Retailers got a look at some Before Watchmen pages in black-and-white at the Diamond Chicago Summit. As I'd previously heard, and now have confirmed, only Amanda Conner is using the 9 panel grid format that so defined the original Watchmen comic for Silk Spectre, and that everyone else is breaking format. Though some return to it momentarily.

One retailer tells me "the Rorschach book looks fantastic with the detail you would expect and the Doctor Manhattan book is solid" so good news for Lee Bermejo and Adam Hughes fans there. The Crimson Corsair back up strip will have two pages in each book, but that might extend into the run.

I'm told "the Jae Lee Ozymandias stuff is very detailed and DC's Bob Wayne describes it as the best stuff he has ever seen from Jae Lee… The Darwyn Cooke Minutemen pages are clean and with a retro design.."

Before Watchmen will also be receiving television advertising for its launch, as well as ads for the New 52 books and the Dark Knight movie, naturally, but directing people to comic stores. Batman Earth One has preorders higher than Superman Earth One. And even though the Before Watchmen books aren't holding the line at $2.99, 82.7% of DC books will keep to this price point this summer.