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Topic: WSJ: Worst Comic Ever (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Robbie Moubert
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Joined: 16 April 2004
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Posted: 30 May 2012 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | 1  

Aren't DR & Quinch based on OC & Stiggs from National Lampoon?
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 31 May 2012 at 5:14am | IP Logged | 2  

Tharg's future shocks tended to be riffs on pre-existing stories - 50's b movies, pulp novels etc.

Skizz was definitly a riff on ET

Most of what Moore has wrote has been easily a reference to something else, doesn't make it bad (and indeed, I've liked many of those riffs he has done - Captain Britain, Miracleman, Watchmen, Swamp thing etc) but he really needs to stop the whining.

And not everyone is just continuing to try to build on his house. It's not his house.

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Bill Catellier
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Posted: 31 May 2012 at 6:36am | IP Logged | 3  

I never cared much for WATCHMEN.  So, I'm kinda glad JB turned that cover down.  I'd be sorely tempted to buy a book I don't really want just for JB's work.
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Valmor J. Pedretti
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Posted: 31 May 2012 at 7:30am | IP Logged | 4  

This hunt for an original work is always a very haunting thing for me.

I think it's pretty clear by now that Alan Moore's "thing" is doing his own spin on stuff. Which is fine, and not enough to render his work worthless. I used to worry so much about being original. I'd produce a song and be worried about people fishing all my influences on it, and then suddenlly they are comparing the tune to bands/artists I've never heard before.

Watchmen is one of those works of art that puts the reader in a funny situation. Some people just simply read it and enjoyed it (I know I did), but then it became a symbol of "cool" and "comics are not for kids only". An overall silly thing with bad consequences.

Yet, as much as I enjoyed it, I can't say it had the same impact on me as a reader as Alpha Flight # 12, for instance.

Oh, and I think that The Phantom Menace taught us a bit about high expectations on prequels, right?
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 31 May 2012 at 8:29am | IP Logged | 5  

I think it's pretty clear by now that Alan Moore's "thing" is doing his own spin on stuff. Which is fine, and not enough to render his work worthless. I used to worry so much about being original. I'd produce a song and be worried about people fishing all my influences on it, and then suddenlly they are comparing the tune to bands/artists I've never heard before.

••

Moore can "homage" anything he likes, as far as I'm concerned. As noted, I don't think he's ever claimed to be doing anything else.

What wearies me is the legion of fans who think he is. Whose awareness is so narrow they see something like WATCHMEN as brilliantly original, and not a cascade of "pastiches".

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Valmor J. Pedretti
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Posted: 31 May 2012 at 1:16pm | IP Logged | 6  

Probably the same people who think that Quentin Tarantino reinvented movies.
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 31 May 2012 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | 7  

Probably the same people who think that Quentin Tarantino
reinvented movies.

====
Or the earlier generation who thought George Lucas did.
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Arc Carlton
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Posted: 01 June 2012 at 12:07am | IP Logged | 8  

I would agree that TOP 10 was fairly original (and one of the better series in his ABC line), even though it's essentially a mash-up of superheroes and cop shows like Hill Street Blues and such.

DR AND QUINCH may be my favorite thing he ever wrote. Along with his Jack B Quick and Jonni Future stories (which I mainly like for the art), it's his work I most wish I could find collected. "Mind the oranges, Marlon!"

_______________________________________

Top 10 was great. I also loved the Top 10: Forty-Niners and the Smax miniseries (although this one includes lots of parodies about well-known characters).

DR & Quinch was one of my favorites too! Hilarious stuff. Sometimes people think Moore writes only serious books, but he's always had a good sense of humor.

 

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Agapito Qhelas
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Posted: 01 June 2012 at 6:46am | IP Logged | 9  

Watchmen is indeed "brilliantly original" in many ways. Yes, the characters were superficially based in Charlton characters and there was a plot similarity with an Outer Limits (which wasn't original to it, either) that was coincidental, but to claim that against Watchmen is like saying no movie involving, say, a bank heist, can be original. 

Watchmen shined and stood apart the rest because, with the exception of maybe Eisner, no one had ever pushed comics that far before. Moore created his coherent universe and populated it with fascinating characters. To diminish it based on some arbitrary and nonsensical basis of 'originality' is ludicrous. 
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 01 June 2012 at 7:07am | IP Logged | 10  

…there was a plot similarity with an Outer Limits (which wasn't original to it, either) that was coincidental…

••

Did Ozymandias "coincidentally" CITE the episode as the inspiration for his plan?

But there's no reason for me to enter into this discussion with you, is there? You are doing exactly what the Moore/WATCHMEN defenders invariably do -- diminishing or even outright dismissing the obvious sources. Which negates your arguments before they even get the chance to take shape.

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Neil Brauer
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Posted: 01 June 2012 at 8:19am | IP Logged | 11  

Probably the same people who think that Quentin Tarantino reinvented movies.

........................................

So true.  If you actaully get the source material, Tarantino comes off quite cornball.  Like Watchmen tho, his movies have become a mark of "cool". I won't lie and say it doesn't get under my skin.

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Craig Robinson
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Posted: 01 June 2012 at 8:39am | IP Logged | 12  

Probably the same people who think that Quentin Tarantino reinvented movies.

***

I do my level best to avoid conversations with anyone who phrases things in such a way (not your phrasing, the "QT reinvinted movies" thing).  People have taken being fans of things right off the cliff into fetish behavior.  I enjoy QT films and I enjoy reading WATCHMEN.  I would never try to elevate them into some sort of Platonic archetype of perfection.

At the same time, I really enjoy conversations about, well, annotations I suppose you'd say, of influences and homages that stories do contain.  But those are really two entirely different beasts.

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