watchmen

After making a joking “next issue blurb” for Watchmen in yesterday’s post, I thought I’d dig into the Vast Mikester Archives and find the actual blurbs DC used in their editorial pages. I pulled these from the Deluxe Checklists that appeared in DC’s direct sales only Baxter-paper books from late ’86 through late ’87.

There may be some minor SPOILERS ahead, in case you haven’t read the comic yet:

WATCHMEN #1:
Who watches the Watchmen? Beginning a maxi-series unlike all others about super-heroes in the real world, as told by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.

WATCHMEN #2:
Rorschach continues his hunt for the hero-killer, and we get to learn more about the Watchmen and their predecessors, courtesy of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

WATCHMEN #3:
All the facts about Doctor Manhattan are spelled out and they will stun you! Plus more excerpts from Hollis Mason’s book. All by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons!

WATCHMEN #4:
The maxi-series continues with the origin of Dr. Manhattan … as the mystery deepens! A book-lengther by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.

WATCHMEN #5:
The tension builds, the mystery deepens, and the hero killer strikes again as Rorschach goes berserk! A classic by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.

WATCHMEN #6:
Revealed at last! The life story of Rorschach! A classic tale from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

WATCHMEN #7:
The mystery of the mask-killer grows! Nite Owl and the Silk Spectre go out on patrol for the first time since the Keene Act! Another instant classic by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons!

WATCHMEN #8:
As war approaches, Nite Owl and the Silk Spectre spring Rorschach from prison. A must-read from Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.

WATCHMEN #9:
Silk Spectre reveals her origin as she tries to convince Dr. Manhattan to come home. From Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.

WATCHMEN #10:
The countdown to nuclear armageddon continues as Rorschach and Nite Owl reunite! Must reading from Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.

WATCHMEN #11:
Revealed at last! The origin of Ozymandias in the series’ penultimate issue! Another classic from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

WATCHMEN #12:
Thirty-two pages of story conclude this blockbuster series as you’ll finally get the answer to ‘Who Watches the Watchmen?’ An instant classic from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

A couple of notes:

Issue #4 notes that the story is a “book-lengther,” implying that no back-up feature was expected to follow the three-part “Under the Hood” series from the first three issues, making room for the letters pages that (as I was corrected about by a couple of readers yesterday) were to occupy the back pages of the comic. Obviously that turned out not to be the case, but thought it was interesting that the original plans for the series still slipped into the next issue blurb.

The other comment is more general, in that it’s somewhat amusing to read these blurbs which boil down one of the most significant comic books ever published to something that doesn’t sound any different from any of the other comics being blurbed on the same page. Right next to the blurb for Watchmen #5 was this entry for Vigilante #37:

“The Vigilante is out for blood – and being stalked by the Peacemaker! By Paul Kupperberg, Tod Smith & Rick Magyar. Plus: A Mike Grell cover!

Or this one for New Teen Titans #27:

“It’s the search for Nightwing and Raven as the Titans face the Church of Brother Blood and the girl known as Twister! A must-read from Marv Wolfman, Kerry Gammill & Romeo Tanghal.”

Let’s do a little switcheroo here:

“Nite Owl is out for blood – and being stalked by Rorschach! By Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Plus: A Mike Grell cover!”

I didn’t change the Grell bit, if only because I pictured what that would be like and it was awesome. Anyway, I hope you see what I’m getting at here, about how the Watchmen blurbs look in context with DC’s other more traditional super-books. Of course, what was I expecting?

“The life of Rorschach revealed, showing why you violent fantasy prone fanboys idolizing him and similar characters are demonstrably wrong. Another instant classic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons!”

“Revealed at last! Symbolism you won’t get! Text pages you’ll only skim! Our company’s bread-and-butter superhero genre entirely undermined in Watchmen‘s most subversive issue yet! By Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.”

Yeah, that might not have gone over as well.

