He was a consultant on the motion comics and the video game. He and John Higgins, the series’ colourist, did a poster for the movie and Dave worked on storyboards for the new ending to make sure it had the same visual influences as the rest. He published a book, Watching The Watchmen, about his half of its creation packed with sketches, designs, rare pieces of art and more. He was the go-to guy for interviews about the graphic novel’s relationship to the film, touring Europe and North America with Zack Snyder. Unlike Alan, Dave supported the Watchmen film fully. But there are also Dave’s actions to consider. You can read too much into words, of course, and perhaps I have. Is there a suggestion there that what they desire isn’t really worth desiring? Or should the last word, in a more honest world, be changed so Dave’s wishing them the success they deserve? He wishes them only the success they desire. But he doesn’t wish them every success, or the success of the original series. So it’s natural for him to wish for successful prequels because he’ll be earning money from them. Watchmen is, without doubt, the most successful thing he’s ever done. He didn’t write From Hell or the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It’s worth remembering that Dave Gibbons doesn’t have the royalties coming in that Alan Moore does. Then there’s the third line, the closest to a blessing and the most backhanded of the lot. But he doesn’t thank you for your tributes, or say anything about how gratified they make him feel. He appreciates your wish to pay tribute, all of you top creative teams making money off his ideas. It’s not in the first line, which if anything is a damning of the prequels if the original series is the complete story, what justification is there for them? The second line ups the passive-aggressive feel of the whole thing Dave appreciates your reasons, DC. Let’s go through that, line by line, looking for this blessing. May these new additions have the success they desire.” However, I appreciate DC’s reasons for this initiative and the wish of the artists and writers involved to pay tribute to our work. A veneer of legitimacy makes voices of protest become easier to ignore.īut as far as I’m aware, the only word from Gibbons himself is the quote that came with the launch announcement: “The original series of Watchmen is the complete story that Alan Moore and I wanted to tell. If one half of the creative team behind the graphic novel that redefined the medium is fine with its further commercial exploitation, then it’s easier to portray the other half as deranged and vengeful. So: one of the less frequently used arguments by the pro-BW crowd, when they’re savaging Alan Moore as a bitter old man who didn’t have the good sense to train as a contract lawyer, is that Dave Gibbons has given these prequels his blessing. There should, however futile, be an attempt at balance. The pro-BW squealing has drowned out the anti-BW exhausted resignation. Comics, and comics fans, haven’t distinguished themselves in battling for what’s right over the years. Nonetheless, there are solid reasons for putting all the arguments out there. There’s probably no possibility of either side (I’m anti-, by the way) changing anyone’s mind. After the first fortnight they became ritualised, each side knowing their lines and reciting with little variation: the anti-BW arguments dropping Kirby and Siegel and Shuster and creators’ rights, the pro-BW throwing up the Charlton characters and Moore’s use of other people’s characters and those four times he wrote Superman and the awesome creative teams. As the release of the first Before Watchmen comics approaches, the internet arguments about it gradually lose their colour and intensity.
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