June 3, 2012
FFF Results Post #296—After Before Watchmen
On Friday,
CR readers were asked to "Describe Four Things DC Comics Can Do To Further Exploit The Watchmen Property Or To Continue In The Vein Of Exploiting The Watchmen Property." Then they were asked to "Name Something You Like About Spain Rodriguez." This is how they responded.
Tom Spurgeon
1.
JLAvWM
2. Promote Rorshach pattern-masks to anti-Occupy Movement conservatives as an alternative to the Guy Fawkes mask.
3. Publish an Alex Ross-illustrated loose adaptation prestige series of Alan Moore's
Twilight Of The Superheroes proposal. (
Wait, shit...)
4.
Before The Vendetta.
5. I thought Spain's adaptation of
Nightmare Alley was vastly under-appreciated.
*****
Dave Knott
* The DC universe's Charlton heroes meet their Watchmen counterparts of Earth-W
*
Saturday Morning Watchmen
* An Alan Moore biography, labelled "official" but not authorized by Moore himself
* The complete Alan Moore Swamp Thing, redrawn by current DC house artists from the original scripts
* Spain was more explicitly political than most of his underground comix peers and remains steadfast in his ideals
*****
Jake Kujava
1. Alan Moore vs Frank Miller, Occupy Wall Street the Graphic Novel.
2. sugar and spike vs watchmen
3. military dog tags shaped as the smiling face button
4. Watchmen squid, the series
5. Never know that Spain was a big Roy Crane fan, cool.
*****
Stefan Dinter
1. Elseworlds Watchmen. Like, in Russia. Or in 1870. Let them fight Jack the Ripper. People love that stuff.
2. Tales of the Black Freighter needs its own title. Take a hint from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and make those guys on the Black Freighter fun!
3. Archie, the mechanical Owl. For kids, you know? Just like Andy Runton's Owly, but… mechanical.
4. Four words: Silk Spectre Real Doll. Come ooonnn!
5. Apart from all the other stuff Spain does great (and that's a lot), he is also a master at designing and placing soundwords.
*****
Jamie Coville
1. Before, Before Watchmen with the Charlton Characters. Peacemaker, Captain Atom, Silver Age Blue Beetle, Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, The Question and Nightshade.
2. Before, Before, Before, Watchmen with the characters that inspired the Charlton characters. Atoman, Golden Age Blue Beetle, Golden Age Daredevil, The Blank, and Phantom Lady.
3. After Watchmen. Rorschach's diary gets published. It becomes a conspiracy on the level of 9/11 Truther's. But it doesn't change anything.
4. After, After Watchmen. We watch Dr. Manhattan go create life on another planet.
5. What Is a Criminal? from The Apex Treasury of Underground Comics
*****
Art Baxter
1) As a staged press event that recreates the first few pages of
Watchmen to promote the new series, Dan Didio playfully pushes a life size plush Alan Moore doll (wearing a bathrobe) out the window of the Manhattan DC offices. The Moore doll contains a bladder of pig blood and smiley buttons that explodes "real good" when the doll kisses concrete. Needless to say, pig blood and smiley buttons go everywhere on impact. Later, as Jim Lee is hosing off the blood soaked sidewalk, Grant Morrison, wearing a red Harpo Marx wig and holding a sign that says "What, Me Worry?," walks by. He picks up one of the blood splattered smily buttons and says "Hurm," giving the signal to the hundreds of patiently waiting rabid comics fans eager to scramble on hands and knees for the valuable collector's items. Later, all three DC staffers appear (with the remains of the plush doll) on the "Live! with Kelly" show.
2) DC plans a line wide reboot called "Before Alan Moore," intended to completely retcon everything that ever happened in every Alan Moore written DC comic. (
Wait, shit...)
3) A new all-ages funny animal comic featuring Glycon the Roman, snake god hand puppet, the Giant Space Squid and throw in the Weeping Gorilla for good measure. Why? "Because we CAN!" boldly states the DC Blog hype.
