The Watchmen Prequels

Y'all beat me to it.  When the news broke yesterday that DC was putting out prequels to Watchmen, I thought the Internet would melt.  I thought there'd be vigils at the stately English manor of Alan Moore, the author of the original.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the vigil.

Everyone on the Internet was reasonable.

Miracles never cease.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with more Watchmen.  I tend towards the view of Alan Moore's self-styled antagonist and fellow comics legend Grant Morrison, who sees culture in general and comics specifically as mythology that is the product of no one man.  In the case of Watchmen, this is certainly true, since Moore's inspiration for the story came from the characters of Charlton Comics.  Moore didn't come up with the idea for Watchmen from thin air, which makes it fair game for other creators.

As for Alan Moore, whatever.  Those of us who read comics on a regular basis know that however great Moore was or is, he is a miserable misanthrope who is only happy when he's not.  I guess he can be mad that he doesn't own the rights to anything and won't see much if any money from the prequels.  I'd care if Moore hadn't made his bones in the 1980s working with a series of DC characters (Batman, Superman, Swamp Thing) whose creators never got paid a fraction of what those characters made for DC.  Now that Moore is fat and rich, he's going to claim the path of moral purity?  Fck outta here.

Not to sound to cool for school, but the whole controversy kind of makes me yawn.  The people who get most excited about Watchmen seem to be the kind of people who have only read three "graphic novels" in their lives and thus miss the really amazing comics that come out every week.  As a medium, comics has moved passed Watchmen, in content and scope if not in quality, because, yes, Watchmen really is that good.

Maybe the most exciting part of the Watchmen prequels is that the original story will now become less of a boring old Bible and more of a living document upon which other good writers can build, which will only bring greater glory to original story.  I'm so excited that a broader audience is about to discover how awesome Brian Azzarrello is.