COMICS: First Look At THE MINUTEMEN From Darwyn Cooke's WATCHMEN PREQUEL

COMICS: First Look At THE MINUTEMEN From Darwyn Cooke's WATCHMEN PREQUEL

The art for the Minutemen, 'Before Watchmen' prequel will please fans who liked DC: The New Frontier. The art definitely evokes classic Darwyn Cooke.

News
By MarkJulian - Feb 15, 2012 04:02 AM EST
Filed Under: Comics
Source: Fast Co. Create via Bleeding Cool

Here's the initial look [left] at the art for one of the Watchmen prequel comics, Minutemen from writer/artist Darwyn Cooke, who is most probably well known for the critically acclaimed DC: The New Frontier.

BEFORE WATCHMEN includes:

* RORSCHACH (4 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: Lee Bermejo

* MINUTEMEN (6 issues) – Writer/Artist: Darwyn Cooke

* COMEDIAN (6 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: J.G. Jones

* DR. MANHATTAN (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artist: Adam Hughes

* NITE OWL (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artists: Andy and Joe Kubert

* OZYMANDIAS (6 issues) – Writer: Len Wein. Artist: Jae Lee

* SILK SPECTRE (4 issues) – Writer: Darwyn Cooke. Artist: Amanda Conner

Here's how the Minutemen were interpreted in Zack Snyder's movie as well as the promo/cover art released for Minutemen at the time of DC's announcement.






Darwyn Cooke is an Eisner Award-winning comic book writer, artist, cartoonist and animator, best known for his work on the comic books Catwoman, DC: The New Frontier, The Spirit and Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter.

Early in his career, Cooke worked as a storyboard artist for Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series, and in 1999 he animated the main title design for Batman Beyond.

Cooke's most ambitious project was DC: The New Frontier (2004), a six issue miniseries which sought to tell an epic storyline bridging the gap between the end of the golden and the start of the silver age of comic books in the DC Universe. The story, which was set in the 1950s, featured dozens of super-hero characters and drew inspiration from the comic books and movies of the period as well as from Tom Wolfe's non-fiction account of the start of the US Space Program The Right Stuff. The major DC characters are introduced in The New Frontier in the same order that DC originally published them, even down to the correct month and year in the story's timeline.




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Ancar
Ancar - 2/15/2012, 4:15 AM
Very good and I love Cooke's art. If the script goes through dark places it will be fantastic!!!
siggisuperman
siggisuperman - 2/15/2012, 4:22 AM
I love this guys art, his work on The New Frontier was great
MercMatt
MercMatt - 2/15/2012, 4:27 AM
Very much looking forward to collecting this series.
DudeGuy
DudeGuy - 2/15/2012, 4:46 AM
when do these hit shelves?
siddhant1138
siddhant1138 - 2/15/2012, 4:52 AM
My strong anti-Before Watchmen bias aside, this genuinely looks awful....
GUNSMITH
GUNSMITH - 2/15/2012, 4:53 AM
QUESTION: WHY WEAR YOUR UNDERWEAR ON THE OUTSIDE?
BackwardGalaxy
BackwardGalaxy - 2/15/2012, 5:04 AM
I really do love Cooke's artwork.
Daniellantern
Daniellantern - 2/15/2012, 5:05 AM
@demonhunter15: Yeah, I'm looking forward for that scene too.
WorldsGreatestdetective
WorldsGreatestdetective - 2/15/2012, 5:35 AM
You know I didn't want to pick up before watchmen and all but after actually looking who are the authors and writers, much more interested!
Boyle360
Boyle360 - 2/15/2012, 5:40 AM
@GUNSMITH
Question: Why the hell do you constantly type in capitals. Stop NOW!
Oxbow
Oxbow - 2/15/2012, 6:15 AM
@Gunsmith: check out the circus strongmen's costumes from the 20's and 30's, when superman and many other superheroes were first starting out. These larger than life figures were what the comics creators were referencing, a reference that is missing in our culture =)
Oxbow
Oxbow - 2/15/2012, 6:18 AM
I want to see what J. Michael Straczynski does with Dr. Manhattan...hopefully he can capture that omniscient, God-like perspective that is being in the Doc's mind. The Ozymandias one might be interesting too.
Orphix
Orphix - 2/15/2012, 6:18 AM
This is pretty much dead to me. Makes no sense.

The less we know about the background of these characters, the better. Thats what makes Watchmen work. They are in serious danger of devaluing the original story - if these are successful.

