watchmen

Former employee Kid Chris and I discuss the Watchmen video game…specifically, the racing game I was hoping for:

Kid Chris: “…So the special ability of Dr. Manhattan’s car would be teleportation, right?”

Me: “Yeah…and Rorschach’s car would…I don’t know, have a flamethrower or something.”

Kid Chris: “Or a grappling gun!”

Me: “Sure! And the Comedian’s car would have guns mounted on the hood….”

Kid Chris: “Would having Captain Metropolis in a driving game be in bad taste?”

Me: “Has that ever stopped us before?”

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In other news:

• Pal Dorian has begun Beach Party Week, which hasn’t a whole lot to do with comics, but a whole lot to do with…well, beach parties.
• San Diego Comic Con 2008 may be over, but the pain lingers on. There’s some good coverage at Newsarama and Comic Book Resources, cataloging what happened at which panel if that’s the sort of thing you’re into.

  But for a more personal view, you can check out Bully’s reports and photos, which I’ve been plugging lately, or you can dig Kevin Church’s reports and photos. And, eventually, I’ll snag some of Employee Aaron’s photos from the event to display here.

  And Mighty Tom Spurgeon has your list of nominees and winners from this year’s Eisner Awards. That Justice League of America story with Vixen was the best single issue story of the year? Really? And I was shut out of the “Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism” award again…someday, Newsarama, someday…!

• Had another purchase order from one of our local libraries for several hundred dollars’ worth of comic books for their children’s section. There was a little more leeway in regards to content, with more “teen”-rated superheroes being requested along with the usual mix of younger-skewing books. Iron Man, in particular, was being demanded by the patrons, so who am I to disappoint?

  Interestingly, just like last time I did this for the library, Archie Comics were singled out as books they didn’t want. None of their patrons want to read them, even for free, apparently.

Hey, CW asked. Who am I to deny CW?

I’m sure most of you have seen the Watchmen movie trailer by now, either with the new Bat-movie (it is with the new Batman movie, isn’t it?) or online. And having watched it, I think I’m a little more optimistic about the film. It certainly looks spot on, as far as sets and such, and nearly everything presented in the trailer is recognizable as a scene right out of the comic. And now that we finally get to see Dr. Manhattan…well, he’s a little more glowy than I imagined, but that’s okay. The effect looks pretty darn good, and Manhattan’s appearance is equal parts creepy and melancholy.

So it looks good, and, judging from the trailer, it seems to be hitting the story beats. Whether it manages to capture one of Watchmen‘s primary elements (the examination/deconstruction of the superhero genre) remains to be seen, though I argued in too long a post that the appearance of the costumes may…may…infer such an examination may indeed take place.

We’ll find out eventually. But in the meantime…hey, neat trailer. The film looks like it might be watchable. And I didn’t even hate that song that was in it.

But whatever…here are the important bits I’m sure you all were wondering about, and are answered in the trailer:

1. We do seem to be getting nekkid Dr. Manhattan.

2. The blots on Rorschach’s mask do move. It’s subtle, but it’s there.

Also, the trailer ends with Laurie and Manhattan on Mars, in Doc’s floating glass castle. I’m very glad that scene’s still in the film, and I hope not too much was cut in the process of translation from page to screen.

And I still can’t believe they gave Night Owl a smart-alecky talking robot owl companion. That’s going too far.

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ADDITIONAL LINKAGE: A moldy oldie from this site’s archives – compare and contrast Dr. Manhattan and Baby Huey (at the end of that day’s post).

…assuming it hasn’t already:

RORSCHACH BUST

Also: “They took my face, Charlie!” — the Dr. Manhattan 1:6 scale figure:

Guess they’re trying to keep a little bit of a secret with this figure, or it’s just pending approval, or some darn thing.

More Watchmen figures ‘n’ busts in today’s DC solicitations. Enjoy, won’t you?

This full-page ad appeared in Amazing Heroes #120 (July 1987)…and in the letters column of the very next issue, the publisher responsible for this ad apologized to both DC Comics and Mayfair Games (the company that held the DC role-playing game license) for any confusion this ad may have caused. Since Gateways was, I think, a role-playing game magazine, and that Mayfair was specifically mentioned in the apology, this “new Watchmen story” was probably an RPG adventure. I don’t know if the apology was for accidentally making people think there was a new Watchmen comics story, or because the adventure wasn’t authorized by DC, or whatever. I can’t find any evidence this adventure was ever released…if anyone knows better, clue me in.

“Harlot’s Curse” — the phrase presumably comes from a William Blake poem. I wonder what this lost Watchmen “story” was about?

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Related Watchmen info: I’ve been trying to research the actual release dates for the mini-series. Amazing Heroes appears to list DC’s original intended release dates, as the on-sale dates are all exactly a month apart.

This helps a little, as the one issue of Watchmen I can personally tie to a specific time period is #11, which came out the same week I graduated high school (June ’87). According to the AH listings, #11 was originally due to ship March 10th. So, by that point, the series was at least three months off.

Researching release dates for a twenty-year-old comic book series: this is what I call “taking it easy for a week,” apparently.

Okay, I’m pretty sure someone else in the comicsweblogosphere has already covered this at some point, but I don’t remember anyone doing so off the top of my head, and I’m not gonna check and see because I still want to post about it. Plus, I mentioned this comic to pal Dorian and Employee Aaron, and they were all “nuh uh,” and I was all “yeah huh,” so I’m gonna post it here just in case any of you out there hadn’t heard about it or seen it either.

Anyhoo, Question #17 (June 1988, by Denny O’Neil, Denys Cowan, and Rick Magyar) features our hero in his civilian identity as Vic Sage, having boarded a plane flight after picking up some choice reading at the terminal newsstand.

And the reading material in question?

First off…sure, it’s an in-story plug for one of DC’s high profile projects…a fairly blatant one, even more so than that one from The Flash.

Second, of course Rorschach stands out to Vic Sage, since Vic’s alter ego as the Question was a real-world inspiration to the Watchmen character’s look.

Third, that certainly looks like Gibbons’ art from that one promo image in the fourth panel. Moore and Gibbons aren’t credited at the beginning of the comic with anything in this issue, but they are given a special “thank you.” I wonder if either of them were even aware Rorschach went walkies into this book, and out of their control.

Anyway, Vic and his ’80s hair start reading, and it’s apparently compelling reading since he immediately nods off. And how tough of a guy is Vic Sage/The Question?

He provides hardboiled narration for his own descent into sleep, that’s how tough.

He immediately jumps into dream-sleep, and he relives some previous tragedy in his dream, only with Vic in Rorschach’s costume instead of his Question duds:

Vic wakes at that point, calling the experience “weird,” which, okay, fair enough. He also reminds everyone to rush right out and buy the critically-acclaimed Watchmen trade paperback by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, now out in stores! And it makes a great gift! (Okay, he doesn’t really say any of that, which I’m only saying to nip the “huh? That’s not in my copy” comments in the bud.)

Later, after imbibing a little too much at the local gin joint while trying to drink a potential information source into giving up the goods, he finds himself in a fight with said source that Vic only just barely wins. The excitement and the drink get to be a bit much for him, so once he’s back at the hotel:

Er, not that Rorschach would laugh. At anything. And you know, come to think of it, “Dead Air TV Static” is a good design for a pair of pants.

There is one more Rorschach reference in the book, after the Question gets the tar beat out of him again, and he’s being driven off to some nefarious fate, he manages to moan out Rorschach’s signature phrase:

And there you go. Question #17. Your Watchmen collection just isn’t complete without it.

Next: those Captain Atom and Legion of Super-Heroes issues you need to complete your collection of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.

Okay, like you all haven’t heard enough about the Watchmen movie costumes over the last day or so…well, it is kind of a big deal, as one of our little picturebook industry’s most high profile, and most beloved, funnybooks finally lurches its way onto the silver screen, and we’re all interested in how it’s gonna turn out.

Granted, most of us are…skeptical, or cautiously optimistic, or, um, a tad excited. After all, it’s a very complex, very dense work, as much about the superhero genre as it is of the superhero genre, and most people are fairly convinced that if it can be botched, it will be botched.

Now, I didn’t think I was too hard on the stills we all saw yesterday. I was somewhat taken aback by the Night Owl costume, as it seemed a little too Hollywood-movie-ish for what was supposed to be a goofy Batman-esque analog, as well as possibly indicating a serious missing-the-point problem at the script level (as eloquently explained by Mr. Kevin Church). Otherwise, the rest of the outfits seem fine, my qualms mostly being 1) still not overly impressed by Rorschach, but willing to be convinced otherwise, and 2) Silk Spectre’s pose seemed a little too…superhero-y for what I know of the character from the source material, which is really about as nit-picky a complaint as you’re likely to find. Otherwise, her costume, considering the inspiration for the character (her particular character archetype being, paraphrasing Alan Moore, “the lady who looks good in tights”) is just dandy.

So, basically, if the film turns out to be not any good, it’s not going to be because of the costumes.

But it got me to thinking. As I’ve probably said on my site in the past, and I’m too lazy to go looking for it right this moment, one of the main points of Watchmen is the deconstruction/reexamination of the tropes of superhero storytelling. (I wonder if the full impact of that particular ingredient is lost on readers coming to the book late, after having read countless regurgitations/waterings-down of those same ideas in two decades’ worth of comics that followed.) Given that the average movie-goer likely to see a Watchmen film hasn’t read any comics, a movie version of Watchmen, assuming it still includes that aspect of the work, would be wise to stick to attacking clichés familiar from other superhero films. Okay, yes, I know there’s probably a lot of overlap, but one cliché that’s more an issue in the films is the ridiculous, unnecessarily-detailed, overly impractical, sculpted-muscle superhero outfit.

You know, like the costumes of Ozymandias and Night Owl in those promo stills.

I was okay with Ozy’s costume looking like it did, since that level of…ostentatiousness, I guess, seems fitting to the character. But if we’re approaching the Night Owl character as someone who put a lot of money and time into building himself an over-the-top supersuit, which doesn’t necessarily make him a better superhero, but makes him feel like a superhero — and a costume that the audience would recognize as “yeah, that’s what every impractical costume looks like in every superhero movie I’ve seen” — well, in that case, I can live with it (which I’m sure comes as a great relief to the filmmakers). Especially if we see that he has a whole closetful of similar costumes for different occasions, as seen in the comic.

In that context, I find myself appreciating the Rorschach costume a little more…sure, it still looks kinda dorky, but that works in contrast to the overly-slick costumes of the other heroes. Obviously Rorschach didn’t have the money or skill to give himself…I don’t know, a trenchcoat with sculpted stomach muscles. He’s playing at being a superhero like the fancy uptown folk, and this is the best he can do, with an awkward, ugly outfit. With that particular perspective hurdle of mine overcome, I can begin to see how the creepiness of Rorschach’s character can work itself out in the film.

Of course, that’s a whole lot of justification on my part, assuming Watchmen the movie approaches the complexity of Watchmen the comic book. If the film is just an X-Men movie with different costumes (“To me, my Watch-men!”), which it could very well be, then all that typin’ is moot, I guess.

Ah, well. We’ll see in a year. I’m certainly still interested in checking it out when it’s finally released. And despite any griping and complaining and nitpicking that may occur between now and then, we’re all gonna see it. Don’t you lie to me. You know you will.

Anyway, that’s far more about Watchmen costumes than you’ve ever wanted to read. I promise, when Lost Girls: The Movie makes its approach, I’ll try not to be so obsessive.

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From work, the other day:

“Hey, get this…what if Rorschach from the Watchmen was instead…HORSHACK from Welcome Back, Kotter?

“‘Up your nose with a rubber hose, Dr. Manhattan!’

“‘Hey there, Mr. Dryyyyyy-berg!’

“AMIRITE?”

Sigh. I’ve no pride at all.

“GRRRRRRRR! I’M ANGRY!”

Thanks to Dafna at the Bispectacult, I see that the Watchmen movie weblog has posted character stills, and…well, I’ll reserve judgement, since these are promo stills and not necessarily reflective of plot and/or characterizations, but, yeah, I have a hard time seeing the Silk Spectre from the comics posing like that. And there had better be a pudgy middle-aged man in that Night Owl armor.

Plus, I’ve noted this before, but regarding Rorschach…what looks menacing and creepy on the printed page looks kinda dopey in live action. In the few stills we’ve seen featuring Rorschach, the costume hasn’t done anything for me. Maybe once I see it in motion, I’ll change my opinion.

So I’ve done real well on that “reserving judgement” thing, haven’t I?

Comedian looks really good, as does Ozymandias. No stills of Dr. Manhattan yet, since his appearance is likely going to be all special effects, I’m guessing.

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in other news:

• The official Elfquest site (EDIT: link fixed) is on the verge of revamping its digital comics section, where every Elfquest-related comic is about to go online. apparently for free. Not an Elfquest fan myself, really, but this does sound like an impressive project. From the retail end, it doesn’t bother me too much, if only because EQ back issue and book sales have been fairly moribund lately anyway, and a project like this might possibly help rebuild an audience for this material. Maybe. Couldn’t hurt, anyway.

  (via)

• So, anyone out there managing to sell copies of IDW’s Locke & Key comic, written by Stephen King’s son? We’ve moved one copy. Funny, we sell a lot of comic books, here….

  Also, one day may be too soon to judge, but I didn’t have any kind of rush or significant demand for the premiere ish of the new Dark Tower series that came out this week.

  We did sell out of the Justice League: New Frontier special…here’s Kevin’s review, which sums up my feeling on this comic quite well.

• Pal Cully sent me a link to a Rick Veitch Swamp Thing and Abby commission illustration. I have to warn you, it’s Not Safe for Work. No, really, don’t look at this anywhere where you might have to answer for your browsing habits. And if you’re looking at this site while on the job…get back to work, slacker. Anyway, here’s the link, if you dare.
• From the comments section for yesterday’s post, in response to my less-than-serious “demand” for a trade of this material: an archive of the comic book D&D ads. I love the look on the dragon’s face near the end of the fourth strip.