WHO WATCHED THE WATCHMEN (in 1986)?

Over on Comix 411, our pal Tom Mason (veteran writer of things from YA novels to cartoon show, but for us he could have stopped after creating Dinosaurs For Hire and still been cool forever) took last Friday's release of the Watchmen movie to check in with comic book industry folks about their memories of the initial release of Watchmen #1 in 1986. It was a random, unscientific sampling to be sure, but the question prompted some very interesting responses.

Among the participants were Frank Mangiaracina (formerly of Friendly Frank’s Distribution), Chris Ulm (formerly Editor-in-Chief of Malibu Comics, now a game developer), Tom Heintjes (Editor of the great magazine Hogan’s Alley), our friend Mark Herr (who worked at Geppi's Comic World back in the day), Brian Augustyn (Gotham By Gaslight), John Jackson Miller (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic), Gary Guzzo (former retailer and Marvel PR guy, among many other titles), Dave Olbrich (former Publisher of Malibu Comics), Carl Potts (former Executive Editor of Marvel Comics), Aaron Lopresti (artist), and yours truly.

Click for Part One or Part Two.