COMICS: Dave Gibbons Dismisses BEFORE WATCHMEN As "Not Really Watchmen"

Then I guess all the Spider-Man comics not written by Stan Lee aren't canon either.

Why should the prequels be what Gibbons consider canon if Gibbons & Moore didn't create them. He's right. Watchmen is just the book - it's still the original intention, never to be a serial like Spider-Man - and that's it. Everything else is secondary and 'solely' produced to make money.

I just find it funny that these guys gained success by using characters that other people created and yet when it comes to someone else using their's they get all up in arms about it. It goes both ways.

Gibbons seemed to have a different opinion about the movie in a bunch of interviews when it was coming out.

I am so tired of these people getting butthurt over somethin like this. Just because something is written by the original authors doesn't mean it isn't canon. There is maybe a handful of comic books still alive today that are still done by the original authors and more than likely none that have been going for 2 decades now.

Well, artists need to eat, books need to be sold.

Dismissing other people´s works (the folks from the movie and the prequels) is simply selfish.

I am reading the Minutemen series and I like it. Whatever Gibbons, you pastel painting fairy.

@FROGGY - i agree with you except the B.C/S.S comparison.

I like te prequels so far and we haven't even gotten to the two I look forward to most yet.

I don't really blame him. I can't really consider the movie to be 100% watchmen

what a bastard. So he accepted the money to be a part of watchmen movie and now he is bitching like a whore. Alan moore is a huge dirty douchebag but atleast hes not a sell out like this moron. Yeah every single character in watchmen based on some other character so basically they can adapt stuff but they don't want anyone else to do the same? Selfish much. And how is zack's watchmen not watchmen enough. The guy followed it from panel to panel. Heck the movie even suffered cuz it was too accurate. Any ways this guys a douche and dc can do what ever the [frick] they want with it, if they didn't want it they should have published it themselves.

I suppose if its not really Watchmen then perhaps he wasn't due those royalties he was paid and should return them?.

@darkmetal could you post marvels figures for the last couple years?? because im pretty sure with the age of the digital comic, sales for most comic book companies will be at an all time low.

barnaclepete@ The difference there is that Stan Lee considers all the oter storiescanon. I would however contest any Silver Surfer comic not written by Stan. That's different.

The Watchmen movie was fantastic and a definition of 'adaption.'

What a bitch move. He acted so supportive of the movie because they tossed a lot of cash at him and now he's changing his tune because, what, he just feels like being a pompous douche? I don't get this high and mighty dissing going on with the Watchmen world. Yes, the quality will probably never be as high, and yes, there are surely peoplr involved who just want to make money. But there are plenty doing it because they love the original material. And that's pretty damn flattering for any artist. That's what an artist should want to achieve, for people to be inspired by their work, to want to explore and know more about the world they created.

Had I not known Watchmen the comics I would have loved the hell out of Watchmen the movie. Sadly (luckily?) I had, and therefore must disagree with all who say it was incredibly close to the scource material. It wasn't.

I wish they had either taken far more liberties or stayed as close to the book as many folks believe they did.

@golden123 The graph show the sales crashed and are now almost exactly where they were in 2003.
The chart clearly shows The New 52 was a disaster. They wrecked their continuity even worse, made some people mad, turned Alan Scott gay and now their numbers are 2010 all over again.
This is proof that gimmicks do not sustain sales.

If you wish to investigate the failure of New 52 further heres some links: http://comiksdebris.blogspot.de/2012/06/new-52-and-dc-comics-month-to-month.html

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/06/05/dc-new-52-sales-bump-data-charts/

http://www.fruitlesspursuits.com/2012/01/opinion-dc-new-52-disaster.html

http://themodern-nerd.com/the-new-52-has-failed-by-jesse-berberich/

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2012/06/breaking_dcs_new_52_might_not_have_been_completely.php

I liked part of the movie better than the comic. However, I won't buy Before Watchmen... No thank you. The Rorschach one is the only one I may be interested in. Well, maybe Minutemen too, but I won't get them regardless.

