RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Watchmen news from DC Comics!

Dan Didio and DC Comics are proud to announce two special projects to be published next spring intended to tie into the new Zach Snyder Warner Brothers film Watchmen.

First will be an adaptation of the film by superstar writer Judd Winick using artwork by original series artist Dave Gibbons. About the adaptation, Winick had this to say:

“We’re doing something a little different here with this. Instead of having Dave Gibbons draw new pages, we’re actually using panels from the original series, but I’ll be rescripting the book and actually fixing the dialogue. I’ve always felt that while the story was kind of interesting, the original script itself was kind of dry. I think this is a good opportunity to go back and ‘liven it up’ a little.”

“I always felt that the original story was missing something. We discussed adding a homosexual character who is HIV positive, but decided against it since that would involve Dave Gibbons doing new artwork, but DC didn’t want to actually pay for it. I am glad that they decided to do away with the whole ‘guy on a raft’ thing, since it didn’t make any sense to me in the first place. I mean, it’s a guy on a raft. Who cares?”

“I think this is my chance to put my stamp on this story and really make it my own. What really excites me about this opportunity is that since this special is actually only 48 pages long, this copy should be able to replace the original graphic novel on most reader’s bookshelf. Kind of like the Cliff’s Notes’ version of Watchmen, and everybody who went to high school remembers how much better and more popular those are then the original works. Hopefully this version will replace the Absolute version that Vertigo has been publishing the past few years in people’s hearts. I’m pretty excited about this.”

DC Comics and Judd Winick then continued on and announced another special project intended to launch with the release of the movie.

“Yes, the rumors are true.” Said Judd Winick. “I’m writing a sequel to Watchmen.”

“This will be a big deal for us.” Chimed Dan Didio. “We’ve been keeping this under wraps for a couple of years now, but we can finally confirm that yes, the Watchmen earth is one of the 52 DC earths. We were originally going to announce this as part of last years ‘Countdown’ series, but with the announcement of the movie, we held off. This is what we were originally going to be counting down to: the introduction of the Watchmen characters into the DCU.”

“This really opens a lot of opportunities for us.” Continued Didio. “Think of the possibilities: Batman vs. Rorschach. Superman vs. Dr. Manhattan. We’re also eying a crossover between the Teen Titans and The Watchmen. The possibilities are truly endless.”

The first part of the Watchmen explosion will begin with a new mini-series tentatively called “Watchmen II: The return of Rorschach” written by Judd Winick drawn by a still under wraps surprise artist. When asked if any hints could be given about the artist, Winick would only say “We don’t want to talk about it right now until it gets closer, but this is one of the greatest artists the industry has seen in the last twenty years. Some of the IMAGEs he’s drawn over the years have been AWESOME. We felt this series needed some YOUNGBLOOD and this mystery artist was perfect for what we had planned.”

Winick further added “So far, I’ve received three nearly complete pages from our artist, and they’re absolutely beautiful! I really think this is going to knock people’s socks off!”

Didio also confirmed another rumor that has been swirling around the industry for the past several weeks since his panel at Baltimore. The sequel is DC’s next planned weekly series.

“It’ll be twelve issues, published weekly, as soon as Trinity wraps up. Judd’s already written the whole series and our mystery artists swears up and down he can complete the whole book on time! We’re really excited!”

While answering questions, Judd Winick gave some more hints before hanging up the conference call.

“Each issue will be the standard twenty-two pages of story and art. We discussed doing back up features like the original mini-series, but ultimately decided against it. I haven’t gone back and read the series since it first came out twenty years ago, but I recall that when I initially read it, those back-ups just seemed like a waste of paper. They never really added anything to the storyline at all. I always figured that Adam Moore made DC put those in there so that they couldn’t interrupt his story with ads. He always seemed like a cranky guy like that to me anyways.”

“I don’t want to give too much of the story away, but I can tell you that it revolves around Night Owl and how he comes back and goes on a ‘Big Brother’ type series and ends up befriending a Hispanic homosexual named Ped…er, Juan who has HIV. Together Night Owl and Pedr…Dammit! Juan! Decide to find the final cure for AIDS/HIV and it becomes a race against time to find the Wizard of Ozymandias who is keeping the cure away. Dan also tells me that because of the title of the series, we have to find a way to fit the ink-blot face guy in too. That probably won’t happen until the second part of issue twelve. I still haven’t figured it all out yet.”

“What I do know is that this won’t be a ‘boring, plodding read’ like the first series. This will be more of a fast paced, lots of action, buddy flick ala the Lethal Weapon franchise or the third Die Hard movie with Samuel L Jackson.”

When asked how all this happens since most of the major characters are dead, Winick replied: “That’s the beauty of the original series. What we are operating under here is that everything in chapters 1-11 actually happened, but the events in chapter twelve were actually the after effects of a fever dream of Dr. Manhattan’s from him building the palace thing on the moon. Or wherever it was. Hopefully, if I remember, I’ll explain all that in the mini-series somewhere, but it’s hard. I don’t want to slow the action down and pull the reader out of the story too much by wasting so much time explaining continuity. You’ll see how it all shakes out next spring.”

Didio closed out the conference call with one final tidbit:

“All-Star Watchmen. John Byrne. The way it should have been done!”

Check frequently at DCcomics.com for updates.

For a second there, I thought that was a real news piece....