, Reed Crandall, and Steve Ditko were doing the drawing), and also their moments of being very bad (the more Bill DuBay had to do with it, the worse it was). This is an area in which sticking to your favorite creators will bring better results than the urge to completism.
As for FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND: I have reached an age at which I can no longer tolerate Forrest J. Ackerman’s prose, so the greatest pleasure I get from this magazine now is to study the “Captain Company” ads. There is a lot of nostalgia to be from that (very slowly) changing assortment of monster model kits, randomly-chosen books, old radio shows on LP, and 10-minute long abridgments of movies on 8mm (what we had instead of DVDs back then). The latter could provide a challenge, because sometimes the titles were changed, and one had to decipher what the movie actually was from the illustration and the plot description (I felt quite clever when I figured out that “Doom of Dracula” was a collection of John Carradine’s scenes from HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN). Another puzzle was an LP entitled COMIC BOOK HEROES by the Capes and Masks, which the magazines advertised for several years (presumably the stock held out because no one ever bought them). The description provided of that was completely mystifying, and the Roy Lichtenstein-influenced cover was not much more of a help. However, now the entire album is available at Archive.org and YouTube, and it turns out to be… light jazz played by a house band, with jokey spoken word introductions before a few of the pieces. The super-hero content is limited entirely to a few of the titles, e.g., “The Incredible Shotzam,” “The Wedding of Mr. Universe and Fantastic Gal,” and “The Atom Smasher Fights the C.A.N.A.R.Y. Gang.” One has to wonder what the people who ordered it thought (if, that is, anyone ever got it–Captain Company was notorious for its poor service).
Don’t forget, Saturday Morning Watchmen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w
df
How could I EVER forget Saturday Morning Watchmen?
Two things I thought of as missing from the WATCHMEN list: The Watchmen motion comics and the TALES OF THE BLACK FIGHTER animated DVD with the UNDER THE HOOD “documentary”
TALES OF THE BLACK FIGHTER animated DVD?
What, you mean I AM THE GREATEST, the 1970s Saturday morning cartoon starring Muhammad Ali as himself, has been released on home video? How did I miss that?
(It was an odd show. Apparently the producers had thought no further than “It would be great if we could get Ali!,” and then struggled to figure out what to actually do in the series. So, one week Ali would spend half an hour lecturing a truant kid about staying in school, and the next week he would fight a giant robot. Really.)