It’s always a bad sign when your press release launching a new project includes an apology for the existence of the project.

DC Comics’ announcement that it plans to publish 35 new Watchmen comics this year, 25 years after the original 12-issue series blew the doors off the entire super-hero genre, has a number of implied apologies in it.

It probably needs to. The original Watchmen is an untouchable work of brilliance. Its level of influence cannot be over-stated. From my point of view, and of many other comic fans who’ve responded vocally to the news, any new Watchmen material cannot possibly be as good as the original, especially with no involvement from original writer Alan Moore.

So, with no obvious artistic reason to tell new stories, the assumption, which is implicitly confirmed in the announcement’s talk of DC’s “responsibility as publishers”, is that this is a naked cash-grab driven by purely commercial concerns.

For me, it’s the nature of the new story DC plans to tell that leaves a sour taste and confirms that the project is exactly what its detractors say it is.

Because Before Watchmen is a prequel, offering additional background and filling in the blanks left in the original series. This may sound reasonable enough, but only if you haven’t read Watchmen.

Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’ original graphic novel has the legendary status it does for many reasons – its redefinition of a genre, its memorable characters and its laser-targeted Cold War commentary. But another reason is its clockwork-like plot – each character’s background is meticulously set out, intersecting with one another at key points and adding up to a multi-layered, satisfying story.

In other words, there is no meaningful extra background to be offered, and there are no blanks to fill in. Even Gibbons says in the press release:

“the original series of Watchmen is the complete story that Alan Moore and I wanted to tell”.

Rorschach not working hard enough

I understand DC’s dilemma, commercially. They can’t publish a sequel to the story, because it would be so radically different to the original. It would have to be – characters’ trajectories are hugely altered by the end of Watchmen, some terminally. So you’d have to come up with a whole new story, including new characters, and a new creative vision of what the world of Watchmen might be like 25 years on.

But if you do that you don’t have Rorschach, Dr Manhattan, Nite Owl and the rest in their familiar milieu, with their familiar costumes, which casual fans are familiar with from the film and might be interested in paying money for.

And that’s the problem – this isn’t about someone having a great idea for a Watchmen story and being allowed to tell it. It’s about sweating properties. “We own this Rorschach character; what’s he done for us lately? How have we developed him as a going concern? Where are the new merchandising opportunities for him?”

(All of which would be less galling were it not for the fact that the original Watchmen contains a lengthy text piece skewering development and marketing of super-hero properties).

DC’s argument (implied apologetically in that triumph of a press release) is: how is that different from all our other characters? How many people have written Batman over the years? We own the characters! This is how this industry works!

And the answer is: because no Batman comic has ever been on TIME‘s 100 greatest novels of the 20^th century list (that’s novels, not graphic novels), or equivalent.

Watchmen’s achievement was that it transcended comics. Many people who’ve never read another super-hero comic have read it and admired it for the towering literary achievement it is. And I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest that different rules come into play. Sometimes, something is just special and should be allowed to stand alone, without being watered down and re-hashed. Frankly, Watchmen‘s been re-hashed enough in the last 25 years’ worth of super-hero comics as it is.

I’m sure Before Watchmen (which will be three times as long as the series it is acting as a prequel to) will be nicely written and drawn. DC has enlisted top creators to work on it. If someone had to write a new Rorschach series, better that it’s Brian Azzarello than someone with no talent.

But its existence highlights how little chance there is of DC ever getting another graphic novel into any sort of mainstream literary Top 100 list – because it shows, yet again, that they regard the intellectual property as everything, the actual creative work and the creator as unimportant.

Alan Moore scoffs

Watchmen is work of genius because Alan Moore is a maverick genius. There are no other reasons. His scornful response to the news of the prequel was that DC is “still apparently dependent on ideas I had 25 years ago”. And, in typical style, he’s got the heart of my negative feelings about Before Watchmen.

Because they aren’t based on any kind of outrage on behalf of Moore. The original Watchmen was work for hire; he’s never owned it or the characters. DC has offered him many opportunities to write a prequel, or sequel, or whatever he wanted, which he’s turned down.