The whole point about the original story are that you are taking broken, flawed characters who are cynical, corrupt or psycholigically scarred. Seeing them at the beginning ruins that intial premise!

cmax
cmax - 2/15/2012, 6:21 AM
Cooke doing a MM series is pretty much the best thing to come out of this entire "Before" idea. If any of these look good - it's this one.
NorrinRaddical
NorrinRaddical - 2/15/2012, 6:34 AM
I am such a huge Cooke fan, and trust him almost blindly, that it is severely forcing me to overcome any and all aversion to these borderline disrespectful and unnecessary prequels. the creative teams are solid, even a few i'm not terribly excited by, but Cooke is really a masterful story teller, and his "watching" over the entire project gives me tremendous faith
NorrinRaddical
NorrinRaddical - 2/15/2012, 6:37 AM
ORPHIX you raise some great points. I love reading (and re-reading, and re-reading) Watchmen word for word, line by line, because Moore gives wonderful punctuation of history and story where the immense joy (for me) comes from connecting those dots. I would agree with you that having these series fill in those gaps for us will water it down, but i AM hoping for some occasionally emotionally resonant stories, told excitingly, with exceptional artwork. subjectively, i just can't NOT look to see what someone like Cooke, Hughes, or Jae Lee have been working on, if only out of awe struck curiosity
RealGothamite
RealGothamite - 2/15/2012, 6:42 AM
Lovin the artwork for this!
Dedpool
Dedpool - 2/15/2012, 6:57 AM
Cooke is the perfect person for this!
Oxbow
Oxbow - 2/15/2012, 6:57 AM
yea PunkVigilante, SuperGods was cool, just tremendously good writing about superheroes... I don't really follow Grant Morrison but this book is something special. We'll have to geek out in the chat-room about this stuff sometime haha!

I think Morrison looks at Watchmen as almost too perfect and precious, too well-thought out. I enjoy all those layers Moore and Gibbons put into the work but I still don't think of Watchmen as some untouchable text that can never be expanded upon. I wish comics companies would respect creator's rights more, but at the same time, I want to see what some of these guys can do with the characters! Plus, Alan Moore is always against these things, so after a while you just start to dial him out (even though you still consider him one bad-ass dude, right? ;-))
Scooby
Scooby - 2/15/2012, 7:23 AM
Nice!
thetrojan
thetrojan - 2/15/2012, 8:07 AM
any nostalgia kick works well when delivered by darwyn.

fine artist.

In fact look at the list ,they are all fine artists.
JasonCYates
JasonCYates - 2/15/2012, 8:16 AM
In spite of the routine bitching from the legion of Moore-ons, I am excited to see these characters dusted off and back on shelves, I have longed to know more about them and see how they would do in a regular series. I can understand some nervousness about this, but I'm not worried, the artists and writers they have are among the best and have as much love for the series as we do.

I am very excited about the MINUTEMEN in particular!!!! I have wanted to see more done w/ them and I love that it's Darwyn Cooke doing the art, so the style is going to at least feel older and more traditional:)

I still hate that NEW DC COMICS LOGO, it's boring, un-inspiring, and most of all cheap, not in the good way. WTF are they thinking? In spite of what most of us think, it's here to stay from the looks of it, but I'm not looking forward to seeing it on the big screen in front of future films either:(
nuck82
nuck82 - 2/15/2012, 9:06 AM
ill be picking them up, give it a change, for sure rorschake and comdien, but those will be dark and gritty
plasticman
plasticman - 2/15/2012, 9:20 AM
@ siddhant1138- Clean off your glasses and then look again. There is no reason to hate on Cooke's work. His nostaligic look shows originality over the flashy crap that can pass as illustrations in comics these days.
JackBauer
JackBauer - 2/15/2012, 9:42 AM
Wasn't the chick in black a closet lesbian that died doing some S&M stuff? I hope they show that.
HemingfordGrey
HemingfordGrey - 2/15/2012, 3:12 PM
I am really not excited for the Watchmen Prequels. However, that being said, I am really looking forward to this one for two major reasons. 1) I love period pieces. 2) F*** yes Darwyn Cooke.
Of all the Watchmen mytho's, I feel that the Minutemen comic is the one that can actually work with the original Watchmen.
That being said, I hope that this all goes well for DC and doesn't tank miserably. Usually, I would be upset that a company is taking a classic and overplaying it, but DC has made Watchmen canon. As its own separate Earth, the Watchmen Universe is a part of DC. If they can expand it and make it better, hats off to them.
But if they f*** it up, well, we will forget it happened. Watchmen is still a beloved comic. Think of it like Star Wars. The first three (Original Trilogy) are timeless, amazing movies. The prequels, meh.
It is the same thing for me. If they suck, they suck. The original is still good.
Tl;dr.
I love Darwyn, will be picking this up.
BlindLemonShemp
BlindLemonShemp - 2/15/2012, 9:31 PM
@Chechen: Marvel 1602... so at least 1 :)
AUSSYACE
AUSSYACE - 2/17/2012, 3:54 AM
MAKE MINE DC !!!
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