DC Announces Absolute Watchmen

From Newsarama.

Announced at today’s “Beyond the DC Universe” panel at WizardWorld LA was the next addition to DC’s very successful “Absolute” line this fall: Absolute Watchmen. The new edition of the classic Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons story is currently being adapted to the larger, “Absolute” format and recolored by original colorist John Higgins. The edition is being produced with the blessing of Alan Moore.

The edition will run 464 pages (and will also double as a blunt object if need be), and will be a complete reprinting not of the original series as published by DC, but of the Graphitti edition, a collection published by Graphitti in the late ‘80s that included 48 pages of extra material.

Speaking of the artist, we spoke with Gibbons briefly about the forthcoming collection. As many already confess to be, Gibbons is also a fan of the publisher’s “Absolute” format, and was thrilled when he learned that DC wanted top present Watchmen in this manner.

“As an artist, I love the Absolute books,” Gibbons said. “The pages have much more impact at the large size and the production values are first rate. In fact, many of the foreign editions of Watchmen were done at this larger, album size, so I have a really good idea of how it will look already.

“The Absolute volume also gives us the chance to digitally remaster the coloring and correct a few mistakes that have always bugged us. We're not going to redraw or change the look of the book in any way; we'll just bring it closer to what we had in mind all those years ago.

”The coloring is being exactly reproduced from the regular edition, then original colorist John Higgins is tweaking the digital files before sending them to me for final approval. Back in the day, John lived a few miles away from me and would bring color guides over to discuss with me. Today, he lives a few miles from DC and is in close contact with them on technical matters, whilst thanks to the wonders of technology; I get daily pages for approval.

”Everything is looking really good, crisper and more vibrant than ever and it's great to be working with John again.”

Sounds like it's time for me to trade in my ratty version of Watchmen for the new harcore edition. Hopefully DC will continue to collect other greats in Absolute editions, like the Dark Knight Returns or Year One. We shall see.
Classified under: comics,Watchmen