Results tagged “watchmen”

Labor Day is a long holiday weekend, meant for traveling, reading and super sales all over the place—from mattresses to furniture to clothes to electronics.

The book industry also partakes in these sales!

Borders is offering several weekend discounts and sales. Free shipping for purchases over $10. One free bargain book for every two purchased. And the coolest one:

• Buy 4 Manga or Graphic Novels, Get 5th Free!

My five suggestions:

• Watchmen by Alan Moore
• The Absolute Sandman by Neil Gaiman
• The Complete Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
• Kingdom Come by Mark Waid

Happy Reading!

Yeah, yeah, I know — many of you have already seen this, thanks to its massive buzz on the web. But I’m still laughing about it. And for those that missed it — you need to be checking out ninjaink’s gallery on deviantART.com for his wild take on “Sin City” crossed with “Peanuts.” And don’t miss his Rorschach Film Noir poster either.

Schulz City: That Yellow S.1 by ~ninjaink on deviantART

As a web developer for several authors, I am always interested in clever marketing.

Well, DC Comics has done a gem, I think! Today I ran across the website www.AfterWatchmen.com, a DC site devoted to the comic books people should read after having read or watched Watchmen. Looking back on DC history, they have published an impressive line of literary comic book series by some of the best talent in the business. These graphic novels are absolutely fantastic, every single one.

The website features Watchmen but the majority of the space is devoted to titles that echo certain elements of the Alan Moore classic.

I dig the look of the website. I dig the Watchmen Doomsday clock being a couple of minutes after midnight. I dig the navigation of the website and the perfect list of great graphic novels on it!

Of those I have read, Kingdom Come, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns are my favorites.

It’s great that DC Comics has supplied that website, a stroke of marketing genius in my opinion. Sure, they publish Watchmen, but the other comic book publishers could just as easily market to readers who enjoyed Watchmen. I myself have not read the entire list supplied by DC but that is something I will remedy. To me, a well written graphic novel can be just as enjoyable as a novel or a movie.

As soon as I finish writing The Dark Thorn, I will be reading. Every day for hours a day. I simply must catch up on all the cool great stuff I’ve missed out on!

I will start with Fables.

And go from there!

For Superman, life is never easy.

He protects Lois Lane, his city of Metropolis, the United States, the world, the galaxy and, dare I say, the universe at times. He has encountered hundreds of foes—some human, some metahuman, some alian—all wishing his destruction. He has caught dozens of cars and held them aloft. He has carried the massive orb of the Daily Planet on his shoulders numerous times, the symbol of the most important paper in Metropolis!

For graphic novels, life hasn’t been easy either.

In the mid 20th century, comic books were primarily children’s reading. The stories were simple, geared toward that age group, and only a few titles were available. Over time those children grew into reading adults and the landscape of the comic book field began to change, the youngish stories of the past evolving into more complex storylines and grayer characters. Societal and cultural elements creeped in, producing stories with more literary merit. The comic book grew into the 21st century.

For all of those years and even now, there are people who believe the comic book is a lower form of entertainment, beneath novels and movies, still meant for children or the immature. They believe comic books are not literary tales merely wrapped in a different medium. To their argument, some comic books aren’t. Just like some novels are not. Just like some movies are not. Comic books, to them, are colorful representations of our youth and hold no meaningful realization of life’s truths.

The New York Times—the Daily Planet of our world—has now changed that belief, at least partially!

Last week the NY Times announced a new bestseller listing—graphic novels!

Lately, all chat around the Suvudu watercooler has been about Watchmen-the movie, the graphic novel , the books based on the film,the Saturday morning cartoon etc etc. It’s endless and it seems like it’s on everyone else’s mind (and blogs) too!

That said here is my list of favorite Watchmen posts this week.

Scifiwire.com
Watch our Watchmen red-carpet interviews with the cast
http://scifiwire.com/2009/03/watch-our-watchmen-red-carpet-inteviews-with-the-cast.php

The Book Smugglers: Smuggling Since 2007 | Reviewing Romance & SF Since 2008
Watchmen Weekend: She Said/She Said by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge
http://thebooksmugglers.com/2009/03/watchmen-weekend-she-said-she-said-jackie-kessler-caitlin-kittredge.html

tor.com
Lights, Camera, Action Figures
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=16479

i09.com
From The Mouth Of Watchmen’s Blue Man
http://io9.com/5165682/from-the-mouth-of-watchmens-blue-man

Creative Loafing
A geek’s guide to understanding Watchmen
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/the941/2009/03/02/a-geeks-guide-to-understanding-watchmen/

Favorite lines:

“Rorschach a friend of the animals”
“Jon can give you cancer and then he’ll turn into a car!”

“The book is always better than the movie.”