So all this Watchmen talk had me thinking…I’ve spoken to a handful of people at the shop who were new to the work, and reported stalling a bit on the text pieces between chapters. My advice to them was to go ahead and skip those bits if they’re getting in the way of the story, and go back and read them afterward. Yeah, okay, some of you are wincing, but according to a few of those folks that strategy seemed to work.

And this is what got me wondering. I read Watchmen in its original serialized format, one issue every month (or six weeks, or two months). That meant I had plenty of time to read the comic portion of the story and digest the text back-up pieces before the next issue came out.

However, in the collected format, I wonder if the text pieces function more as “speed bumps” for some readers, interruptions between chapters of the “real” story that one feels obligated to slog through before going on to the pages with actual comics on them. Without the time gaps between chapters forced by the monthly-or-so release schedule, perhaps some readers feel as if they have less time to contemplate the text pieces, knowing that the plot continues just a page turn or two away.

That’s just a random thought that occurred to me during a discussion of the work I was having yesterday. I could be completely off…but I’ve heard from enough people that the text back-ups did slow them up a bit that I think, in some cases, the pacing is drastically altered by the story’s collection under one cover.

Anyway, the other advice to readers, besides “skip ’em ’til the end,” is “take it slow” — don’t feel like you have to speed through the entire book in record time. Read just a chapter (plus text piece) a day, let it sink in, move on to the next chapter the next day. Or a few days later…whatever. But if you still feel the need to just skim that owl essay supposedly by Dan Dreiberg…well, I don’t tell anyone.

On a related note, in a preview for Watchmen that appeared in Amazing Heroes #97 (June 1986), it says the following:

“In place of a letters page in the first three issues you won’t be seeing the usual awkward selection of biographies or series notes, but extracts from ‘Under the Hood,’ the memoirs of Hollis Mason, the original Nite-Owl.”

Now I suspect this may have been a misinterpretation by the article’s writer, who was told that the first three issues would have that back-up feature and may have assumed that the letters column would appear after the back-ups were completed. Or maybe the other back-ups actually were late additions…which seems a bit unlikely, but possible, I suppose. (EDIT: Okay, ignore my suppositions…Augie reminds me that Dave Gibbons’ book Watching the Watchmen confirms the initial plans for a letter column.)

But now I’m imagining Watchmen with letter columns, people writing in guessing how it’s going to end, talking about how badass Rorschach is, asking why Dr. Manhattan isn’t wearing pants, etc. And of course the editorial plug for the next installment:

“NEXT ISSUE: One character learns a terrible secret about the past, while another makes a fateful decision that will change The Watchmen forever! Watch for issue #9, The Darkness of Mere Being by Moore and Gibbons, coming next month!”

I enjoyed writing that last bit far more than I should have.

Now, I say “seemingly odd” because while it feels like a very “one of these things is not like the other” sort of situation, it does 1) feature DC’s major superheroes 2) in a murder mystery (which Watchmen is, among other things) 3) by a best-selling author, so I get where they’re coming from. ‘Course, while I did like Identity Crisis, it ain’t a patch on Watchmen, so I really can’t blame anyone too much for a little eye-rolling at DC’s attempt to connect the two. But, you know, can’t fault DC for trying.

The timing is a bit tragic, too, since my experience with nearly every comic book based movie aside from the first Batman film has been that movie-driven demand for the related comics almost completely vanishes as soon as the flick opens. The people DC wants to reach with these $1.00 books, which are slated to begin arriving in stores the week after the film’s release date, are coming into stores right now. I’m currently getting plenty of people in the door who aren’t regular customers looking for “this Watchmen thing.” I’ll only get a fraction as many after March 6th.

It may be a moot point anyway, since most media-driven comics demand results in sales of just that particular item being advertised. I’m no slouch at salesmanship, but by and large people coming in just to buy, say, the new Stephen King comic don’t want to buy anything else. However, given that the trade dress for these $1.00 books actually has the Watchmen logo on it, I admit that it is possible it might attract the attention of, and be an easier sale to, anyone coming in just for that book.

