Before Watchmen is 'a love letter' to Moore's creation, Dan DiDio says

Before Watchmen is 'a love letter' to Moore's creation, Dan DiDio says

Before Watchmen: Minutemen #1 variant cover by Jim Lee

Just as the initial reviews of Before Watchmen begin to trickle in, DC Comics Co-Publisher Dan DiDio takes to The Guardian to defend the sprawling prequel, which he calls 'a love letter' to the seminal 1986 miniseries by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and to respond to the writer's scorching criticism of the project as 'completely shameless.'

'Honestly I can understand why he might feel the way he does because this is a personal project to him,' DiDio tells the U.K. newspaper. 'He has such a long and illustrious career and he's been able to stand behind the body of work he's created. But quite honestly the idea of something shameless is a little silly, primarily because I let the material speak for itself and the quality of the material speak for itself.'

He reiterates that DC won't 'shy away from the controversy on this ' as a matter of fact we're embracing it because we have belief in the strength of the product and stand behind it.'

DiDio also dismisses assertions by Moore that DC is 'still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago,' saying that, 'all the characters in all the universes and all that we do in comics, we're constantly building on other people's lores and legends. [...] Realistically some of Alan's strongest works at DC outside of Watchmen were built off of characters like Swamp Thing which was created by Len Wein, Superman, Batman, so many of our great characters he's worked on and they helped build his career.'

Although it seems highly unlikely that Moore will ever read the prequels ' he's repeatedly said he no longer has a copy of Watchmen in his house ' if he does, DiDio says he hopes 'he looks at them with an open mind and a chance to understand this is a love letter to what he created, and more importantly that the strength of his work is allowing other people to grow and tell other stories which will hopefully inspire other creators along the way. In the way he was inspired by the creators when he was younger, we're hoping these ideas and these books are inspiring new people, so that we continue to grow the comics business as a whole.'

DC provided The Guardian will previews of Jim Lee's variant covers for Before Watchmen: Minutemen #1 (above) and Before Watchmen: Comedian #1 (below). The miniseries debuts June 6 with Before Watchmen: Minutemen.

Before Watchmen: Comedian #1 variant cover by Jim Lee

One Comment

'Before Watchmen is 'a love letter' to Moore's creation, Dan DiDio says'

And the Comedian was going to 'make sweet love' to Sally Jupiter.

' MrJM

Leave a Comment