DC Announces Before Watchmen: Dollar Bill by Len Wein and Steve Rude

[Cavemold]

Before Watchmen: The Moldiest Adventure

[The Xenos]

Plus, DC will likely make a killing on trades and hardcovers of these. The Watchmen name is pretty much gold

Don't you think there's a real danger of over-saturation? Plus this is a few years after the movie, which didn't excite anyone after the fact. I'd think more casual consumers would be really overwhelmed looking at 7+ trades instead of just one complete package.

Exactly. It may be gold now.. but if you dilute the product, you're going to end up with copper or lead. This is like taking a pure kilo of coke and cutting it town to fifty kilos with cheap fi.. wait.. why do discussions about comic book economics end up with drug analogies?

Anyway.. not all that glitters is gold and DC is fast on their way of ruining the prestige of what made the finite precious metal of Watchmen shine.

[Joe Kalicki]

Exactly. It may be gold now.. but if you dilute the product, you're going to end up with copper or lead. This is like taking a pure kilo of coke and cutting it town to fifty kilos with cheap fi.. wait.. why do discussions about comic book economics end up with drug analogies?

Anyway.. not all that glitters is gold and DC is fast on their way of ruining the prestige of what made the finite precious metal of Watchmen shine.

Exactly right. It's the same way that everyone lost interest in Star Wars after all the comics, novels, cartoons and prequels.

[thomazroc]

Exactly. It may be gold now.. but if you dilute the product, you're going to end up with copper or lead. This is like taking a pure kilo of coke and cutting it town to fifty kilos with cheap fi.. wait.. why do discussions about comic book economics end up with drug analogies?

Anyway.. not all that glitters is gold and DC is fast on their way of ruining the prestige of what made the finite precious metal of Watchmen shine.

We must remember that
a) One day the loss of interest in WATCHMEN could happen, Dc doing thousands "BEFORE WATCHMEN" or not. Market is already not very fine nowadays and if economy does not get better, less and less people will buy more expensive comics like Watchmen.
b) If DC had Watchmen rights without any conditions they could wait for markets oscillations . But if they wait, they lose Watchmen rights.
c) If DC was an independent industry they could deal with some financial losses and still publish Watchmen in order to maintain Watchmen's rigths ('cause hey, is Watchmen...). But as a small part in Warner group, the pressure is even bigger, and perhaps they will actually someday have to let it go...
d)So I think they're trying to take as much money as they can as fast as they can.


Not that I agree with it if thats what they're doing... but the present economical situation is very strange

[botc76]

dibs on Before watchmen: The three guys who worked for Ozymandias

I think you are missing something here. Those are not just some guys working for Ozymandias.

I freaking love Steve Rude, but each of these new announcements sound like parody headlines to me. You know this can't be the last salvo either -- no way they'll let DOLLAR BILL finish out the Watchmen legacy. I've yet to pick up any Before Watchmen books, and nothing is going to change my disinterest, but I'm so torn seeing artists I adore work on books I could not care less about.

That's been bothering me from the start. The authors are hit and miss, but the artists on those books are just fantastic. It's such a waste.

The Comics Reporter

Not a guy I personally will be bailing out of financial trouble.

Yeah, because there's always just one side to the story.

[thomazroc]

I think you are missing something here. Those are not just some guys working for Ozymandias.

Hehhehe, you're right

I Guess they actually could do a 'before watchmen' comic with another of Ozymandia's employees: Before Watchmen, Giant Squid!

First panel: a reproduction of Coubert's L'origene du monde

DC should really hire me I'm getting food at it. Perhaps they've already hired me and I may have been the writer for some New 52 tittle for like half a second before they had decided they should change directions. Hard to know, things are wild there.

[Andres P.]

Good to see more Steve Rude art!

A!

[_OM_]

Actually, no we don't.

...It had its good points. Cotton Comes To Harlem led to Redd Foxx's career as none other than Fred G. Sanford, Cooley High begat What's Happening?, and we all know by now to refer to the highly educated detective from Philadelphia as MISTER Tibbs. And Melvin van Peebles would probably sic his son Mario on you for not at least giving his Badasssss Song a fair shake.

[_OM_]

I Guess they actually could do a 'before watchmen' comic with another of Ozymandia's employees: Before Watchmen, Giant Squid!

...Fuck that. I want a crossover between Bubastis and the Zoo Crew. Especially if it's not written *or* drawn by Scott Shaw!, who's gotten an online ego so inflated over the years that he deserves to have that particular rug pulled out from under him.

[alekesam]

Exactly right. It's the same way that everyone lost interest in Star Wars after all the comics, novels, cartoons and prequels.

Yeah, but that's two different approaches being applied here. DC is flogging it for all it's worth with little regard to the well possibly drying up (that's not even getting into whether or not there's actual demand for more and more Watchmen product) whereas Lucas, love him or hate him, you could never argue that he hasn't been negligent in the quality control department and has at least a winning percentage in the good stuff the franchise has department. Plus, there's the whole fandom that actually wanted more SW stuff. No one is really going,"Man, I wish there was another Watchmen mini" at that level.