We had a brown bag lunch today at work, about the business side of comics, with an executive (and friend of one of our editors) from DC Entertainment. It wasn’t bad, and there was a free lunch and some free comics.
Which means I’m finally getting to read some of Before Watchmen, a project I’ve been really dubious about and hesitant to support with my money. DC’s been taking a lot of flack lately for the way it does or does not treat its creative talent, and I think here it may actually be justified. Watchmen, quite honestly, isn’t a story that called out to prequelized. (And I say that as someone not wholly opposed to adaptations, as someone who actually quite enjoyed the movie version.) And what I read over my free sandwich of J. Michael Straczynski’s Dr. Manhattan doesn’t lead me to re-think my earlier position.
But then again, I’m not lock-step with popular comics opinion. I was pretty much starting to hate The Walking Dead after just twelve issues.
Most of this didn’t come up during the talk, although our speaker clearly was coming at comics from a business perspective. (He doesn’t read them himself, eagerly referred to them as IP, or intellectual property, but seemed like a decent guy.) Most of it was, like I said, about the business — and whether or not comics is a serious business. (Short answer: Yes. Follow-up question: we’re still asking this?)
It was a nice way to break up the workday, if nothing else. And even if Straczynski’s take on Alan Moore looks painfully inessential…well, some of the other issues I picked up might be good. Although I think some of the series may have already been cancelled…
