A panel of DC executives admitted they are suffering from anxiety in the run up to the launch of Before Watchmen at a DC All Access panel at Kapow! Comic Con in London today.
“To say we’re excited would be an understatement,” admitted Senior VP of Sales at DC Entertainment Bob Wayne, “But, to say we’re nervous would also be an understatement! I think we can let the product speak for itself, and hopefully everybody will enjoy what we’ve got.”
“We went to a lot of trouble to assemble the talent, to make sure we had the right people working on it,” explained Dan DiDidio co-publisher of DC, “Honestly, I can say this for every one of the creatives involved, that they’re doing some of the best work of their careers. They know how important this project is, and they know how much scrutiny it’s going to come under.”
They revealed several variant covers at the panel at the London Business Design Centre including an awesome S&M inspired Ozymandias cover, and a psychedelic Josh Middleton variant for Silk Spectre, the Before Watchmen arc that both DiDio and Wayne were very enthusiastic about. “Silk Spectre is my personal favourite,” said Dan, “Darwyn Cooke is working with Amanda Conner on this one, and he really wanted to capture the spirit of Silk Spectre in a specific period of time. Darwyn wrote the basic plot and Amanda ran with it from there.”
“This is one of the quietest of the stories, but also one of the most heartfelt. It’s a coming of age story, with Silk Spectre discovering herself, and separating herself from her mother.”
The Rorschach series is fittingly being described as “the most violent series” of Before Watchmen with Brian Azzarello and artist Lee Bermejo recreating Time Square of the 1970s for the very first issue of the arc. “It’s pretty intense,” stressed DiDio, “as someone who lived in New York in that era, it’s as gritty as I remember.”
The panel went on to discuss the Curse of the Corsair, the pirate-themed companion piece that will preface each issue of the book run, promising 34 different cliff-hangers for each issue. “It captures the style and tone and the shifts in nature of the stories that are taking part in the main features. We hope it recreates that same feel that Tales of the Black Freighter did in conjuction with the original Watchmen.” said Wayne. “It’s a swashbuckling adventure that just gets darker and darker as the series goes on,” added DiDio.
The panel were keen to deflect questions about Alan Moore's much-publicised negativity towards the project at the start of the Q&A session, but were candid when it came to discussing how much freedom they had given all the creatives when it came to crafting a new backstory for the series.
“When we sat down with all the writers, everyone was very beholding to the source material. They all had a copy of Watchmen in front of them that was operating as their ‘bible’ for the creative process,” DiDio said, “But, the first thing we said everybody should be able to be their own story-teller. Everybody has a lot of freedom in how they approach the material, how the writing is, how the drawing will look, and they all approached it very differently.”
Editor Will Dennis reiterated, “We always said from very early on, we want to let these guys do what they do best. You don’t hire these guys to do what they do so well and make them do something else.”
You’ll be able to find out how successful they’ve been in bringing the classic Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons series back to life when the first issue drops in June. Be sure to check out our first impressions of Before Watchmen here.
Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/19/kapow-dc-all-access-before-watchmen-panel
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