The problem, as Moore articulates so pitilessly, is that DC’s approach is regressive, about protecting commercial assets, rather than about fostering new creativity or attempting to produce something else as game-changing for the industry as Watchmen was 25 years ago.

DC’s investment in Before Watchmen would be better used in taking a chance on some other genius with an unrelated project to pitch. But what we’ll get instead is diminishing returns that leave a massive doubt over the company’s remaining ability or desire to push its medium forward creatively.

Further Reading:

DC Comics announces Before Watchmen

Brett White: In defence of Before Watchmen

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A quick post today about our new Tumblr blog.

It’s a place to share all our favourite little finds that we don’t quite get the time to blog about. Below are just a few of the things we’ve shared this week.

Come follow us on Tumblr!

Do you have a geek-inspired Tumblr? Let us know in the comments

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Next week the television adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s epic zombie comic series, The Walking Dead, hits our screens courtesy of FX (via AMC).

You probably knew that already. You’ve probably seen the huge billboard posters with Andrew ‘Egg’ Lincoln’s stubbly, resolute face staring out of them. You’ve probably read a broadsheet article about Frank ‘Shawshank Redemption’ Darabont’s involvement with the project, and you’ve probably watched the startlingly effective trailer on YouTube (see below) and revelled in its clever use of the Walker Brothers hit ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’.

So if you know everything there is to know about the Walking Dead already, why am I writing this article? Well, I’m writing this to beg you not to watch it.

Experience the comic

Let me clarify: if you haven’t read The Walking Dead in comic form, then please, for all that is good and holy (or at least, undead and slightly mouldy), go and buy it now; hole up in a safe place with plenty of tinned food, and read it from cover to cover. Then, and only then, should you venture out into the world again to purchase the box set or watch the repeats.

Why am I saying this? Because I really, genuinely believe that if you watch the Walking Dead before you experience the comic, then you are denying yourself one of the most fantastic pop culture experiences of the past decade.

Think I’m exaggerating? Go and find someone who watched Zac Snyder’s Watchmen before they read the graphic novel. Ask them how that worked out, and remember to duck and make a note of the nearest exits as you do it.

Happily, I think The Walking Dead will make a much easier transformation to the screen than Watchmen did. Alan Moore’s superhero masterpiece was all but unfilmable (not that this stopped Snyder obviously), while Kirkman’s undead opus seems to have mirrored the ambition, scope and format of the ‘New Golden Age of Television’ (TM) that we’ve been lapping up for the past ten years, with a large cast of characters, unabashed violent imagery, unbridled swearing, and sheer unpredictability, all of which make it a cultural bedfellow of The Sopranos and Deadwood, as opposed to the blockbuster Hollywood comic adaptations like Spiderman and Batman.

Comic snob

I should emphasise here: I’m not being a comic snob. Honestly, I’m not. If I wanted to do that I could bang on about how waiting a whole month for the next issue to come out, and digesting the story over five long years is the only way to experience The Walking Dead. But that’s bollocks, so I won’t. And I won’t say that the comic is better than the TV series because it came first, or even because the comic medium is somehow inherently just ‘better’. Because that’s bollocks too.

What I will say is this: The Walking Dead is one of the finest comics I have ever read. And if the word ‘comic’ causes you problem, then let me rephrase… The Walking Dead is one of the finest stories I’ve ever read. It’s the only comic to make me physically gasp out loud as I turned the pages. I have never cared so much about comic characters as much as I have the ones Kirkman has so wonderfully created here; and the numerous narrative devices, plot twists, and heart-wrenching tension that arrive with each issue are so deftly delivered that you almost forget that there’s a zombie or two waiting to be decapitated just around the corner.

And I don’t care how carefully Darabont and co spin their celluloid, they’re never going to get close to the pure gold of the original material. And so why would you risk diluting that experience by watching the TV show first?

Go now. You have until Friday to track down at least the first trade paperback (although the Compendium Vol 1 is a very handsome volume, and a snip at £30). You won’t regret it, I promise.

Nick Bryan will be reviewing The Walking Dead for Dork Adore every week. The show starts on Friday 5th November on FX.

