I watch the Watchmen

Watchmen is a comic series about superheroes. It is kind of a big deal. They recently made a movie about.

This movie is coming out next week. Because I was excited for it, I looked around to see if I could get one piece of merchandise.

A smiley button with a stylized blood splatter.

Long story short, in the comic, there is a man called the Comedian. He wears a smiley button and he is murdered. When he is killed, the button gets splattered with blood, and this iconic image of the blood splattered smiley face button has become a symbol of sorts for the entire series.

Ok?

So I was looking to find an official button. Not possible. They don't even make it. They make TONS of buttons for Watchmen (appealing to the Hot Topic crowd I suppose), but not a one of them is the iconic blood splattered smiley. What the hell?

Worse, like I said, this icon has become a symbol for the entire series, mostly thanks to it being used as the cover for the paperback collected edition I think. But it's not used in any of the artwork for the movie release. Instead, they have a special edition release with the Doomsday Clock colored yellow FOR NO REASON, and splattered with blood as the smiley button is supposed to be. Basically, they replaced the smiley with the Doomsday Clock (which itself is a noteworthy symbol in the series). Sucks.

Reason: As far as I can guess, it is because the original smiley graphic is copyrighted, and even though Time Warner was willing to pay to use it for the collected edition of the comic, they were not willing to pay to use it for the home video release of the movie. They weren't even willing to pay the case to get the graphic used on any of the MANY buttons they made to coincide with the film's release. Apparently, they never even made any for just the comics release either, but wow. How hard should it be to give the fans a simple button with a yellow smiley face and a small splatter of blood printed on it?

And while I'm babbling about Watchmnen, I'd like to say this: Amazon has it on pre-order for 20.50. New release Blu-ray of a high profile comic adaptation. Just barely north of 20 dollars. And people are STILL complaining about how expensive Blu-ray is compared to DVD. Check again, fool, the DVD of this movie is only a couple dollars less.