Choose Your Own Watchmen Sequel
No time for me today? Here are the highlights:
A look ahead at 2020, and Ronin Digital Express release.
Extra recommendations (just in time for Christmas)
I get real honest about Doomsday Clock (SPOILERS)
Good morning, Rent nation.
I'm working on a webcomic called Ronin Digital Express I'm planning to release next year on Webtoon. When exactly? I'm thinking I should be ready by about summer.
So, there you have it. Hell or high water, Ronin Digital Express is coming Summer 2020.
There will be a couple of promotional items to that end and a prologue chapter coming early in the new year. As ever, you'll get the privileged sneak peek.
A big roadblock to progress has been trying to figure out how to format a comic both for the inifinite canvas of Webtoon, but also for print, so that I can self-publish a few floppies to hand out at conventions.
Though you'd think that you'd want to start with a mobile layout and condense it into pages for print, everything I'm seeing seems to suggest going the other way 'round.
You'd have problems with double-page spreads to be sure, but I'm scripting RDE in the Claremont/Miller Wolverine layout:
Instead of seeing a page, picture two columns there.
That actually lends itself to mobile quite nicely.
So, with that big block out of the way, it's full-steam ahead in 2020. Here's a sneak peek at some of the promo images I'm putting together:
(For the eagle-eyed viewer, that item in Green-Eyed Ronin's right hand is critical to his mission).
I'm also working on another Mandalorian piece. If you didn't catch it, here's a link to one I put out a few weeks ago.
Anyway, here's a full-Beskar, non-Baby Yoda one I hope to have ready by the time of the finale:
I'm also thinking of doing a passion project in 2020, or at least starting one.
As a yuge fan of Kurosawa and Spaghetti Westerns, it always bummed me out that Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name never had a crossover film with Toshiro Mifune's Ronin With No Name.
I don't have any licensed property ambition. I don't want to write Spiderman, draw Batman, etc. But I could be tempted to put together a comic crossover for these two, depending on who has the print rights.
Here's how I see it going down:
Eastwood's gunslinger pursues a fugitive (to be modeled after Gian Maria Volonte, who portrayed two separate villains in the Dollars Trilogy) to Japan. The fugitive is given safe harbor by a local crime boss after promising her to smuggle American weapons into the country for her use. Eastwood meets the Ronin With No Name and they join forces to take them down.
Here's a thumb for a possible cover:
Who doesn't want to see a samurai with a gatling gun?
Anyway, I might pull together a few pages and pitch it to Dynamite or something. See where it goes.
If nothing else, I can do a short chapter and just publish it online.
Here's what I've been reading lately.
Mondo Urbano: Been meaning to check this out for a while as a fan of Rafa Albuquerque. This is sort of a collection of vignettes from different artists about a music scene with some supernatural elements (including a cursed guitar). Interesting!
Blade Runner 2019: Volume 1 is now out, and the second arc kicked off in floppies this week. I am not usually a fan of licensed tie-ins, but this book, written by the co-writer of Blade Runner 2049, continues to be surprisingly good. I'm a bit biased as a lifelong BR fan, but try it out.
City of Glass: For less than $10, you can own one of the best noir/experimental/postmodern comics ever created. Based on Paul Auster's novella of the same name (also a smart purchase) this book is a unique piece of comics history: A potential path the indie circuit could have taken, should have taken, but of which this is our only surviving artifact. I can't believe this book exists, and that its influence isn't more widely seen on the stands. This, friends, is a DEEP cut if there ever was one.
Batman: Last Knight on Earth: Issue #3 is finally available after months of delay (due to health issues on the creative team's part, so we can't be too cranky). This is the end of the epic Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo run on the character. I have a complicated view of Snyder's work, but as a completionist and unabashed fan of Capullo, it was a must-have for me.
Batman: Creature of the Night: Another one we've waited ages for (over a year, I think). The conclusion to Kurt Busiek and John Paul Leon's intriguing, Taxi Driver-esque look at the Batman mythos. I think this one should be read in entirety, so probably wait for the collection. It's not for everyone, but give it a chance.
House of X/Powers of X HC: This book is a must for any X-Men fan. They made it easy by printing one of the most attractive hardcover collections I've ever seen. If you haven't jumped into Hickman's X-verse yet, the less that's said, the better. Get this book.
Mother Night: A novel by Kurt Vonnegut that I read recently in preparation for another project. Very easy read (chapters are like 3 pages each), very good book.
The Kybalion: The Kybalion is an anonymously-written occult text rumored to appear in one's life when they need it most. Spooky! Another piece of arcana for a future project I'm working through. An interesting conversation piece, if nothing else.