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People who blog, eh? And tweet? And check-in on Foursquare? Can we all say ‘Oversharers’? Except it seems we’re not. It looks like even the most over-share-y of internet lovers aren’t particularly embracing Facebook Places.

Could it be? Could the Daily Mail, and your mother, be wrong? Maybe we’re not a community willing to subject the whole wide world to banal updates about our lunch, unless our lunch involved tripping up in the street and being laughed at by the local yoof, or some other notable event (perhaps involving bird poo. Or Noel Fielding). Maybe we’re slightly more selective in what we share.

For instance.

If you make friends with me on Foursquare, I will only reciprocate if I know you. This is because, despite what the mainstream media thinks, I do have some degree of awareness that means I don’t actually want complete strangers knowing I’m three hours away from my robbable house. That’s not paranoia – that’s just fact.

But Facebook is another kettle of fishes. There are people on there, ‘Facebook friends’ if you will, who I haven’t seen since secondary school. For all I know, they are now petty criminals. They would probably love nothing more than knowing that I am at the National Portrait Gallery (I’m probably not – I’m probably at the Aberdeen Steakhouse opposite, but within range of, it) so they can rush round to my house and nick my Wii. Probably.

No one cares

But more importantly — I am aware that nobody cares. Facebook isn’t for sharing your daily lunch plans, it’s for sharing photos of you in various stages of drunkenness.

The people who get my Foursquare updates have gone out of their way to find out where I am. And I can only assume that’s because they’re curious people: I’m in contact with all of them and none of them has so far turned out to be a criminal.

What a rubbish media story, Internet Folk Aware That The Majority Of People Don’t Care. You can see why the subs took the red pen to it.

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Twitter/Facebook + iTunes x music = Apple’s Ping

Another end-of-summer evening, another Apple press conference. They have become a way of marking the eternal passage of time and your own undeniable mortality, right morbid gadget fans?

Well, this conference bought the announcement of Ping, which is in no way related to Microsoft’s Bing. Obviously.

Ping is a social network for music lovers. But it’s not Spotify. Obviously. Or MySpace. Obv. This is primarily a social network for music lovers who spend their cash in iTunes.

And here’s why it won’t work.

It’s all about the music you buy. It’s not the music you add to your library or the stuff you already own that you listen to a lot. Imagine if someone tried to decipher your music taste from the stuff you bought in the past two months. Would they get a fair picture? My picture would look suspiciously origins-of-ska heavy, which I can safely safe doesn’t really fit with my folksy roots. I don’t want to know what my friends have bought — I want to know what hidden gems they’ve got that I’m missing.

Who buys from iTunes? If you’re buying your music from iTunes, stop and go and buy it from Amazon — it’s generally cheaper. Or maybe you still buy CDs. Sorry, ripping them won’t contribute to your Ping profile. Or maybe you just ‘acquire’ your music. Well, obviously your stuff’s not going to be added. Pirate.

iTunes makes you want to get in, do what you need to do, and get out. Syncing never works as smoothly as it does in an Apple press conference, and I only open it under duress when it turns out my iPhone is full. It’s not the place to go and while away the hours. Sorry Steve.

In fact, if you want the stuff Ping promises, there are two places to look.

Spotify is an obvious first – not only can you see what your Facebook friends are listening to, you can see what playlists they’ve made and subscribed to. And because they’re not being asked to part with cold hard cash for each album they add, it’s a much more interesting feed. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve managed to only make friends with tightwads.

The other thing you need is Songbird, which has been billed as an alternative iTunes for a good long while now. It’s long had the ability to scan your entire music library and then suggest local gigs you’d be interested in. Which is a step above having to subscribe to every artist you like in order to get updates, a la Ping.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s plenty of stuff that looks like fun in Ping. But in my humble Apple-loving opinion, I don’t think it delves deep enough into your music collection to offer true value, and I don’t feel warm and fuzzy enough to hang out in iTunes to find myself proved wrong. Or am I wrong?

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Cinemas have been offering three dimensional viewing for some time now, so it was inevitable that our living rooms would follow suit. After all, with more and more movies filmed for 3D, eventually the DVD buyer starts to feel they’re missing something.

