Mostly, I read it again and again to pick up things I didn’t notice the first time. Mainly background stuff, or little hints I didn’t pick up on before.

It’s wonderful, it’s like Waking up each morning and the tooth fairy left you 20 bucks for no real reason.

But I get what you’re saying, Moore’s writing is very dense. Not everyone is going to like/appreciate it.

I can’t tell you WHY I like his writing so much, honestly, I just do.

I have this problem with John Byrne, though.

I love Hellboy, but I have trouble reading Seed of Destruction because Mignola had Byrne do the dialogue.

It’s, frankly, kinda boring. I don’t know how many times I scream (in my head) “GET TO THE POINT, GOD” when I read something Byrne writes.

supergp: “I just read Watchmen for the first time. And people complain that BENDIS writes too much dialogue?”

Honestly, a lot of Bendis’ dialogue is superfluous, in my opinion.

Phone rings. Man picks up.
“Hey!”
“Hi.”
“It’s me.”
“Who?”
“You know…”
“I don’t.”
“Don’t even joke!”
“Really! I don’t! Who is this?”
“You know! It’s ME. Sandy.”
“Oh… Who?”
“Sandy.”
“Uh…”
“Sandy from accounting.”
“Er…”
“I wore the Vampirella costume at the halloween party?”
“Oh, right, yeah, I remember.”
“Oh NOW you remember!”
“I said I was sorry!”
“I’m sure you are.”
“I really am!”
“Whatever!”
“How’re you Sandy?”
“I’m good good.”
“… Uh Good.”
“… Yeah.”
“So… Why are you calling?”
“Oh I was checking to see if you got the memo about the Thanksgiving party.”
“You mean the memo from Tuesday?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Okay, that’s all I wanted to know. See you Monday.”
“Okay, bye.”

Where as, while somewhat roundabout, I think Moore’s dialogue tends to be more… Relative to what’s going on in the story.

Ah, in that case I can definitely see your point. I know personally I tend to think that way as well. I’ll intend to read the graphic novels, etc. after seeing the movie but once I see the movie the priority of reading the source material usually drops in favor for other new stuff. That doesn’t happen often because I usually end up picking up the books and reading them first before the movie hits (as I will for Watchmen) but for stuff like 300, V and so on, where I had little interest in reading them even before the movie, I still have yet to read over the books themselves.

And yeah, much of the coolness of Watchmen comes from its use of the comic medium. Translating it onto the screen as faithfully as possible is not going to produce a particularly good movie, IMHO. It’ll be one that some people will be able to transpose their love for the comic onto, but that’s not the same thing. And I suspect that there are a lot of details that Snyder simply won’t “get”…I mean, I don’t think he even captured the subtleties of a Frank Miller comic for God’s sake. His chances of “getting” Watchmen seem pretty low.

In regards to comics in general post-movie adaptations, I’m not so sure it was the adaptation that hurt them in the long run so much as the way the comics were handled. The way I see it the movies give the comic an opportunity to pick up a wider audience, but it’s up to the creators to hold onto that audience. Looking at Spider-Man and Iron Man specifically, their runs recently, around the times of the movie releases, honestly haven’t been all that stellar. Spider-Man, in it’s various incarnations, has been hit or miss story-wise for years and complete crap post OMD/BND. The only consistently good Spidey-title, IMO, has been Ultimate Spider-Man. I directed the people I knew who were interested in checking out the comics after the movies came out to that title and most have stuck with it since. I couldn’t blame them for not being interested in the mainstream titles, since I lost interest and stopped following myself.

As for Iron Man, his main post-CW run has been pretty bad. I can’t really comment on Hulk since I don’t follow that title. Batman, as well, could be pretty off-putting to any new readers, with Morrison at the helm the past couple of years and doing his RIP storyline at the moment. (Though Detective has still been pretty consistently decent). So really I think there’s a lot of factors that contribute to that initial surge then drop in sales after a movie adaptation. I don’t think it’s so much fans not liking the medium so much as fans not liking what’s being done with the medium at the time, and if new readers aren’t directed to more “entry level friendly” stuff first then I could see how it could be pretty hard to get into and stay into reading the mainstream comic titles for those characters.

Bringing something to a wider audience *can* be a noble thing to do, but a lot depends on the context. I was quite excited about V For Vendetta, because those were ideas I was excited about seeing on the screen (what’s more, I thought that there was actually room for improvement.) But the end result watered-down and oversimplified Moore’s ideas to a disappointing degree. The movie ended up being nothing more than a lecture on why Fascism is bad, which, thanks, I already knew that. And that was a movie made by the Wachowskis, who are smart guys with a certain amount of creative freedom–if they can’t get Moore right, what chance does freakin’ Zack Snyder have?

As I’ve said, I’m not opposed to a Watchmen movie…but it has to be made by the right people. There’s no point in doing it unless you’re going to do it right. And yet, there seem to be fans out there who are so determined to see Watchmen on screen that, if Moore thinks it’s a bad idea, they’ll attack him. But as Moore has said–and this is obvious from reading the book–the comic was intended very specifically to be a comic, to do things that only the comic medium can. As a result, I don’t see the point in making a movie to “bring it to a wider audience” when what that wider audience will be getting will be either something quite different, or else something that’s literally faithful but that probably doesn’t work as a movie (I’m betting on the second). There has to be more to the filmmaker’s motives than just “we had to get it on screen!”–they must have something to bring to it. Greengrass and Hayter sounded like they were going to tie it in with the post-9/11 world, which is a VERY valid reason to make the movie, IMHO…but Snyder dropped that out of literal faithfulness, and I still don’t understand why.

