When you’re dealing with a hallowed franchise like Watchmen, you have to watch your step around the rabid fanbase. Or maybe, you don’t have to watch it at all, because no matter what you do, you’re going to piss some of them off. In either case, DC Entertainment has just officially confirmed a set of Before Watchmen prequel comic books; guess who’s pissed?

Battle not with ponies, lest ye become a pony yourself; and if you gaze into the herd, the herd gazes also into you.

(via Topless Robot)

Everyone’s favorite seemingly insane antihero Rorschach, from the comic and (more recently) movie Watchmen, sported a neat mask that autonomously changed patterns, which YouTube user guinness0507 was actually able to recreate in real life. The patterns change based on temperature changes, which is taken care of by simply breathing into the mask.

The idea actually isn’t too complicated. With the application of Thermochromic paint, paint that changes color based on temperature, the mask’s patterns respond to the heat of human breath, a clever workaround to achieve an effect very similar to Rorschach’s fictional mask.

(guinness0507 via Nerd Bastards)

Phenomenology of ‘Watchmen’ from sean mattio on Vimeo.

In psychology, phenomenology is a study concerned with consciousness, experience, and the communication of experiences.  “Is what I call red the same color as what you call red?” is a phenomenological question.

And so we give you, phenomenology in Watchmen, a short video explaining the different ways in which characters in the novel experience reality and how they describe that experience.  Yeah, this video is about some pretty high concepts and is probably really better suited to being a power point presentation.  But we promise that it’s worth it.

Or maybe we’re just philosophy/writing nerds.

Needless to say, there are Watchmen spoilers in it.

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Why The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Don’t Use Their Weapons (CollegeHumor)

The Trailer for Source Code (Bleeding Cool)

The LAPD’s Stolen Art Database (BoingBoing)

Mr. Peanut Speaks, Is Product of Impressive Stop-Motion Animators (Motionographer)

The First Page of Watchmen Goes For $33,500 (Bleeding Cool)

Amazon Expands Its Game Downloads Service (Joystiq)

(pic via Reddit.)

Got five figures to throw around on a piece of real comics history? Then you can go put in your bid at the Heritage Auction Galleries auction of the original pencil and inks of the first page of Watchmen, scripted by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons.

The bidding currently stands at $6,500, but don’t expect it to stay there for long. In the words of Heritage Auctions themselves:

Watchmen pages do not come along often, in fact Heritage has never offered one before! We know of many people who have read Watchmen who have never read any other comic book, and given that mass appeal, we expect very strong demand for this lot.

Just be careful when reading the rest of their description. It’s got a serious spoiler in it. ಠ_ಠ

There’s been a lot of hubbub this weekend over an interview published on Bleeding Cool, where Adi Tantimedh, a writer of comics and film, interviewed Alan Moore, a writer of a great many different things, over a subject that was bound to get Moore to say some inflammatory things: Watchmen, who has the rights to it, and his current relationship with DC Comics.

It should come as no surprise that Moore said some pretty inflammatory things. The post interview commentator debate seems to be between two camps: those who believe that Moore is a paranoid weirdo, and those who believe that Moore is a justifiably paranoid weirdo.

Allow us to explain.

Happy Japanese Kirby, angry American Kirby (Game Revolution)

Laver’s law of fashion (37Signals)

Making bacon by bakin’ (Bacon Today)

Analyzing StarCraft II‘s ranking system (Sirlin)

Pacey-Con 2010 (Rillawafers)

Composite photo of 30 meter tombstoning plunge (news.com.au)

The Watchmen Test (Bleeding Cool)

(title image via Pearl’s Sentimental Journey; h/t Copyranter)

Alan Moore no longer pays any heed to superheroes. In an interview with British music newspaper The Stool Pigeon recently, the creator of the watershed comic Watchmen spoke about the works which made him an international superstar in the comics industry. Despite his stature, Moore is a noted recluse and has insisted strongly on distancing himself from the numerous film adaptations of his work (From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Constantine, V for Vendetta, and Watchmen), which have all fallen short of the nuanced originals.

The eccentric writer has now also distanced himself, apparently, from the comic book superhero, “[suspecting] that a lot of superheroes now are basically about the unfair fight.” We’ve collected just a few of his particularly interesting quotes, including his thoughts on the Internet, the iconic Guy Fawkes mask showing up at protests, and real-life superheroes:

In case you haven’t heard, the only news in the world today is that LeBron James decided that he is going to play basketball for the Miami Heat instead of the New York Knicks or the Cleveland Cavaliers. This has made some people in Cleveland very sad, including the team’s owner, Dan Gilbert.

Dan Gilbert was so upset, in fact, that he wrote a very angry open letter to Cleveland fans, laden with surprising capitalizations and lines like “The self-declared former “King” will be taking the “curse” with him down south. And until he does “right” by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma,” and “‘I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE’ You can take it to the bank.”

We will leave it to our sporting brethren at SportsGrid to parse the meaning and sporty implications of all of this to the world of people who care about sports. For our part, the most important thing to note about Dan Gilbert’s letter is that it was written in Comic Sans. Comic Sans.