Anyway, we’ll see. At least I’ll get another Swamp Thing item out of this, because I really don’t have enough already. Plus, we’ll have $1.00 samplers for various graphic novels that I’ll be able to use as sales tools for the near future…and I can give them away during Free Comic Book Day, too. Heck, they cost us about as much as some of the FCBD books anyway.

In conclusion: I can use these $1.00 “After Watchmen” comics, but unless Watchmen bucks the trend and the general non-comics-fan audience continues demanding Watchmen comics after the movie’s release, those $1.00 books will primarily be additional marketing for the regular customer base.

Then again, this is Watchmen we’re talking about. It’s a graphic novel that, even 20+ years after its release, can easily outsell many brand new graphic novels, movie or no movie. Hopefully Mr. Cynical-Pants Blogger here will be pleasantly surprised.

I also wanted to note that the clock design in the “After Watchmen” logo made me laugh. Well played, sirs.

READ MORE ABOUT IT: Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull, takes a look at Watchmen merchandise. Enjoy, won’t you?

At the end of the Watchmen entry:

“Current plans call for the entire Watchmen saga to be reprinted in both hardcover and softcover formats for release through bookstores once the story is completed, and [Alan] Moore is optimistic about the eventuality of a Watchmen film.”

‘Course, I have no idea what Mr. Moore actually said. He could very well have been looking forward to a movie version of his comic, though the article says he’s optimistic about the eventuality of a film, not the film itself. Depending on how you read that, he could have said something like “oh, I’m sure there’ll be a Watchmen movie. I’m positive it’ll be terrible.”

…And, you know, that’s an optimism of sorts.

Hard to believe the film’s only about three weeks away, isn’t it? Seems like only yesterday people were complaining that Watchmen could only be properly made as a 12-part HBO series. Oh, wait, that probably was yesterday…or even today.

At any rate, we’d better sell our Watchmen books at the shop while we still can. Just in case.

Uh….

(from here)

EL GORGO #2 UNLEASHED UPON UNSUSPECTING WORLD – Millions Flee in Panic!

C’mon, it’s a gorilla luchador, you’ve gotta at least take a peek.

NOT COMICS: For you old Mystery Science Theatre 3000 fans, the newest release from MST creator Joel Hodgson’s new project Cinematic Titanic is out: Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks, available on DVD or by download. With each new entry the CT project is just getting better and funnier, and well worth the purchase.

…make it this one.

Also found, poking around on that site: MANGA DARKSEID.

Other links of note:

• Pal Dorian has finally transplanted (postmodernbarney.com) from Blogger to WordPress, and the results are quite nice-looking. That was one of my (many) broken New Year’s resolutions from last year, moving my site to WordPress, but now that Dor’s done it, I can bug him for help.
• Stuff Geeks Love is back from the holiday hiatus. Thank goodness, since I’ve missed it.
• Internet chum and movie endurer Ken Lowery has posted his 10 Best/5 Worst Movies list, which is good readin’, as is all of Ken’s writing over there. How good is he? He made me appreciate the film Doomsday after my initial “…the hell?” reaction.
• I didn’t explicitly ask for predictions for the coming year in yesterday’s mile-long post, but if you want to leave some for examination next year, feel free in that post’s comments section.

  I’m probably going to hold off on making any predictions myself…well, other than someone will do something stupid that’ll cause me irritation out of proportion to the actual offense, but only because that seems to happen every year anyway.

• Some serious stuff:

  Here’s an update on Carla and her husband Lance, injured in the recent Santa Barbara fires.

  And this is the most recent update on the murder of our longtime customer Sean. Not much new news so far, other than his employers offering a $10,000 dollar reward. I also want to note that friends of Sean’s have set up some donation jars around town to raise money for his family, including at our shop…and I’m glad to say that our customers have been very generous and giving.

  Very strange not seeing Sean at the shop this past week. Strange and sad.