As I sat in the theater last Monday and waited for the opening credits and the beginning of Watchmen, that all too true saying repeated in my mind. For decades Hollywood has pilfered great novels—and most of the time squandered them to mediocrity or downright failure. A very small percentage have been adapted to the silver screen to the delight of readers, even fewer still well-done adaptations of sci-fi/fantasy/comic book stories. Carrie, Contact, The Green Mile, The Lord of the Rings, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man—these adaptations have proven a great movie can come from books and graphic novels.

Would I be able to add Watchmen to that list?

Almost.

So much I can almost taste it.

Alan Moore, the man who wrote Watchmen and who is also responsible for V For Vendetta, once related he didn’t think Watchmen could be adapted in an honest way:

“There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can’t.”

Alan Moore is right—to a point. Like many Hollywood adaptations from other sources, a lost in translation moment happens when it comes to elements of the original source. A graphic novel like Watchmen is extremely complex, working on many levels, and it would be impossible to try to interweave all of those threads, many of them taking place in characters’ thoughts, into one coherent film—a medium that simply does not allow for it.

The shortcomings of the film Watchmen lie in that place.

With Watchmen being released everywhere at midnight tonight—and my review of the movie being posted here also at midnight tonight—I felt it important to observe one element from the review before it is released.

And if you are wondering, yes, I really enjoyed Watchmen. As a fan of cinema and as a fan of the graphic novel.

One of the terrible things that occurs when a graphic novel is adapted to the screen is a loss of certain story elements that simply can’t fit in with the movie medium. This happened to Watchmen when director Zach Snyder could not interweave the sub-textual story Tales of the Black Freighter from the graphic novel into the movie. Watchmen is a series of stories within a story, and fans will undoubtedly be sad that Black Freighter was not included.

But not to worry. Snyder and company created Tales of the Black Freighter anyway, voiced by Gerard Butler, and made it its own DVD release. Here is the trailer for it:

From a fan point of view, I am happy Snyder did this. From a storytelling point of view, I really hate it because it is one big tease. The reason the story Tales of the Black Freighter worked in the graphic novel is because in each page Alan Moore used it to give more meaning to the actual Watchmen story around it. Connecting the two tales creates a stronger resonance for the literary merit of the graphic novel—a small bit of literary merit that was missing in the movie sadly.

In a way, I wish Snyder could release a Deluxe Edition of the movie where Tales of the Black Freighter was interwoven in with the actual theater release. Won’t happen, but I can wish right!

Still, this trailer looks sweet! Enjoy!

Watchmen is almost upon us!

Tonight I have advance tickets to watch Watchmen, vastly considered to be the greatest graphic novel story of all time and now adapted to motion picture by Warner Bros. and director Zach Snyder. I read the graphic novel last year and truly think it is something special, a wonderful blending of literary merit and the most interesting of characters and story.

I have my worries about whether this story can be adapted correctly—even the early positive reviews haven’t assuaged my doubts.

For those of you having to wait until Friday at midnight to watch the movie, Warner Bros. has put together montages of each of the main characters, the clips featured during primetime shows and movies to later be posted on the NBC website. These montages will give everyone a better idea of the movie and whether or not it has been done correctly.

At least until we all get the chance to watch the movie!

Here is a listing of those clips with dates and times!

• March 1 - Clip montage featuring Dr. Manhattan airs exclusively during “National Treasure” on USA Network.
• March 2 - Clip montage featuring Rorschach airs exclusively during “Heroes” on NBC.
• March 4 - Clip montage featuring Ozymandias airs exclusively during “Ghost Hunters International” on SCI FI.
• March 5 - Clip montage featuring Nite Owl airs exclusively during “Battlestar Galactica” on SCI FI.
• March 5 - Clip montage featuring Silk Spectre II airs exclusively during “Burn Notice” on USA Network.
• March 5 - Clip montage featuring The Comedian airs exclusively during “30 Rock” on NBC.

Following their network airing, the clips will be available for viewing on nbc.com/watchmen.

Definitely check those out!

And let’s hope Zach Snyder can pull off the miracle known as Watchmen!

Say that five-times fast.

Simply put, if you don’t already read Scott Kurtz’s PvP, you should do yourself a favor and check it out. Currently, he’s doing what I hope is the beginning of a rather clever play on The Watchmen utilizing characters from the funny pages (side-note: is that what you call them? “Funny pages?” I always called them “the comics,” and maybe that’s a regional thing, like the way they say “coke” in the South to mean any kind of soda. Or perhaps it’s generational, like the way my parents call movies “the talkies.”).

But even if this is a one-time thing, PvP is one of those seminal web-comics that should be bookmarked on pretty much every computer.

Different note: if the schools in the city are closed, work should be closed. I’m just saying.

