Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Devilsheep!

I wanna party with the California republicans who came up with Carly Fiorina's new attack video.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7HiQRM7BA&feature=player_embedded

There's a rumour that DC is considering commissioning the creation of WATCHMEN comic book prequels/sequels/spinoffs. If it's true--and I'm cynical enough to believe it's at least being seriously considered, even if common sense prevails and it never materializes--I'm guessing they'll move heaven and earth to get Dave Gibbons' unqualified and very public support. That's the only way I can see this not resulting in Dan DiDio being dragged out of a DC Nation panel and strung up from a San Diego lamppost by a mob of irate fans.

If they can't get Gibbons to back the play, the only non-Alan Moore Big Two comic creator I can think of working today who might stand a snowball's chance in hell of making such an idea transcend the creatively bankrupt moneygrab it clearly is at the corporate level is Grant Morrison. It seems to me almost any creator who would be foolhardy enough to attempt to follow one of the greatest superhero comic book stories of all time would find their efforts overshadowed pretty much all aspects by the original work, while being boxed in by them.

I generally enjoy the comics work of guys like Brian Bendis and Warren Ellis, but off the top of my head, Morrison's the only one of the North American mainstream who's even come close to Moore when it comes to focusing on, and pushing, the formal qualities of superhero comic narrative. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he seemingly isn't content to simply tell Very Good Superhero Comic Stories--he wants to refine and redefine the medium he's working in. Depending on your tastes, that drive may lead to good or bad or disastrously awful comics, but the general attitude seems to me very similar to what Moore and Gibbons had in mind when they created the Watchmen.

Morrison's respectful enough of what's gone before to want to honour it, while not letting himself be confined by it. If a Watchmen follow-up is going to work on a creative level, that's the kind of creative approach that's required.

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If they do go forward with multiple Watchmen-related projects, they could do a lot worse than getting Paul Grist involved. I can't believe the similarities between Jack Staff's narrative construction and Watchmen's never occurred to me till now (and it's been awhile since I read either)(where the hell is Jack Staff V4, anyway? That thing's like, half a year late now...)

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But on the whole, I hope they don't go forward with any Watchmen-related projects. The movie alone shows the folly of even attempting to follow it up.

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Come to think of it, one of the screenwriters did mention he had an idea for a sequel, which he told Alan Moore during the LAST CONVERSATION THEY EVER HAD, EVER.

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Also, on an unrelated topic, Peter Sprigg is a moron. (via mightygodking)

A

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