I imagine I’ll own a 3D set one day. So when offered the chance to see a range of demonstrations, it seemed foolish to say no, lest I be left behind in our manic dash for the future.

3D viewing shrinks into your living room

The basics, obviously, are the same. There is a screen, it shows a blurry picture, and you watch it through the darkening filter of 3D glasses to see fish swimming towards you. And let’s not forget, when it’s well-done, the effect can be amazing.

However, whereas the spectacles in cinemas are cheap plastic that you can throw away afterwards, or keep for beach season, the at-home versions include some of the technology for making the magic happen inside their very bodies.

What do these 3D glasses mean to me?

Firstly, they have to be recharged every so often, like your mobile. Secondly, they are bulkier. If you want to pretend you’re in a sci-fi movie from decades ago, this is the closest thing yet to VR visors; they even extend over your eyes to block out ambient light.

Lastly, the glasses being more than spindly Happy Meal toys means they cost a bit. The price I was quoted was £60 a pair, although this should drop as technology advances and Tesco Value alternatives rush to market.

But for now, having all your friends over for a 3D party will be an expensive exercise. Feel free to link to this post if you’re planning such a bash and want them to know how much you spent.

Do I want to throw a 3D party?

Much of the above is practical inevitability. One genuine annoyance is that 3D glasses often don’t work between different brands of set right now. So if your friend has a Phillips TV and you have a Samsung, getting him to bring his own glasses to your 3D party will not save you £60. You have to assume standardisation is coming, as that’s irritating.

But this shouldn’t become a moan about the need for glasses. Since we’re talking about the glowing technology of the future, I thought I’d finish on a shiny note. Apparently some 3D sets don’t just play movies already in 3D, they can also make existing 2D pictures pop out. Live football games, old movies and even Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles cartoons might be springing to life. Isn’t that exciting?

No, the quality won’t be as good as full professional 3D conversions, but again, this should improve as technology advances. I think we’re still in an embryonic stage with this, personally. Not for me, the teething, vomiting and expense of early adoption. But in a year or three, I genuinely believe this could be quite cool.

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Having gone public on my complete bafflement as to what the iPad was supposed to be, it took only 23 hours post-launch for me to find myself in the Apple shop willing to part with proper amounts of cash for one. And I can’t help it – I frickin’ love it.

But you’re definitely a more considered person, which means there’s certain things you should know before diving in.

AKA, I make the mistakes, so you don’t have to:

1. Don’t bother loading up any apps that aren’t optimised for the iPad.

There’s nothing more disheartening than loading an app and finding it appears as a little box in the centre of that beautiful screen – it means you’re going to get a substandard, meh experience, and for the amount of
money you just spent on the thing, that’s going to make you sad. The apps that are iPad-compatible are a thing of beauty, and they make the most of all that lovely screen real estate (or ‘space’ for those uninitiated in tech-wank-speak).

2. It’s not destined to become a commuter-aid

When I get it out in my flat, I find myself looking over my shoulder to see if there’s anyone that looks likely to pinch it. I live alone. You can only imagine the amount of paranoia I had getting the thing home from the shop.

First I was worried I’d be mugged, so I hid the bag under my seat. Then I worried I’d forget it. So I wrapped the bag strap round my wrist. Sitting with your wrist awkwardly hidden under your seat is not the most
ninja-incognito way of travelling, it turns out.

3. Bedtimes are 3,000 times better with an iPad

Whether it’s video you’ve downloaded, looking up all those things that you spent the day thinking ‘ooh, I must Wikipedia that’ or one of the classic books you always meant to read (classics are free, innit) before you know it it’ll be 1.30am, and you’ve got to be up in five and a half hours. So when I said better, maybe I just meant later.

4. Wired magazine on the iPad is… mixed

Some of it’s gorgeous, some of it’s confusing (swipe right or down? Right or down?) and some of it crashes. But you may as well get it at least once to see what all the fuss is about. Who knows, this might be the future of publishing…

5. It’ll make you look a bit of a twat

I have been taking mine to both the gym and Starbucks, all the time being well aware that it’s still enough of a novelty for me to look like the most ostentatious type of early-adopter. Whilst it helped my slog on the treadmill to have the TED talks to watch, I was so busy hiding it when I left the gym I walked straight into the men’s changing rooms. Nothing says ‘nothing to see here’ like a girl wandering into a room of naked and surprised men.