4) A new super team comic featuring the public domain characters, Allan Quatermain, Wilhemina Harker, Mr. Hyde, Captain Nemo and the Invisible Man. "This time it's being done RIGHT!" proudly proclaims the DC blog hype.
5) Damn! That Spain Rodriguez, has a
great head of hair. Doesn't he? (His beard ain't too shabby, neither.)
*****
Justin Colussy-Estes
1) Absolute Before Watchmen
2) Create a Bruce Timm designed "Let's Watch the Watchmen!" segment of the DC Nation hour on Cartoon Network
3) Watchmen Returns maxi-series, including the return of each hero, spotlighted in each issue, culminating in the return of Rorschach and the Comedian, as they fight a real alien threat! Retailers who meet certain issue order minimums will receive a bag of plastic Watchmen-themed knicknacks to give to customers as they see fit.
4) Release a 50th limited edition anniversary printing of Watchmen, with the ashes of Alan Moore as part of the ink "as a demonstration of DC's respect & gratitude"
5) More than any other Underground cartoonist, Spain's art defines, for me, the the look and meaning of that generation of cartoonist's.
*****
Michael May
1. Sandman: The Next Generation.
2. Moorenauts, a team book featuring Ozymandius, V, and Tom Strong.
3. Bigby Wolf joins Justice League Dark.
4. Seagull and Shoester become major villains in Action Comics.
5. Spain contributed to three Graphics Classics volumes (Edgar Allan Poe, Jack London, and Bram Stoker) and illustrated Sherlock Holmes' Strangest Cases.
*****
Jim Wheelock
1. Tomahawk and Dan battle a facsimile 18th Century League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
2. Gay Rorshach marries Alan Scott Green Lantern
3. Watchmen logo Underoos
4. A line of Dr. Manhattan blue ...er... battery-operated shoulder massagers
5. The smart way Spain conveys working class culture from the inside. (I'm currently reading the excellent ("Cruisin' With the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Toote")
*****
Danny Ceballos
1. Before Watchmen crossover with Marvel... er... Miracleman
2. Before, Before Watchmen, set in Victorian England as they track down Jack the Ripper
3. Permanently change the DC logo to the blood-stained Smiley Face
4. DC can buy the rights to Pirates! Band of Misfits and re-dub the dialog using the text from Tales of the Black Freighter
5. His first name is Spain
*****
Stergios Botzakis, Ph.D
1. Making so many gay characters on Earth 2 (the one that does not count) that Archie and Marvel will be jealous.
2. Sell Dr. Manhattan Body Paint.
3. Do an Earth-Charlton Vs. Watchmen series.
4. Bringing Rorschach into the Bat-Family proper. TEH Awesome!
5. I loved the mix of fatalism/voyeurism/awe in Spain’s Fred Toote stories.
*****
Justin J. Major
1. Watchbabies
2. Comedian and Sally Jupiter Fine Art Statue
3. Seymour outed as homosexual
4. Watchmen bathroom tissue.
5. He was in a biker gang called the Road Vultures and published a mag titled Zodiac Mindwarp.
*****
Sam Henderson
1. Sally Jupiter Golden Rape Whistle. Slogan: "You Deserve It"
2. Big Figure Toilet Cleaner. Slogan: "Plunge Into Freshness"
3. Seymour gets his own New 52 but has to share it with Cloak & Dagger or something, or Seymour is retconned into Cloak from Cloak & Dagger, I really liked Cloak & Dagger, sorry.
4. Force Darwyn Cooke to draw...I can't make a joke out of this, sort of depressed.
5. Spain Rodriguez introduced Vaughn Bode to weed. Weedless Vaughn Bode = no Brandon Graham = no King City = no Prophet = tragic.
*****
Johnny Bacardi
1. Another Crisis series, with Rorschach and Ozymandias joining the Authority, and of course the requisite Batman appearance. Drawn by one of the Kuberts, or Jim Lee.