As for bringing attention to the medium of comics, I think it’s great that Hollywood is giving them a boost, but that works in a broad sense–once a few good comic adaptations hit the screen, people start to pay attention to the medium as a whole. They don’t literally need every comic or graphic novel brought to the screen. And indeed, as soon as someone decides to go looking for graphic novels, “Watchmen” is probably one of the first ones they’re going to pick up, so a movie adaptation isn’t strictly necessary to draw attention to it. And again–it’s not like we *need* people to read it. Like any book, there has to be some interest on the part of the reader. I would really hate it if we got a mainstream Watchmen backlash because we’re all sick of having it crammed down our throats.

There was a comics retailer who blogs…might have been Mike Sterling at Progressive Ruin…who mentioned that a movie adaptation tended to increase sales for a while…but after the movie had faded from the public eye, the sales of the comic tended to drop off to far below their original sales level. So you can argue that, in the long run, movie adaptations can hurt comics.

Frankly it comes off like a lot of fans really don’t actually like the medium of comics, and were just putting up with them until their favourite characters and stories could make the jump to film. That’s disappointing to me; in many ways, I find comics to be a far more interesting medium with a lot more potential than movies.

Some attack sites intentionally distribute harmful software, but many are compromised without the knowledge or permission of their owners.”

Just thought I’d give you a heads up about that.

“And I’m sorry, but the “think about how many people the movie will win over!” argument doesn’t cut a lot of ice with me, and I doubt it does with Moore, either. (It probably doesn’t help that I’m not a huge fan of LOTR in either form.) Sure, sometimes it’s cool to get a movie adaptation, but arguing like it’s necessary for people who don’t read? That’s a bit lame.”
I wasn’t arguing it was “necessary”, I was giving an example of what “point” there was to making a movie adaptation of a work in response to your general comments on the subject, not Watchmen specifically. That said, wouldn’t “sharing the story visually with a wider audience” be a valid reason? Or perhaps wanting to bring the story to life in a different medium? Those seem to be pretty valid reasons for adaptations to me, especially if you’re a film maker. Again, not speaking of Watchmen specifically.

“People who can’t be bothered to pick up a book once in a while really ought not to be pandered to.”

Yeah, well not everyone reads graphic novels or sci-fi/fantasy when they do bother to “pick up a book”. For some people their only exposure to those genres are through other mediums, specifically film adaptations; and there are times when that exposure inspires them to give those genres a look the next time they’re so inclined to pick a book up and read in their often not-so-abundant spare time. That’s not pandering, it’s knowing your audience and exposing them to something potentially new. And yes, it’s a good reason why comics, sci-fi, and fantasy have seen a surge in popularity and even further legitimacy as literature, etc. the past decade or so. Yes, they always were literature, but now they’ve gained a wider audience and a greater respect, which is in no way a negative thing for any involved; and I’d even argue it’s one of the reasons that most creators today have the ability to say “yea” or “nay” when it comes to adaptations of their work where Mr. Moore, unfortunately, didn’t.

That said, you’re right on that.

@Prankster: good call on all parts.

“@John: I’d wager DC saved a lot of money just handing Cohen and Poll some money rather than letting it go to court, and Moore should, I think, on some level at least, understand that. I mean, how much do Hollywood entertainment lawyers earn on the basis of retainment alone, never mind the cadre a studio would use to argue a case like that?”

*boggle* Try fitting that phrase into your own mouth, about yourself. “Oh, no, I think it’s totally cool that a couple of strangers get to accuse me of plagarism and of being a corporate shill for DC, a company I’ve refused to even let sign my paychecks because they’ve screwed me over so many times, and I don’t get to refute those charges in a court of law. I mean, after all, you saved yourself some real money by doing so, right?”

Yeah, I think that 99.99999% of the populace would have a two-word, one-finger response to that.

I’m personally not against an adaptation of Watchmen, but people are treating it as inevitable, like it HAS to happen. For a while there Paul Greengrass and David Hayter were working on a version that sounded quite good, and that I believe even Moore had some good words for. But then they were booted out, and the project seems to have gone on autopilot. Snyder said he came on board because he knew they were going to make it anyway, so he figured it would be better if it were him who made it. That’s…not inspiring. I would prefer the movie was being put into production because someone had a really great vision, not corporate inertia.

By the way, if you read that Moore interview at EW it’s pretty obvious people are exaggerating his positions in re: adaptations. All he says is that he’s had relentlessly bad experiences with adaptations and doesn’t think Hollywood generally gets it right (and then immediately admits that he’s generalizing). WHAT A JERK!!!

I don’t have anything really to add to this part, except this: “that a movie adaptation needs to have a reason to exist in and of itself.”

Does any art possess such a reason?

And I’m sorry, but the “think about how many people the movie will win over!” argument doesn’t cut a lot of ice with me, and I doubt it does with Moore, either. (It probably doesn’t help that I’m not a huge fan of LOTR in either form.) Sure, sometimes it’s cool to get a movie adaptation, but arguing like it’s necessary for people who don’t read? That’s a bit lame. People who can’t be bothered to pick up a book once in a while really ought not to be pandered to. It reminds me of this Onion article: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31389 . I would argue, and I think this is Moore’s point as well, that a movie adaptation needs to have a reason to exist in and of itself. Whereas adaptations of his books seem to be made so far so that people can avoid the comics, and so that big corporations can make a lot of money. Understandably, he doesn’t see that as artistically valid.