I think Morrison and Quitely were both asked to join Before Watchmen, but declined. Morrison did stir up some controversy with his comments about Siegel and Schuster, though. If you’re willing to fork over the cash, you could go to MorrisonConand probably have a conversation with him. But yeah, I think I read what he was saying but then my eyes glazed over when he started talking about some hyperconsciousness state of being that all creators are a part of and then I didn’t understand what he was talking about.
Personally, I’ve got no problem acting like a cock to anyone who’s interested in Before Watchmen. I mean, I mock people who like crap comics all the time, so what’s the difference? (Other than the fact that now I actually have the moral high ground.) I think I’m gonna go to the Marvel thread now and laugh at the people who care about whether the Red Hulk can beat up the Cyttorak-empowered Colossus or somebody.
I’m going to start making and selling my own Watchmen merch. I mean, people who had nothing to do with creating these characters or telling the story are making Watchmen stuff, so they set the precedent, right?
I already had no respect for Dan DiDio but reading that puts him in the negative zone for me. (Did you guys see his top ten list of things he’s proud of during his tenure?) A “love letter” to Moore’s creation, huh? So is it better to write a love letter to the creation or the creator? It’s more important to write a love letter to Watchmen than it is to write a love letter to the person who created it? Is DiDioeven listening to himself?
I mean it’d be one thing just to be honest and say, “DC Entertainment is just one finger of the Time Warner conglomerate… What can I say? We’re in this for the money.” I think I’d actually have more respect for that than this constant line of company crap.
It’s also garbage how he compares the situation to how Moore built his legend by working on company-owned characters like Swamp Thing, Batman, and Superman.
DiDio is just a hologram, delivering dialogue originally written by Frank Miller as satire and subsequently misunderstood as being sincere.
The real Dan DiDio is tied up in a basement with duct tape over his mouth and electrodes attached to his testicles. The really creepy part is that there isn’t really any reason for the electrodes.
Long Moore interview about Before Watchmen. I’ve read that it’s recent but not entirely sure how recent so my apologies if this is old news. Haven’t read the entire thing yet but will do so ASAP.
EDIT: Well certain things seem to touch on things said by JMS and DiDio so it seems very recent. And seriously WOW what a great read. Surprised that it touched upon the DC Reboot too.
Here’s a book review of Leaping Tall Buildings. The reviewer mentions Before Watchmen and takes a shot at JMS. It sounds like the reviewer doesn’t think much of superhero comics in general, as he lumps the likes of Bendis and Morrison right along with Dan DiDio, so take it for what it’s worth.
Sounds like a bitter man to me…
I mean i really like his work and he indeed got fucked by dc, but saying that nothing worth speaking about came out after watchmen is stupid!
To say such a thing is harsh, but it’s also a matter of taste. In terms of what he values in comics, it’s not particularly out of line to say that Marvel and DC have stagnated since the 1980s.
It’s almost like people can’t comprehend the difference between a legal obligation and a moral obligation. If someone’s work is putting your kids through college, will put their kids through college, and so on in perpetuity… you owe that person. In perpetuity.
You don’t hide behind shitty contracts, and you certainly don’t treat them the way that DC has treated Moore–bending the rules that determine his creative rights, treating his work in ways that are expressly against his wishes, and attempting to procure his endorsement through trickery, extortion, and even slimier methods.
DC’s dealings with Moore are almost obsessive at this point. Before, they could at least be clinically described as cold and calculating, but there’s an almost stalkerish air about the way they pressured Dave Gibbons into acting as a would-be go-between with Moore. It serves no purpose except as a ham-fisted stratagem to strong-arm Alan Moore to their collection of pawns.
Let’s not even get started on Siegel and Shuster, without whom neither of the major superhero empires would likely even exist.
No, I don’t plan to read those Scab Comics. I don’t plan to buy them when they hit the quarter bin and I don’t plan to steal them off the Internet, either. I don’t have any interest in reading them and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. My gramma could buy them for me as a birthday gift and I would throw them back in her face.
I’m starting to revise my opinion specifically regarding Siegel and Shuster. I do think DC should have treated them a lot better, and I think DC still has a chance to do right by the families that it isn’t taking. Superman is still making DC rich. He should be making the Siegels and Shusters rich too.
That said, Siegel and Shuster differ from some of the other hard luck cases (e.g. Bill Finger, Jack Kirby), in that they had multiple chances to parlay their creation into a fruitful, long-lasting career for themselves and prosper decently. Perhaps nothing equal to the riches they would be getting if they had a slice of the Superman pie equal to that of DC’s, but still, they won a few small victories here and even squandered a fair amount of early success and fortune in the '40s-'50s. I hate to say it, but as much as I admire these two for their unfathomable contribution to adventure fiction, they abetted DC in making their misery.
Again, I’m not switching to the “blame the victims” side here. DC still did its best to fuck them over and the executive mindset hasn’t changed much since the old days. But Siegel and Shuster didn’t do themselves any favors, despite having numerous opportunities to do so. They’re hardly equitable to what happened to Kirby, which was more of a unidirectional shitrain directly over his head.