2. Tiny Watchmen
3. Comedian and Silk Spectre-themed sex toys
4. Just Imagine Watchmen by Stan Lee
5. Love the way he spots blacks.
*****
Paul Karasik
1. "After 'Before The Watchmen': The Watchmen : Year One"
2. Treasury Edition: "Mohammed Ali Vs. The Watchmen toaster"
3. "Who's Faster: The Flash or The Watchmen?" Pencils by Carmine Infantino and inks by my 14 year old nephew. Kirby says, "Don't ask! Just buy it!" (NOTE: Variant cover with Go-Go Checks.)
4. "The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and The Watchmen" Reboot starting with issue #27.
5. Name one other cartoonist whose first name is an entire country (other than Alan Moore, whose real name, as everyone knows, is "Botswana Moore"), and whose last name, Rodriguez, roughly translates into English as: "Before the Watchmen".
*****
Marc-Oliver Frisch
1. This Happened to the Man of Tomorrow:
2. The Joke Before the One What Killed Him
3. Swamp Thing #1
4. Blackest Night
5. He looks like someone you'd like to have your back in a fight, which can't be said for a lot of comics creators who are not Jack Kirby.
*****
Sean Kleefeld
1. The Watchmen movie on a special edition DVD with a commentary track using assorted, semi-relevant quotes about the book from Alan Moore, read by someone imitating Moore's voice
2. Who Watches the Watchmen Watches from Swatch
3. a Wacthmen-ville game on Facebook
4. A new villain introduced into DC's main comic book line called The Watchman. He looks like Moore and can slide between realities. Other than that, though, he mostly just shows up to get pointlessly beaten up by the JLA. No backstory is ever revealed; he's just trotted out once a year, says "My book out of print yet?" and gets summarily pummeled by whatever heroes are available, who then mock him as a crazy old man before taking away his possessions. It's actually the exact same story every year, so DC only has one set of pencils and just has the inkers tweak the costumes a bit each year so it appears up to date with current continuity. It's cost effective and always a hit with the fanboy crowd.
5. Spain was the founder of the United Cartoon Workers of America.
*****
Shannon Smith
1) Comic team up maxi-series where The Charlton characters have to solve the mystery of who murdered Steve Ditko, Joe Gill, Pat Boyette, Charles Wojtkoski, Wil Eisner and Pete Morisi.* (Spoiler: It was The Watchmen.)
2) Diane Nelson dresses up like Silk Spectre and brutally beats J.K. Rowling until she signs over the Harry Potter rights to Time Warner.
3) Just Imagine: Stan Lee Creates The Watchmen Universe.
4) Commemorative limited edition Glycon statues painted up like Rorschach and Doctor Manhattan.
5) Never on the best days of our lives are any of us going to have hair as cool as Spain's on the worst day of his life.
*Gill, Boyette, Wojtkoski, Eisner and Morisi are sadly no longer with us but that's no reason not to have comic book characters murder them for $3.99 a month right?
*****
Sean T. Collins
1. Reveal that the original Nite Owl is gay on Earth-2
2. Hire Felicia Day to direct a Before Watchmen adaptation, kill it before it gets off the ground, then watch her go on to make a billion dollars for Marvel with an Agents of Atlas movie
3. Put J. Michael Straczynski's name on all the books and movies Alan Moore has demanded his name be removed from, because what the heck, it's not like he wrote most of the DC comics his name's currently on anyway
4. Doctor Manhattan dildos
5. "Spain Rodriguez" is one of the better comics-maker names
*****
John Platt
1. Swamp Zing vegetable-based energy drinks
2. Comedian-brand cigars
3. V vs. Rorschach
4. Before Charlton
5. Spain Rodriguez's lettering is, I think, a vital component of his art. I love his word balloons.
*****
John Parkin
1. Mortal Kombat vs. Watchmen: The Video Game
2. Similar to Hologram Tupac playing at Coachella, have Hologram Alan Moore introduce the Before Watchmen panel at Comic-Con.