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I recently moved house and, while this entailed dealing with a whole litany of woes, the most damaging to my emotional and mental health was the loss of internet. Of course, you’re supposed to be able to move properties and have your web juice redirected without a hitch these days, but it doesn’t really work like that, does it?

The result was spending the best part of a month using either cafes’ wifi or going to local libraries. In doing the latter I created a list of things that Someone Needs To Do To Make Libraries Better Places To Do The Internet And Stuff. So, you know, send this to the person who makes things like that happen, will you?

1. Upgrade the browsers

Library one astounded me by using Internet Explorer 5 on its machines. This is a browser that was released in 1999, before pretty much any website you use on a regular basis these days even existed. Now, I’m not one to brag, but I’m a 10+ tab kinda guy. With Firefox and Chrome (and, I suppose, whatever the latest IE version is) this is no problem. But at the library it was like going back to the 20th Century, when you ended up with a zillion IE windows all over your desktop. And don’t even get me started on how bumming horrid it is to use.

2. Allow us to use your ports

I’m not saying I want to rock up at the library with my ergonomic mouse and killer speakers – I just mean that, if I have something to print, it may be stored on a USB stick or external hard drive which I‘d like to connect. But while library computers coquettishly display their inviting slots, they prudishly disapprove of you actually inserting your foreign object lest it carries some kind of icky virus. So you end up sweaty, frustrated and unsatisfied. Especially if you made a lot of effort to dress up all nice, like.

3. Allow us to open bloody PDFs, you berks

I had to print out a plane ticket and itinerary, and figured it would be no big deal to print these out at the library. However, my documents were presented in some new-fangled format known as “PDF”, and of course the machines didn’t have the necessary software (is it “Acrobat”, they call it? Weird!). Fortunately Google Docs allows you to open things like PDFs, in a less visually pleasing but passable manner. If it didn’t, I’m still not sure how I would have printed my stuff out.

4. Get the pensioners away from me

I’m not saying pensioners shouldn’t use the internet. I’m all for the silver surfers. But most of them have no idea what they’re doing and, if a (slightly) younger person happens to be sat nearby, they won’t think twice about appointing them their own personal “computer whiz” (accompanied by the internationally-recognised finger-waggling “computers” gesture). And, like the lady on the plane who can’t work out how to “make films come on”, if you help them once you’re done for. Your important LOLcats session is going to be one long interruptathon.

What’s the solution? As is so often the case with social problems, it’s age segregation. Simple.

5. Install brain-scanners to filter out the lunatics

Any free-to-enter place with… stuff is always going to attract a wide range of personality types, and it’s no different with libraries. My visits saw me encounter:

- A man using a computer and becoming more and more visibly and audibly upset, until he was just rocking back and forth, huffing at a decent volume
- A man quietly (but not quietly enough) chanting to himself as he surfed the web
- A lady with a high-pitched voice complaining to the staff that her machine hated her
- A man in camouflage with a full camping kit striding purposefully about the place pointing out what was wrong with the library
Actually, he and I had a bit in common.

I realise I’m beyond help when it comes to the points that are to do with Other People, but what about the rest? Am I being too harsh? Is it enough for boroughs to offer free internet facilities? Or should they make more of an effort to provide I.T experiences more in keeping with what the majority of regular internetters enjoy? Do you even care? Have you ever even *used* a library’s I.T facilities?

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I went on it so you don’t have to.

Things I saw:

1. A lady who had lost her clothes, but had distracted herself sufficiently, and in doing so, educated me regarding female anatomy in a way I hadn’t experienced since GCSE Science.

2. A man who had the camera trained on the rolls of fat round his stomach. It was a timely reminder to put down that biscuit.

3. A man who had the camera trained on his crotch. It was the neon green synthetic sports shorts (like the kind you used to have to wear in PE) that made this decidedly non-sexual.

