DC Comics announced plans to launch After Watchmen, a comprehensive marketing campaign intended to highlight and support a wide range of its superhero, science-fiction and adventure titles in the wake of the opening of the Watchmen movie. The campaign is intended to take advantage of the enormous media attention and consumer interest in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen graphic novel and bring attention to a broad range of genres and comics titles on the DC list.
The After Watchmen program will initially focus on a list of about 20 book collections—from other works by Alan Moore to such works as Bill Willingham’s Fables to Brian K. Vaughan’s Y The Last Man—likely to appeal to new fans as well as to established comics fans looking for something new. The program will include the launch of, AfterWatchmen.com, a new Web site set to launch on March 11 (the site will feature an expanded list of 50 titles) and a 32-page After Watchmen, Whats Next? booklet which will highlight the list of After Watchmen titles. Among the 20 titles on the initial After Watchmen list are Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis, Garth Ennis’s Preacher, Brian Azzarello’s Joker; Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. The program will also include co-op advertising programs, e-mail newsletters, new groups on Facebook and MySpace and national consumer advertising.
DC senior v-p, sales and marketing Steve Rotterdam said, “We recognize that the success of Watchmen opens doors to new readers, and we’re more than happy to use this opportunity to bring new readers into our world.” Watchmen, which had mixed reviews, still was the box office leader over the last weekend.