SPOILERS!
If you're interested in Doomsday Clock but haven't read it yet, stop reading here.
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Fuck Doomsday Clock.
Let me start over.
Doomsday Clock is DC's most recent continuity reset cum-official Watchmen sequel in which Alan Moore's characters invade the DC universe, and readers are led to believe that the various resets of DC continuity (including the most recent New 52) were attributable to tinkering by none other than Dr. Manhattan.
If all of that flew over your head, it's not going to get any better.
Written by Geoff Johns, who is basically the current Pope and architect of DC continuity and author of numerous critically and commercially-successful DC events, Doomsday Clock was created to solve a few problems: Straighten out DC continuity after decades of Crisis-events and retcons, and provide a worthy sequel to the timeless and untouchable classic Watchmen.
For me, it failed spectacularly on both counts and was merely a well-drawn melange of Easter Eggs that, as of the finale, apparently only exists as a cynical excuse set up the next two decades of DC events.
Here is Geoff Johns being himself:
Lmao, Thor?
Either this is a permanent job security grab or Johns just made things super awkward for the next generation of DC writers.
The best thing I can say about Doomsday Clock is that Johns did try.
Doomsday Clock does mirror the structure of Watchmen in a lot of ways, and does a very good impression of Alan Moore in parts. But I can't tell if those elements are there because Geoff Johns loves Watchmen and truly wanted to make a worthy sequel (ill-advised though it was) or if it was a trick to get Watchmen fans like myself (albeit ones with no special loyalty to Alan Moore's artistic integrity) to buy all 12 issues.
If it was the former, I respect that he took his shot. But that respect is the same kind I have for Zack Snyder. It's the kind of respect that appreciates the sand it takes to put yourself out there. But that respect is tarnished by the feeling that this is the last creator I would want in the driver's seat of such a project.
And if it was the latter, which I strongly suspect it is, then fuck Doomsday Clock.
Ignore the fawning reviews. Precious few critics have had the stones to call Doomsday Clock what it is.
Mediocre.
Cynical.
Saccharine.
Cowardly.
Disingenuous.
I hate this book. I hate that it exists, I hate what it's setting up for the DC universe, I hate its indelicate, unartistic, on-the-nose politics:
That's not good writing. That's a fucking tweet.
Jussie Smollett part two, apropos of nothing. MAGA, y'all!
Oh yeah, in an early cliffhanger, it was revealed that Watchmen's Comedian is still alive for... some reason.
Then he disappears for a few issues.
Then here's how he comes back for the finale.
The only 'goddamn asshole' on this page is Geoff Johns.
What in the fuck was this for?
Who in the fuck was this for?
Now, did I like anything about Doomsday Clock?
Yes, these two pages:
The Moral Of The Story
The moral of Doomsday Clock is that Superman is hope (yawn).
This is somehow what convinces Dr. Manhattan to not be an aloof weirdo anymore (which... okay?).
His response to all of this is to sacrifice his life (I think?) to raise a supervillain's son he names "Clark" who he then imbues with some of his power before dying (???).
Seriously, this is how Doomsday Clock ends:
What in the fuck is this setting up?
What am I supposed to feel like, seeing this? Intrigued? Satisfied? Provoked? Hashtag-triggered?
Now You Can Choose Your Own Watchmen
Anyway, what's interesting about Watchmen fandom is that this year, we were given two attempts at an official sequel. One in the form of Doomsday Clock, and one in the form of HBO's Watchmen miniseries.
The show has also been controversial. It deals with rough and unpleasant topics. It can be uncomfortable to watch in parts.
It is still a far superior entry in the Watchmen universe.
Alan Moore famously distances himself from adaptations of his work. But if you somehow made it to his castle and through his black magic defense barriers, tied him up, and put a gun to his head, and made him choose, he would choose HBO's Watchmen.
He might not like it. He might think framing up a new story in the context of broken racial relations in America is not as clever as it appears. He might think that the themes of generational trauma are uninteresting. He might wish that a similar story were told outside of his universe and question what exactly makes it "Watchmen."
But Doomsday Clock is Alan Moore's most explicit nightmare when it comes to adaptations of his work. I don't know the guy, but you don't need to. Read any interview he's given about DC and what he was afraid of when it comes to their ownership of Watchmen.
It's not art. It's porn.
(And not even very good porn.)
That's it for this week's adventure.
As always, thank you for your support.
I don't have a Patreon, nor do I ask for donations. If you want to help me, the best thing you can do is share this content with your followers if you enjoyed it.
Thanks for being here all the same.
Back to work.
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