Thoughts on Before Watchmen

Early this morning DC announced Before Watchmen, a series of mini-series prequels to one of the best regarded (and best-selling) comic stories of all time. (And under previous regimes an area deemed as untouchable as far as spin-off projects went.)

Some initial thoughts:

• Watchmen doesn't really need prequels or sequels, as it is complete unto itself. However, these days such things are an anathema to comic companies. But if you don't like the idea of the prequels, it still leaves the original intact; it's not like they're going and doing a 3-D Special Edition of the original Moore & Gibbons collection or anything.
• DC needed something big to recapture the comics and mainstream media's attention now that the excitement over the New 52 has wound down.
• The creative teams are top-notch, creators from whom I would take a serious consideration of buying if they were producing a 'regular' comic series unrelated to Watchmen. I'm particularly looking forward to Minutemen by Darwyn Cooke and Silk Spectre by Cooke and Amanda Conner.
• While original series artist Dave Gibbons has apparently given his blessing to the prequels, I'm surprised he isn't involved in any of the series. I would have thought maybe they'd have him do the covers or something? (Maybe there will be variant covers by Gibbons?
• If you were wondering why some of DC's top creators have been absent from the New 52, well here you go. I wonder how far in advance they've been working on this?
• The original Watchmen series was twelve issues; the prequels in total will consist of thirty-five issues. Of course, each Watchmen issue was 32 pages of story: 28 story pages and a 4 page text feature. Will the prequel minis be the standard 20 pages that is the norm for DC these days?
• I wonder if sales of the Watchmen collection will spike after the announcement of the prequels? Tune in back here on Friday when we do the Amazon Top 50 to find out...