One of the unintended consequences of running my Things Not to Say… mini-comic a couple of days ago is that I am now getting people feeding me the “I’m very disappointed” line both in my comments sections and at the shop (and I’m totally looking at you, Brandon from the game store next door).

And, you know, that’s fine. So long as you all can deal with the guilt when I finally snap and wreak havoc throughout the county and strike terror into the hearts of its denizens, starting with poor, innocent Employee Aaron.

Anyhoo, I’m glad you all seemed to enjoy (or at least tolerate) some of my old mini-comics work. You can see a fuzzy scan of the cover of the print edition of Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin in my first anniversary post, which also has a reproduction of a letter of comment I wrote as a 12 year old, but feel free to skip that. But there’s a little more detail regarding our comics-publishing concern there, if you’re interested. And if you want to see another strip I did from those days, I posted one here three years ago…be sure to click the “page two” link for…the rest of the story.

In other (well, mostly store-related) news:

• Watchmen appears to be available, or at least orderable, from our distributor again. But now Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is out of stock. ARGH!
• Spent some time over the last day or so swapping out some of the promo posters from the wall and in the window…it’s always best to get those posters out of the window before they all turn the same shade of blue. I also went through our section of posters intended for retail sale and did a little maintenance, and noticed a few things:

  1. Whoo boy, nobody wants that “Brand New Day” Spider-Man/Wolverine poster.

  2. …But that “Iron Man in space” poster by Joe Quesada did very well. Thanks, popular and surprisingly-good movie!

  3. COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE POSTERS OF: The Fantastic Four. Okay, maybe more solo ones of the Thing. And I realize there are a lot more posters out there of, say, Spider-Man, but Spidey posters generally sell (the poster in point 1 excepted). FF posters, not so much.

  4. Oh good gravy, we still have that damned New Warriors poster from the early ’90s? And I actually put it in the poster rack for display? “HELLO COME LOOK AT MY ALBATROSS HANGING IN THE POSTER RACK RATHER THAN AROUND MY NECK.”

  5. I think we may be past the “sell-by” date on the couple of Matrix posters we have left.

  6. Now I’m wondering what sort of Watchmen posters we’ll get as part of the movie merchandising push. These ones, for sure, but maybe we’ll get a nice shot of Rorschach, hands on his hips, standing heroically, chest and chin thrust out, and a big blocky “RORSCHACH” logo across the poster’s bottom edge. Or maybe he can be throwing a punch at the viewer. Basically, I want the same type of posters that we got with 1997’s Batman and Robin.

• Speaking of Watchmen merchandise, it occurred to me that we’re going to get the inevitable trading card set based on the film, and that it’ll likely feature those peculiar “own a piece of the prop/costume” cards that feature a small piece of said prop/costume cut out and embedded into the card. Dr. Manhattan’s costume cards would have to be entirely from the flashbacks (“Congratulations! You are the proud owner of a piece of Dr. Manhattan’s ‘plum-smugglers’ from the Warner Bros. film ‘Watchmen'”).*

  I thought it’d be neat if they could come up with a way to make special “Rorschach” chase cards, with a layer of black liquid floating between two thin semi-translucent pieces of white plastic…but of course, it probably wouldn’t take much for one of those to break, damaging other cards in the pack/box. Maybe some kind of heat-sensitive card…a close of up Rorschach’s mask, that looks blank until you apply some heat to it and the black patterns begin to show up.

  This is what I think about when I really should be thinking about something else. Anything else.

• Also, judging by reaction to the idea Kid Chris and I had about a Mario Kart-style Watchmen racing game…there ain’t nobody who doesn’t want that game. “Ain’t anybody?” Well, you know what I mean…the people have spoken, and they want Giant-Headed Silk Spectre and Dr. Manhattan ‘n’ so on in their little race cars. Who could blame them?

* Okay, Dr. Manhattan’s costumes, such as they are, will likely be computer-generated, too. Unless the actor will be wearing the costume, and the “Dr. Manhattan” effect will be added to his body after the fact, or…I’m thinking too much about this.