I felt a good cereal-bowlful of tension drain from my shoulders this morning when I got an email from a fellow “Watchmen” fanatic saying simply, “You hear they settled?” What words to start my morning! In case you hadn’t heard, Fox and Warner Bros. have been having legal battles for quite some time now over the upcoming Watchmen movie adaption. This morning, however, they will request that the case be dismissed.

They have settled. It will come out on time. Phew.

I’d been worried for some time that it’d be delayed and delayed until its hype tapered off (sort of like the movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocolyptic novel The Road, which was originally supposed to come out in 2008), but now I can simply look forward to March 6th with everyone else. And feel better about my hasty investment in that owl costume…

Here’s the official statement:

“Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox have resolved their dispute regarding the rights to the upcoming motion picture Watchmen in a confidential settlement. Warner Bros acknowledges that Fox acted in good faith in bringing its claims, which were asserted prior to the start of principal photography. Fox acknowledges that Warner Bros. acted in good faith in defending against those claims Warner Bros. and Fox, like all Watchmen fans, look forward with great anticipation to this film’s March 6 release in theatres.”

Although the outcome is usually questionable, I really enjoy the anticipation when one medium decides to adapt work from another medium. It has the potential to be Superman: The Movie, adapted from a comic book. Or it has the potential to be Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, books adapted from the movies. Or it can be Star Wars: Dark Empire, comic books adapted from books and movies. These kinds of crossovers have worked well and delivered some great entertainment!

But what happens when it goes wrong—and not because of creative influences but because of money?

What will happen to our Watchmen movie?

A few days ago, a judge ruled in favor of Fox Studios that it was wronged by Warner Bros. when the latter began to adapt the graphic novel Watchmen to the silver screen and planned to distribute it. I have no doubt it is the right ruling. But it sadly might push back the release of the Watchmen movie indefinitely—a movie many a fanboy and geek have been waiting for a long time—until some kind of settlement can be made. Will these two massive studios come to an agreement that benefits all and gives us our movie? We’ll see.

But I find it sad we may not get our movie and what could be a great adaptation and cross between mediums… we may not get to watch Watchmen.

More on this as it becomes available.

The week started out so well. Sales figures were coming in very strongly on the first book in Del Rey’s collaboration with the Dabel Brothers comic book publishers: The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle, an original story by Jim Butcher set in his fan-favorite universe starring Harry Dresden. The individual comics sold very well through spring and early summer. When our Del Rey hardcover, which collects the four individual issues into gorgeous four-color hardcover and adds lots of interesting background material on how the story was created, went on sale 10/14 it immediately starting flying out of the stores.

On Wednesday Bookscan released its sales figures, and Welcome to the Jungle appeared at #17 on the hardcover fiction list. (Bookscan is a database that tallies actual sales from bookstores and other outlets nationwide. It doesn’t cover 100% of the marketplace, but it’s the most accurate reference publishers have as to how our books are doing week by week.) My pulse rate went up. Bookscan doesn’t predict the New York Times bestseller list slot by slot, but it’s a very strong indicator for where, in general, a book will land. Welcome to the Jungle seemed a real possibility for the top 15, which is the part of the list that actually appears in print in the Times Sunday book section.

Wednesday evening came around, the Times list was released electronically to publishers, I fell upon it with glad cries … and was dashed to the rocks below. No Jim Butcher, anywhere. Not only was it missing from the top 15, it appeared nowhere in the Extended List. Nada. Zip. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued.

So what did I learn this week? [more after the jump]

Two weeks ago, I began a little Suvudu column called My Reading Pile. Like any self-respecting bibliophile, I have stacks of books in my home that demand attention, books I know are worth my reading time but I can’t find the time needed to crack them open. That has left some of the better-reviewed books of the last few years waiting for me…

I gave you all six books to vote on: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss won by a few votes, making it the first book to review out of my My Reading Pile .

But since Alan Moore’s Watchmen got many votes and it would be a quick read, I decided to read it over the weekend.

And I’m happy I did!

Blog@Newsarama posted the above teaser poster for Watchmen. Six posters in all were unveiled at yesterday’s Watchmen panel, which Newsarama has covered in glorious, thoroughly savourable detail.

San Diego Comic Con 2008 is just hours from opening it’s doors to the masses. Exhibitors have been hard at work all day setting up. Here are a few images of the some of the exciting things that await attendees on the show floor this year.

As an admitted newbie to the graphic novel world, I had no idea why my friends were so excited when DC Comics started handing out Watchmen at Book Expo last year. They urged me to grab one anyway and boy am I glad they did, especially now that I’ve seen the trailer for the movie (out in 2009):

What do you guys think? Are you going to see it?

For those who are also new to Watchmen, it’s hard to fully describe the plot. Suffice to say that it’s about superheroes in an alternate, dystopian 1985 where the threat of nuclear war is imminent. More information is here:

Watchmen (Wikipedia entry)