DC prepares prequels for Watchmen while Alan Moore shares his disdain

Technically this is comic book and not movie news, though it’s certainly always possible that movies galore will come out of DC’s next major endeavor:

“On Wednesday DC Entertainment is expected to announce that its DC Comics imprint intends to publish seven comic-book mini-series that will continue the stories of the adventurers introduced in Watchmen… The new mini-series, collectively called Before Watchmen and scheduled to start in the summer, will not be direct sequels to the original, which has been widely praised for its sophisticated storytelling and for its emphatic (if deliberately ambiguous) ending. Instead a new group of writers and illustrators will expand on the back stories of the costumed vigilantes like Rorschach and Nite Owl.”

DC, to be fair, is barging into this while well aware of the concern, doubt, and fan-rage that this move will draw.  The publisher has called the upcoming comics “as highly anticipated as they are controversial,” and gone on to say “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.”  Is that true? Is that bullshit? Your call. 

Alan Moore is of course not pleased, responding to DC’s plan by calling it “completely shameless.  I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.”  He then concluded his thoughts by stressing his concern that the publishing of these prequels “only [weakens] the argument that comics were an authentic form of literature. ‘As far as I know,’ he said, ‘there weren’t that many prequels or sequels to ‘Moby-Dick.'”

You can find the whole story, along with further words from original artist Dave Gibbons and other industry people here.