3. Turn the Cobweb/Scientology story they wouldn't publish into a cartoon short on the Cartoon Network/DC Nation cartoon block.
4. Rorschach urinal cakes. The inkblot changes when you ... well, you get it.
5. I wish my parents had named me after a country, because that is so freakin' cool. Especially a European one.
*****
Tony Collett
1. Watchmen vs. Charlton Heroes
2. The action figures and Owl Ship Playset as featured in the back-up feature of Watchmen #10
3. Watchmen II: Electric Boogaloo
4. Watchmen Babies in "V For Vacation"
5. Rodriquez' blacks in his artwork gave it the touch to put him up there in the underground artist line.
*****
Chris Mautner
1. Following the success of the Before Watchmen toaster, DC will unveil a whole line of Watchmen-related products -- cheese graters, ice cream makers, spatulas, waffle irons, the whole ball of wax. Coming soon to a Williams-Sonoma near you.
2. Not to be outdone, DC will hire Ed Benes and J. Michael Whatshisname to produce their own version of Lost Girls, Loster Girls, which will mainly consist of Alice, Wendy and Dorothy constantly making the brokeback pose.
3. During Watchmen: Stories of the lonely Squid Vagina Monster. Plus! More stories of Lonely Newspaper Vendor! See what he does at 2 a.m.!
4. Will pulp a comic just before it goes to press once every year, in honor of Moore.
5. I'd kill for a Boots Vol. 2
*****
Michael F. Russo
1. Pale Horse Tribute Album
2. Product Placement for those Water Cigarettes
3. Absolute Tales from the Black Freighter
4. Bubastis on Cartoon Network (cameo on Gumball?)
5. Asked once again two demonstrate his amazing vocal powers, Jocko (is it Reese?) says "You must be out of your toilet," before complying. Do people say that in Buffalo, or anywhere?
*****
Michael Grabowski
1. Dr. Manhattan Mego-style action figure: detachable costume pieces; anatomically ambiguous crotch
2. Original Watchmen GN finally goes OOP for over a year; as Before Watchmen is inherently a promotional product for the earlier work, Moore & Gibbons still don't get the rights back.
3. Next DC-Marvel cross-over event series includes Dr. Manhattan/Marvelman one-shot.
4. Watchmen Adventures cartoon.
5. Both Spain Rodriguez and Alan Moore drew one-pagers for Harvey Pekar's American Splendor #15 (1990)
*****
Niel Jacoby
1: Watchmen 2: A New Generation
2: The porn parody, Watch Men (Have Sex With Each Other)
3: The Watchmen sushi cart, now on the streets of New York City
4: WatchC.A.T.S.
5: He has a cool name.
*****
Mike Everleth
1.
Put this cartoon into actual production.
2. Audiobook version read by Kevin Smith.
3. Dr. Manhattan hydrogen atom symbol temporary tattoos.
4. Watchmen vs. their Charlton counterparts 12-issue maxi-series.
5. I like how every single character that Spain Rodriguez draws looks like he or she is going to kill you in the most violent way possible right this second.
*****
James Langdell
1. Relaunch The Green Team featuring a young Adrien Veidt, Jack B. Quick, Virgil Ovid "Static" Hawkins, and Tom Sawyer
2. Anatomically correct and thoroughly branded Doctor Manhattan costume from
this company.
3. Limited series (with tie-in action figures) of Minutemen vs the Miracleman Family
4. Time Warner's CNN competes with Fox News by airing a nightly hour of The New Frontiersmen
5. The one time I spoke with Spain Rodriquez was while I was an editor at PC Magazine. He delivered some hand-lettered captions for an article and made some text revisions cleanly on the spot.
*****
Buzz Dixon
1. Timex tie-in
2. Silk Spectre Home Pregnancy Test
3. Send a hidden camera crew to Alan Moore's house to film his reaction when he receives his first box of comps.
4. The owners can take the first issues of the various books, roll them into tight tubes, shove them up their [no]ses, then set them on fire. Hey, I'd pay good money to see that!
