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Jon Godson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 January 2005
Posts: 2468
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 11:19am | IP Logged | 1
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There were some tasteless scenes in Watchman, but to blame this one mini-
series and Alan Moore for darkening comics is far from fair.
Frank Miller had the Joker difile Catwoman and left her tied in a Wonder
Woman suit and had Batman throw a sharp batarang into Joker's eye and in
Dark Knight. Those were tasteless and showed a huge disrespect for those
characters, and in my opinion, did more to change the tone of comics for
the worse than Watchmen.
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Jason Fulton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 3938
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 11:22am | IP Logged | 2
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I think you could 'blame' three miniseries for the current state of comics (at least, from a content standpoint) - Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, and Man of Steel.
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Rob Hewitt
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 10182
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 11:22am | IP Logged | 3
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ALmost embarrassed to admit I've never read it. Oh, I've read a ton about it, in Wizard and other magazines, and I know pretty much the whole story, in a broad sense.
And I find it kind of neat-the part where the villain describes how he described his plan in detail AFTER it happened "Do you really think I'd be going on and on like some B Republic villain"(paraphrasing).
I leafed through a trade once, and it seemed a bit dated with the cold war references and all.
I just never felt compelled to buy it. I tend to prefer stories about characters I know in universes I know.
I'm sure I will check it out one day-it is an icon of comics, so i might as well see what all the fuss is.
But the truth is, having heard about how great it is, and having seen the impact, the chance of it living up to the hype is almost zero. Just like when I read Dark Knight Returns very much after the fact. (WHich I very much disliked, in fact pretty much hated).
But I am sure I will one day check it out
Edited by Rob Hewitt on 23 October 2005 at 11:27am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133854
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 11:25am | IP Logged | 4
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There were some tasteless scenes in Watchman, but to blame this one mini- series and Alan Moore for darkening comics is far from fair. Frank Miller had the Joker difile Catwoman and left her tied in a Wonder Woman suit and had Batman throw a sharp batarang into Joker's eye and in Dark Knight. Those were tasteless and showed a huge disrespect for those characters, and in my opinion, did more to change the tone of comics for the worse than Watchmen. ***** Ah, but which is the first domino? What you may not be taking into account is this: as I note above, I read WATCHMEN up thru issue 5 in xerox form, as the books were coming into the DC offices. I was working on Superman, then, and Frank was hard at work on DKR. He was also seeing those xeroxes. Now, if you look at DKR with this in mind, you may notice something (something of which I was very much aware at the time): DKR is the first half of one story, and the second half of another. Right down the middle is a line, which splits of the story Frank started, and introduces the story he completed. And that story, the second one, was heavily influenced by what he read in WATCHMEN. Example? DKR opens with Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon sharing a drink as a newscaster on the TV wonders whatever happened to Batman and hopes that, wherever he is, he is sharing a drink with a friend. But by halfway thru we all know what happened to Batman -- he and all other superheroes were banned, outlawed, just as they were in WATCHMEN. There's no reason for that newscaster to be wondering whatever happened to Batman. Everybody knows. So, yeah, DKR (or, rather, people misreading it, even to this day) can take a big mea culpa for much of the mess the industry is in today, but without WATCHMEN, I very much doubt that would have been the case.
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Steve Jones
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 August 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 548
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 11:26am | IP Logged | 5
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Some people just don't get Watchmen, do they?
*****
Apparently you don't.
********
1. It was a joke.
2. But I do get it.
3. So do you.
4. But what we get is different.
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Jon Godson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 January 2005
Posts: 2468
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 11:29am | IP Logged | 6
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What you may not be taking into account is this: as I note above, I read
WATCHMEN up thru issue 5 in xerox form, as the books were coming into
the DC offices. I was working on Superman, then, and Frank was hard at
work on DKR. He was also seeing those xeroxes.
********************
Was/Is it a common practice for freelancers to see a work in progress
through Xeroxes? Were DC editors passing this out hoping to influence
other creators? Was Watchmen a unique case in this respect?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133854
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 11:38am | IP Logged | 7
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It was always easy to see whatever came thru the
offices. In the case of WATCHMEN, however,
Jeanette was handing out the xeroxes because she
was so proud of the books. She made sure
everyone got copies.
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Darragh Greene
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 March 2005
Location: Ireland
Posts: 1812
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 11:50am | IP Logged | 8
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One way of putting it is that the Watchmen ushered in the post-modern
era of comics…
*****
That happened in 1961, with the publication of the first issue of THE
FANTASTIC FOUR.
********************************************
Excellent point. Yet there's a difference between the quality of Lee and
Kirby's 1961 post-modern (hyphenated) approach to superheroes and
Moore's postmodern (unhyphenated) approach of 1986. (Note: by the '80s
what had once been termed post-modern was then being termed
postmodern.) FF deconstructed the DC codes of superhuman
superheroics by humanising the book's heroes. Watchmen
deconstructed the Marvel codes of human superheroics by dehumanising the book's characters. Lee's post-modern pop comics were
loud, flashy but humanist in substance while Moore's postmodern
production was exactly: 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing'. See the difference a humble hyphen makes?
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Stephen Rockwood
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 1255
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 11:51am | IP Logged | 9
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I read one issue of Watchmen and did not like it. It is not the
best comic work ever. If it were I would have felt compelled to
read more issues as many other comic books have made me do. I
have nothing against 'dark' comic books but Watchmen turned me off.
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Jay Matthews
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 October 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 2468
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 11:57am | IP Logged | 10
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Darragh Greene wrote:
| See the difference a humble hyphen makes? |
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I meant the unhyphenated definition then. I couldn't disagree
with JB more about 1961, so much so that I know he is operating off of
a different understanding of "postmodern" than I am. I meant
James Joyce postmodern. I just reread FF 1 the other night, and
Ulysses it ain't.
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Thomas Mets
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 September 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 898
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | 11
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What are the opinions of people here about Watchmen? I don't mean the
bad imitations it spawned, nor the way people treated an experimental work
as how super-heroes should be done regularly, or any other consequence
that followed from the reaction to it. I mean your opinions about Watchmen,
period.
********************************************************** ****************
Watchmen's been my favorite comic book since the day I read it. I just
wrote a mini-essay for a column about great comic books for my school
newspaper. I just hope people don't think I was ripping off the ew
article.
Coming up next....Frank miller's Batman, Maus, Claremont- Byrne Uncanny X-Men, Barry Ween
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Jason Fulton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 3938
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | 12
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You're....lumping in Barry Ween with the rest of those books? Seriously?
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