Kevin’s right, of course.

I wish I could be as determined as Kevin to avoid the film, as Watchmen the comic book is a work I respect tremendously, but between Pete expressing an interest in it, the presence of Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the film, and my own morbid curiosity over just how bad it’s going to be, I’m pretty sure I’m on the hook to see it at some point. Of course, what really fascinates me in that link is the fact that, once again, for stating an opinion Kevin is being raked over the coals by people unable or unwilling to see his point. And that’s funny to me, because Kevin is a hell of a lot more politic about it than I would be.

I mean, let’s all be perfectly honest here: Watchmen the movie is not for comic book fans. It’s for the people who made Paul Blart: Mall Cop the number one film in the country for several weeks. It’s for the people who read The DaVinci Code and patted themselves on the back because they read big, thick books. It’s for people who keep Fox News on the air.

And you can’t blame Kevin, who is in most things a man of taste and discernment, for not wanting to subject himself to a film crafted for that audience. Which begs the question: why would anyone take Watchmen, one of the most important texts in the history of comic books, and turn it into a film aimed squarely at the lowest common denominators of the American public? And that’s when we get to the tragic truth…

Most people didn’t read Watchmen and come away with an indictment of the fetishization of nostalgia. They didn’t read it and find a critique of authoritarian power structures in global politics and how that is mirrored in popular entertainment vigilante fantasies. They didn’t find an examination of the limits of that whole “power and responsibility” thing and how that absolutist notion of morality falls apart when faced with reality. Nor did they find an amazing example of story-telling structure that fully exploits the idiosyncratic nature of the comic book medium to tell a mature story that is, quite literally, only possible within the comic book medium.

No, they found a cynical super-hero beat-’em-up comic with sex and swearing. They skipped the text pieces. They skipped the “boring stuff with the pirate comic.” And they found that if they threw the word “deconstruction” around when discussing the comic, they sounded smart.

And that’s the movie Zack Snyder is giving us:  that shallow, superficial reading of the comic translated to film. I mean, honestly, what else did anyone expect?

• In a particularly stunning display of how the vast majority of comic book nerds, no matter how patiently you explain it to them, actively refuse to get it, at the now no longer worth reading (now that all the good writers have left for Robot 6), Blog@Newsarama, writer J. Caleb Mozzocco engaged in a rather sad bit of gay-baiting in aid of a joke that, frankly, wasn’t the slightest bit funny in the first place.

  The real fun starts when readers point out what an incredibly stupid, not to mention potentially offensive move Caleb’s little joke was, prompting increasingly hysterical and defensive reactions from both Caleb and fellow Blog@ writer Troy Brownfield. For Christ’s sake, they even pull out a sad variation of the “I can’t be homophobic, I have gay friends” defense.

  It was the most pathetisad spectacle of the week. At least until the New York Comic-Con started.

• I thought the dumbest thing I’d ever heard of was the latest revival of the New Mutants comic, the fourth for those of you keeping count. It’s always sort of sad to see Marvel wallowing in shitty 80s nostalgia like this. It’s so contrary to the image they like to present of themselves as a corporation that it almost feels like a betrayal of their core principles. I mean, DC has been publishing Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman comics for 70-plus years; I expect them to look to their past for inspiration from time to time (though, honestly guys, bringing Barry Allen back? There’s a limit, you know?). Marvel is supposed to be the hipper, younger, forward-looking company.

  I suppose this is just them finally admitting that their core audience is man-children unwilling to let go of their childhoods.

• Of course, the absolute stupidest thing I’ve heard so far (non-politically) this week was the annoucement of the Dark Wolverine series. I’ll let you all take a laugh break now.

  …

  Got it out of your system? Good.

  I mean, really? Dark Wolverine? That’s what you think the comic industry needs? A “darker, grittier, edgier” version of Wolver-frickin-ine? And then, to top it all off, the series stars, not Logan, but Poochie Daken, Wolverine Jr.? If X-23 was created to make a certain segment of fandom feel better about their masturbatory fantasies, what audience is Daken created to satisfy? Fangirls who didn’t have quite enough people to pair Logan up with in their slash stories?

• Of course, some of this makes sense when you consider that the man in charge had this to say about fan complaints about the number of cross-overs in Marvel books these days:
  

  “We’re going to do Marvel Slumber Party,” Quesada joked in response to a question about the pattern of crossovers. He said “giving the characters a rest,” as the fan had suggested, would mean “a bunch of books where nothing happens.”

  Either he’s being disingenuous and deliberately misrepresenting the people who think there are too many event books coming out from Marvel too close together, or he genuinely thinks that not having a book tie-in to some larger story means “nothing happens.” I’m not sure which position should insult Marvel fans more.

• Of course, the real tragedy of all this is, that while discussing how face-palmingly stupid all the above is with friends, I was suddenly struck with a really good idea for a Marvel book. Too bad I’d never actually get into a pitch meeting with the company.

  I don’t bash DC enough for that.

An ongoing point of discussion with several of my friends and I is: which group of people is more prone to an over-developed sense of entitlement and the kind of narcissistic rage that can only come from an excess of privilege, video game fans or comic book fans? I mean, on the one hand, I’ve never seen comic book fans actually complain about publishers and artists actually expect to be paid for their work, and yet I see video game fans constantly complain that add-ons for video games should be free. But then, on the other hand, I’ve never seen video game fans complain that Nintendo is being disrespectful to them by ignoring their fan-fiction in which Mario is fucking Link.

So I was greatly amused when I found this in an article about the upcoming Watchmen game:

“Noble antihero”? Well, of course he is! If there’s one thing (one thing?) that video game and comic book fans have in common, it’s the inability to recognize that a protagonist may not necessarily be intended as a figure of admiration. That Rorschach is deeply mentally disturbed just makes him even more “bad ass.”

“Say, Mike, if I were to show you this two-page spread in this catalog, what would you say about it?”

“Well, Dorian, I’d say that nerds, especially in Japan, like themselves the sexy lady statues.”
“And what if I told you that I could instantly make the layout I just showed you the most appalling thing you’ve seen all day?”
“I’d be very surprised.”

“Aiieeee!”
“Told you so.”

Yes, because when I think “girl toys from the 80s” I think about a song describing a woman’s attempts to sexually excite men by shaking her breasts at them.

Hey look, a full set of gay porn action figures!

They’re not?

“Mixed Martial Arts?”

How are you supposed to tell the difference?