Blogging For Dynamite #1
By Darick Robertson

Nick Barrucci decided it was a good idea if I start blogging for Dynamite, so here I am, typing away and scratching my brain meat for something to justify the time you’re taking to read this. Nick said I could blog about anything fun, my interests, whatever... so with enough rope to hang myself, here I go.

The weekend I just had was a busy one, that began with me getting the cover art for The Boys #43 finished and uploaded it to the server. What does that mean? Well, for those of you who don’t know, this is how comics are done in the age of the internet. I complete inked work, scan it at 400 dpi and upload it onto a server at Dynamite. From there the files are formatted and sent to the colorist. Tony Avina has recently put up some tutorials that show how much he puts into his work and how he does it! You can check them out for yourselves here:

http://blog.newsarama.com/2010/02/05/check-out-this-tony-avina-coloring-tutorial/

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q0VJ5G8Q-A

Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrLVlwDFnvY

Video of colours for #42 cover:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzvK_qiNE4c

On Friday I went to Sausalito, California just a few miles from the Golden Gate Bridge and spoke for a hour or so with the good folks at Comicvine. We discussed film and comics adaptations. There was a discussion about whether or not there should be a new Watchmen comic.

One of the first reactions on the topic that I read from a writer at Gammasquad said this:

“You like Rorschach? Well how would you like Rorschach . . . with fire-breathing powers and a pet cheetah?! And the cheetah talks. With a dandy British accent, but he also has Tourette’s. And Silk Spectre has a magic wand. Erectus! Also, Doctor Manhattan becomes a never-nude. Anything is possible with retroactive continuity. Anything, but especially more profit.”

When did everyone get so cynical?

The Watchmen is brilliant. One of my all time favorite comics. But the Watchmen was born of creative frustration, in that the "Watchmen" characters were originally based on Charlton Comics heroes, that were in a team called "The Sentinels of Justice".

After DC acquired the Charlton heroes in the 80s, Alan Moore was going to write a story titled "Who Killed the Peacemaker?" as their final adventure. But DC told Moore that they were planning to absorb the Charlton characters into the DC comic universe. So Moore created new characters loosely based on the Charlton characters, and wrote the story that became "Watchmen." Captain Atom became Dr.Manhattan, Blue Beetle the Nightowl, The Question became Rorshach.

Now what if Moore had just walked away? There would be no Watchmen. What if DC had said “No, no, this is too close to the Charlton characters, you can’t do this.” There would be no Watchmen.

When we start holding comics up as sacrosanct, out of cynicism, I think we prevent the creativity that got us the stuff we love in the first place. Admittedly, doing a Watchmen sequel (or what I prefer, a prequel) and doing it badly, will bring about a bad comic. And everyone can say so. But it will never diminish what the Watchmen has been all these years. It will embarrass those that produced it if they do an inferior job the way the ‘Gamma squad’ guy described. But what if DC hires creators that do an excellent job? Perhaps Dave Gibbons will return and draw it. Perhaps Neil Gaiman would write it. That could be brilliant! But if we stop at the notion that anything new is immediately going to denigrate it, or be done poorly as a means of profit, then we will never know.

I debated Sara Lima on this point and I stand by this notion: If it comes out and it’s terrible, it will only look like a massive fail unto itself, having failed to live up to what the Watchmen already is. It will not diminish the Watchmen comic itself.

Because that’s how the legacy of comics has always been. Did the ‘Clone Saga’ of Spider-man in any way keep Aunt May dead or bring Gwen Stacy back to life? No. We dismiss that as unworthy of the Spider-man legacy and we have moved on to new Spider-man comics.

If the door had been locked on Batman after the successful TV series in the 60’s, Robin would still be goofing about shouting “Holy this” and ‘Holy That, Batman!” because somehow the success of the TV show validates it as the pinnacle of what Batman can be. What would the world of comics be if this was the attitude regarding Batman when Frank Miller wanted to do ‘Dark Knight Returns’?

“Sorry, Frank. Batman’s not a grim character, he’s funny! Like in the TV Show! Lets not spoil it with this Dark Knight tale. Why you even have Robin dead!? Who’s going to spout the catch phrase?”

So I’m very much against a poorly done Watchmen sequel or prequel, but am excited about what could be done if it was handled well. I believe everyone involved will know exactly how important that duty will be and what a good sequel or prequel would read like, before any of us ever see it.

If you’d like to hear my debate with Sara Lima at Comicvine, you can listen to the MP3 here:
http://media.comicvine.com/podcast/podcast_2510.mp3

Now I gotta get back to work! There’s no money in blogging.