5. Big guns!
*****
William Burns
1. After Watchmen
2. Tiny Watchmen
3. Watchmen: The Gay Wedding
4. Earth Three: Watchmen Earth
5. Trashman: Agent of the Sixth International
*****
Chris Duffy
1. A month where comic book creators come up with their versions of all the other (non-pirate) comics from that newsstand the kid was reading at. So we see what romance, western, funny animal, li'l kid, teeny bopper, and Bible comics are like in a world on the brink of nuclear war.
2. Ozymandius vibrator
3. A kids fantasy movie about Bubastis's adventures in the far flung dimension that that disintegrator thing secretly teleported him to.
4. Comedy Central Comedian Roast
5. I like how draws objects and machines a lot.
*****
Fabrice Stroun
1. Get a post-Holy Terror Frank Miller to write and draw an After Year One/Before Dark Knight Book. Sporting Jim Lee's redesign of Bat’s costume.
2. Buy back the rights of Big Numbers, commission Darwin Cooke to redraw the first two issues and finish the rest of the book as he pleases.
3. License Silk Specter's
and her mom's likenesses to a Bishojo- style limited edition statue company. To be bought as a set.
4. Get Grant Morrison on board. Make him the arch-editor/architect of all future Before Watchmen comics.
5. The United Cartoon Workers of America.
*****
Tuck!
1) Rorschach is/was gay
2) Death of the Watchmen (duh)
3) Teen Silk Spectre (ABD Manhattan's a vampire! Teen Night Owl's a werewolf! Which one will she choose???)
4) (Dandidio calls CNN and does whatever will get them "Comics aren't just for kids anymore" coverage)
Something about Spain:
5) I LOVED TRASHMAN (I know, the obvious one. But it's true)
5a) He's a contemporary of my old college professor and friend, Frank (Foolbert Sturgeon) Stack
*****
Chris Arrant
* Watchmen: The Animated Series on Cartoon Network
* After Watchmen
* The eventual Watchmen / DCU Crossover
* A Watchmen watch
* "Democracy In Action" Short from Itchy Planet #3
*****
Andrew Mansell
1. Hellblazer Mini Series: The Scions of Moloch -- guess where JC fits in!
2. The Sea Devils uncover The Wreck of the Black Freighter
3. Vietnam era Comedian meets the New Frontier Wonder Woman -- ouch
4. Minutemen/All Star Squadron Penultimate Crisis Crisscross-over Conundrum
5. Art S. was right -- Che: A Graphic Biography is brilliant and radical (and required reading!)
*****
Rob Salkowitz
1. Comedian movie starring Charlie Sheen
2. Silk Spectre/Night Owl love scene enacted in claymation as a DC Nation short on Cartoon Network
3. Rorschach’s Journal enhanced e-book (sorry, not available on Nook)
4. Jim Lee announces he will finally draw the last issue of 1963, but is making some improvements to the story to make it more accessible to today’s fans.
5. The animatic of that Trashman story, voiced by Spain, from Comicbook Confidential, was really cool.
*****
Patrick Ford
1. New Watchmen
2. Gay Watchmen
3. Zombie Watchmen
4. After the Watchmen
5. His politics.
*****
Rodrigo Baeza
1. J. Michael Straczynksi's Sandman
2. Jack B. Quick vs. Ozymandias
3. Annual Minutemen/Justice of Society of America team-ups
4. Brian Azzarello's Tales of the Minutemen (100 Bullets/Watchmen mashup)
5. "Chicago '68" from Gates of Eden #1 (1982)
*****
apologies for failure to provide all Spain artwork; at least none of it is Before Watchmen; if anyone needs me to not use any of the above, please let me know
also: we're going back to only taking entries while the post is up on the site -- I need to be able to do these when I get up on Saturday morning and then be done with them; I do appreciate your participation
*****
*****
posted 12:30 am PST |
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