In situations likes these it's best to sigh and then shrug.  DC Comics has officially announced that they'll be launching Before Watchmen, prequel comics based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen.  While there have been murmurings of Watchmen prequel and sequel comics for years, the prequels will really happen now with writers and everything.  DC Comics asked Alan Moore for his blessing, but he (unsurprisingly) refused. He then returned to the woods to forage for nuts and berries.  However, Gibbons released a statement saying,

"The original series of Watchmen is the complete story that Alan Moore and I wanted to tell. However, I appreciate DC’s reasons for this initiative and the wish of the artists and writers involved to pay tribute to our work. May these new additions have the success they desire,"

Hit the jump for more, including a first look at the covers for the prequels.

Info collected via Bleeding Cool.

Rorschach by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo [cover via USA Today]

Comedian by Brian Azzarello and JG Jones [cover via The New York Times]

Minutemen by Darwyn Cooke [cover via Hero Complex]

Silk Spectre by Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner [cover via EW]

Doctor Manhattan by J. Michael Straczynski and Adam Hughes [cover via CBR]

Nite Owl by J. Michael Strazynski, Andy Kubert, and Joe Kubert [cover via THR]

Ozymandias by Len Wein and Jae Lee [cover via Wired]

Each issue will include two pages of a separate, continuing backup story, Curse of the Crimson Corsair.  Minutemen will have six issues, and the other books will have four issues.  The comics will be released weekly beginning this summer.  There will also be Before Watchmen: Epilogue featuring Crimson Corsair and a series of stories from various creators including Wein and artist John Higgins.

[cover via DC Source]

I'm not particularly passionate about this news either way.  Azzarello is alright, I'm not really familiar with Cooke, Wein has a lifetime pass for creating Wolverine, and Staczynski will inevitably write himself into a corner.  The larger implication is how DC (and its parent company, Warner Bros.) plan to take these books and expand them into TV shows, movies, animated movies, or what-have-you.  At the very least, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of those awful "motion comics".

Finally, federal law requires that I include this image in the story: