just cant get enough

I read yesterday that Time Warner comics has decided that the best way to make to make watchmen relevant for today’s readers is by having a series of needless exploitative “prequels” for that property. The actual quote from Dan DiDio and Jim Lee is “It’s our responsibility as publishers to find new ways to keep all of our characters relevant, after 25 years the Watchmen are classic characters whose time has come for new stories to be told.” The problem is the Watchmen was entirely self contained and didn’t really warrant a prequel. Watchmen was one of those books that used the language that is exclusive to comics to deconstruct the industry and create something genuinely sophisticated. There is a beautiful structure and lyricism that its imitators seem to miss, Watchmen wasn’t about being grim and gritty it was about exposing the pathos behind an archetype. What could a prequel possibly do to improve on what has come before it.

Technically Time Warner owns the comics as long as the books remain in print and then the rights revert back to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, so for the interim they can create this abortion of a comic. Also seeing as how the watchmen has made Time Warner gobs of money throughout the years I doubt they will ever allow the rights to revert back to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. There could be a sort of knee jerk reaction to my disdain, but if you read the creative teams announced one has to wonder if there serves could be better spent on something rather than an exercise in nostalgia porn. I like comics as an art form, but the industry is in a long slow death. Instead of taking real efforts to reinvigorate the industry the feel the need to perpetually exhume the past. As an aside I don’t think the new 52 is a legitimate way to bring in new readers, comics problems are price, accessibility, and availability. I think day and date digital is a nice first step but I am still paying anywhere from 2.99-4.99 for twenty four poorly paced pages and it becomes quite clear that there could be better uses of my discretionary income. Before Watchmen, is a grand example of creative bankruptcy, it shows that this company has no will to be bold about its future and wants to live in the shadow of its past glories.
I have found that so much of our entertainment industry is guilty of looking backwards; how many sequels, reboots, reimaginings can a person take. New shouldn’t be a dirty word.