It is unrealistic to think you can sell your creation or property to a major studio and not think that they might continue it at some point without you at the helm. Whatever money they got paid for selling the rights of those characters to DC equals pissing away the right to say what is canon and what is not. Now DC owns them...they decide what is canon. Unless Like George Lucas you work out something to retain the rights to the characters...then you can decide.

It's like what somebody said earlier. If Batman or Spiderman stories are not told by Stan Lee or Bob Kane are they not cannon? Ridiculous. What an arrogant idiot this guy is!

How can the movie not be cannon? It was pretty much exactly the same as the book. Yes, they changed like two scenes but it is still the book. The movie is like one of the best CBMs ever.

"Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow" is considered one of the great Superman stories but there were great stories before Alan Moore wrote it, and great stories after. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, from what I have read of it, is full of characters Moore did not create, and, literally had raped on the page. The Watchmen, as others have pointed out, is fan-fiction of Charlton/DC characters. It is pure hypocrisy for Moore and now Gibbons to complain when other very talented creators write stories about characters Moore/Gibbons borrowed from other creators. Especially in regards to the Watchmen movie, which was better, in some respects, than the GN. I am waiting for the Before Watchmen TPBs and I am excited to see great creators on each one.

@Gas: Once again, comparing a serialized character's comics to the Watchmen really isn't valid. Moore was commissioned by DC to pen a story with the already existing character Superman, whose mythos has always been about recursion and continuation. Superman's story never ends, because that's just the type of story it is, good vs. evil, every day, plain and simple.
League is an even more ridiculous comparison, as he did all of that to characters within the public domain. He took characters that had rested in disuse for over a century and shoved them into a superhero story. That's like calling plagiarism on a musician for remixing Gregorian chants into his hip-hop, it's the dumbest way you could possibly look at that story.
Moore approached DC with the concept of the Watchmen; a one-shot story using Charlton characters that DC roundly REJECTED because of the meat-grinder he was going to put them through. "Fan-fiction"? They wouldn't let him use their serialized characters because he was going to warp them so far beyond any use that any other writer could possibly have for them in a superhero environment. Despite having similarities in likeness and maybe VAGUELY in personality, can you really say Moore didn't create those characters? Their backstories, their idiosyncracies, their place within his independently created universe? Betcha 20 bucks that nobody has ever mentioned that Blue Beetle can't get it up without his costume on.
The point is that Alan Moore transcended all of these borrowed elements to create something truly unique. It holds up in a vacuum. Yes, it is obviously inspired by this and that, as is ALL art. Art does not exist in a vacuum.
Anyhow, we can disagree about that until we're blue in the face. When you get right down to it, the point is that the Watchmen doesn't NEED anything else just now. I've noticed nobody is arguing that the prequels are as good, if not better than the original. It's because they're caricatures, mere imitations of a great work of art. It's like making Citizen Kane II; they're not saying anything new with this work like Moore did in Watchmen. They're rehashing and rehashing, like always.

He must defends his work, of course, but everything i read of Before Watchmen is very, very real good - I was surprised with that.

If Moore and Gibbons wanted the charcters for them they should not have sold them to DC, period.

Watchmen is DCs and I want to read everything that comes out.

So my question is does anyone here have a problem with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because that takes someone else's original works of art and creates their own idea from them (done by Moore himself). Who cares if they have released a Before Watchmen. How does Moore who created these characters and sold the comics for money have any right to criticize someone else from trying to make money from them. Or you know how Moore writes comics for characters he didn't create but benifits from it. The point I am making is first that he cannot criticize someone for trying to make money off of a character they didn't create when he himself does it when writing other characters. Secondly for all these people that think that Watchmen is an untouchable medium and those characters should never be looked at again. Get over yourselves. It was a great graphic novel, but that's it. You have novels such as Dorian Gray, Captain Nemo, Alan Quartermain and any other character from League that Moore decided he was going to alter for his own means. How would those writers feel about what moore has done to them. Those are genuine peices of art that he just used to make a gimmicky comic book. Yet that is alright but if no don't touch one of his characters. lol what a joke.