4. A girl who looked disconcertingly like me, chewing on her fingernails in the exact same manner as I was doing at that moment.  Eek.

5. A man having a wank. Sorry, he just was.

6. A naked man, except oddly, he had the camera trained at his chest. Maybe he only went for the Big Reveal with people he’d built up a relationship with. Sweet, really.

7. A man who looked like he might have been a very famous author, who I thought might have been interesting to talk to. I’m easily influenced by 60-year-olds with good haircuts and geek chic glasses.

8. A girl surrounded by smoke. I will forever now wonder if that was from a cigarette, or if I should have called the fire brigade. She seemed quite chilled, so I’m going to assume the former.

9. Someone who had the camera trained on the art on his wall. What a novel and yet somehow quite useless way of marketing your creations.

10. Someone else having a wank. I’m getting quite used to this now.

Things I have learnt:

• You’d have to spend an awful lot of time on there to come across any improv musicians

• Untick that safe search box, and you’re asking for… well, exactly what you’d think you were asking for

• There are many more men on there than women, at least in the non-family friendly area

• It’s probably not for me

Image from Flickr user Guerretto

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This week, we’ve got a guest post from Jenny Williams.

In recent years, it has become quite acceptable to find yourself at a party being challenged to perform your best SingStar song. Since 2005, with the release of Guitar Hero, play-along gaming has got bigger and bigger. We’ve been given SingStar, DJ Hero, Lips, Rock Revolution and even Easy Piano on the DS.

Meanwhile, the Mix Me In iPhone app by Fried Green Apps has reached the ‘New and Noteworthy’ section of Apple’s App Store. Musical technology has reached every corner of the gaming market.

But, as we’re busy being Guitar Heroes, Elton John on the DS piano, in the Beatles’ rock band and a DJ for Jay-Z, has play-along music gaming reached a dead end?

I spent many evenings during my teenage years attempting to master hammer-ons and pull-offs, which is more innocent than it sounds. To surpass playing ‘Chopsticks’ or the introduction to ‘Smoke on the Water’ by Deep Purple, learning to play the piano or guitar is an often a painstaking process, requiring hours of practice.

However, within moments of loading Rock Band, I have received 100% rating at The Beatles’ Hello Goodbye and am boasting my musicality to my whole family. Result! What could be more fun than having your ego stroked while pretending to be a rock star?

Never mind that ‘Guitar Hero’ guitars look essentially like Early Learning versions of grown-ups’ guitars, teenage boys across the world are happily trading in requests for a real Fender Stratocaster for a Rock Band version with buttons big enough for inpatient beginners.

After all, this isn’t about achieving musical finesse, Rock Band is about mimicking your musical heroes in your front room.

Not everyone is happy about the rise of this musical gaming foolery. In February 2008, NanaOn-Sha CEO and PaRappa the Rapper creator, Masaya Matsuura, famously challenged play-along music games at the D.I.C.E Summit in Las Vegas, saying the genre was growing stale and was in need of new ideas.

Admittedly, this type of gaming has its limits. Once you’ve demonstrated your rockability to your friends and stayed up ’til the wee small hours perfecting your Rock Band drumming, there is nowhere else for the game to go. But musical games are beginning to bridge the gap between fantasy and reality.

Following on from the popularity of play-along games, the release of Easy Piano on the Nintendo DS last month saw the launch of a musical tutorial game, complete with plug-in one octave keyboard. It’s no substitute for piano lessons; the layout is much the same as Rock Band, responding to on-screen prompts. However, basic musical theory is introduced. It’s like your Mum sneaking cabbage into your mashed potato when you’re a kid: play-along gaming with educational benefits.

So, perhaps, as music games keep developing to incorporate more complex musical features and theory, gamers will continue to move closer to achieving musical hero status. Heck, gamers might even be inspired to pick up a traditional guitar and become real-life musical geniuses.

In the meantime, I’m merely happy with the delusion. the gaming market has made us all think we could really be music stars if we gave up our day jobs and transferred those colour-matching skills to the piano keys or guitar frets.

Jenny is a freelance journalist and editor of her very own tech site, Witch Tech.

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