Hot on the heels of DC Comics’ controversial announcement of “Watchmen” prequels comes details of their creative lineups. The company’s serious attitude toward the prequels seems evident in their posting of several industry “names” to the individual series, quelling some fans’ concerns that the “hallowed ground” of the original 1986 masterwork, arguably the most successful series ever, will be soiled.

The titles are “Rorschach” by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo, “Minutemen” by Darwyn Cooke, “Comedian” by Azzarello and J.G. Jones, “Dr. Manhattan” by J. Michael Straczynski and Adam Hughes, “Nite Owl” by Straczynski and Andy and Joe Kubert, “Ozymandias” by Len Wein and Jae Lee and “Silk Spectre” by Cooke and Amanda Conner. New issues will be published weekly, with each also offering a “Curse of the Crimson Corsair” backup tale to emulate the pirate story-within-the-story of the original “Watchmen.”

“As a retailer, I will, of course, be carrying the whole line of titles,” says Ed Katschke of Monarch Cards & Comics. “But I will be ordering the books in a somewhat conservative manner as there is really no scientific way to gauge demand upfront. I’ll also be mercilessly grilling my customers over the next couple of months to get an idea of which titles my regular customers will be most interested in, but to my eye the announced creators are all pretty much uniformly excellent. I’m not sure if any of the books will end up being more popular than the others, except perhaps ‘Rorschach.’ I guess the real question is whether or not a series of prequels to a story that is already so magnificently self-contained is really necessary or if there will be much of a demand for them outside of the comic book fan community.

“As a fan I’m not particularly drawn to one title over another on the strength of the characters, but I will admit to being excited to see writer/artist Darwyn Cooke tackle the ‘Minutemen’ book,” Katschke says. “I really appreciate Adam Hughes’ work and it will be nice to see him illustrate something besides the odd cover or two. Ditto to seeing industry legend Joe Kubert working with his son Andy on the ‘Nite Owl’ series.”

Absent from the project is the original duo of writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons. “The original series of ‘Watchmen’ is the complete story that Alan Moore and I wanted to tell,” Gibbons says in a DC press release. “However, I appreciate DC’s reasons for this initiative and the wish of the artists and writers involved to pay tribute to our work. May these new additions have the success they desire.”

Tags: Comedian, Comics, Dr. Manhattan, Jim Beard, prequels, Rorschach, Watchmen

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, Comics, Star.
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