Watchmen, Complete Edition.
by Alan Moore
|
|
| published
|
2000
by Carlsen
|
| first published
| 1987 |
| binding
| Paperback |
| isbn
|
3551744084
(isbn13: 9783551744081)
|
| literary awards
| 1988 Locus Awards Winner (Non-Fiction) |
| date added
|
12-29-06
|
|
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Aaron's been telling me for a long time that I should read a select few of his favorite comic books. And I haven't been avoiding them. But when I'm looking around the house for something to read, I forget to wander over to the comics section. So finally he just made a stack of books for me, and I started with Watchmen.
And within the first few pages I was testing his patience with questions/comments including:
"Why is Rorshach the hero when he's clearly insane?"
"...more
Aaron's been telling me for a long time that I should read a select few of his favorite comic books. And I haven't been avoiding them. But when I'm looking around the house for something to read, I forget to wander over to the comics section. So finally he just made a stack of books for me, and I started with Watchmen.
And within the first few pages I was testing his patience with questions/comments including:
"Why is Rorshach the hero when he's clearly insane?"
"None of these people are very pleasant."
"Why doesn't Laurie shut up?"
"Seriously. When does Laurie shut up?"
"Are any of these people not crazy?"
"The Comedian is a stupid super-hero name."
"I'm not good at looking at the pictures for information."
"I like the text parts between the chapters."
He told me that if I wasn't enjoying it I should just stop (and he was probably thinking, "If she doesn't like whining, then why doesn't she shut up?"). But I said it wasn't that I wasn't enjoying it--well, I wasn't enjoying it, but I was appreciating it.
And that's my final verdict, I guess. I didn't enjoy it, exactly, because I don't think you're supposed to enjoy a story in which at least three-fifths of the characters are certifiably insane or at least significantly imbalanced and in which New York City becomes a body-choked charnel house. I wouldn't like to say that I enjoy heaps of bloody corpses.
But I did appreciate the signficance of the book, I think. I think I understand, at least from an outsider's perspective, the sea change this must have represented in the tone and depth of funny books, and what a huge influence and touchstone this book must be, and all that jazz.
But in terms of pure individual reaction? Well, it was kind of like when I finally saw The French Connection. There's all this build up about The French Connection and what a great car chase it has and how influential it was and how it marked the birth of a new type of movie anti-hero who inhabited a realistic moral grey zone, blah, blah, blah. And then when you finally see it, you've seen so many subsequent films that were influenced by it that the original seems old hat. Having seen Ronin, I was not blown away by the car chase in The French Connection. So, my reaction to Watchmen was colored by the fact that I have only been exposed to comic books in a post-Watchmen world. I didn't read comics when I was young. Everything I know about comics I've learned from Aaron Matthew Polk, and he's a huge Watchmen fan, so I had already absorbed the Watchmen worldview without ever having read the book.
Of course, it's good to have read it so I have a better chance of participating in or at least following along with comic geek conversations. Now I, too, can speculate on casting should a Watchmen movie ever get the green light, and I, too, can bemoan the eventual script's lack of fidelity to the source material, and I, too, can complain when they screw up the CGI on Doc Manhattan.
There should be some sort of merit badge that the girlfriends of geeks can earn--just like in the Girl Scouts, when you get a badge for selling a certain number of cookies, or the stickers and certificates earned by people who give a lot of blood, or the chips they give recovering alcoholics for a certain period of sobriety. I have earned my one comic book badge. It's like being a puny-colored belt of some kind in karate.
The point is, I appreciated the book, sort of in the same way that I might appreciate a text I was assigned to read for a class. I mean, I get Great Expectations, but I'm not going to read it again. (Who is crazier: Miss Havisham or Rorshach? Discuss.)...less
bookshelves:
graphicnovels
Read in May, 2007
recommends it for:
people interested in the nature of heroes
I just finished reading Watchmen by the very intense Alan Moore of V for Vendetta fame. I've been on a bit of a comic book/graphic novel kick recently after completing a whole host of non-fiction work for use in my Master's thesis. The Watchmen is one of those books that anyone who cares, or cared, about comic books and superheroes should read. Set in an alternate American time line, skewed by th...more
I just finished reading Watchmen by the very intense Alan Moore of V for Vendetta fame. I've been on a bit of a comic book/graphic novel kick recently after completing a whole host of non-fiction work for use in my Master's thesis. The Watchmen is one of those books that anyone who cares, or cared, about comic books and superheroes should read. Set in an alternate American time line, skewed by the existence of masked vigilantes (read: superheroes), Watchmen explores an America that wins the Vietnam War, never catches Nixon as a crook (in fact electing him to a third term), and then makes it illegal to be a superhero without doing so in service of the government.
Like Moore's other work, there are some very thinly veiled critics of the Reagan/Thatcher era. Moore visions a cowboy Americana were everyone is in it for themselves, notions of morality are arbitrary and strictly enforced, and the only officially recognized victims are those already in power. Moore exaggerates phenomenon to make a point about them the same way a satirist might. However, Moore seems instead is reading from the Orwell literary playbook here, warning of how this course of society could devolve. Like Orwell saw an inherent danger in Stalinism, Moore is warning of the dangers of the emerging framework of the Neo-Conservatives. Tough-love for the poor, welfare for the rich, jingoism, and fundamentalism are all part of Moore's world, then called Reaganism. Although Moore personally saw this through Thatcher, the basic reactionary quality was the same on both sides of the Atlantic.
This book touched my personally because it hit upon a discomfort, stemming from an initial fascination, with heroes. I spent many hours of my childhood loving Superman. Lex Luthor, by then a crooked businessman and not the crazed scientist of earlier years, was always the easy personification of evil. His occupation always reflected an area of society that created fear (mad scientists in the 60s, corporate vultures in the 80s, and now I hear politician). With Lex Luthor as the the ultimate evil, Superman by contrast became the ultimate good. The Christ metaphors were never lost on my as a child. The most recent movie did everything but use the phrase "my only begotten son" when describing Superman. And for a time the notion that all we needed was a hero was very comforting to me. However, as Moore would be quick to point out, that desire for a hero is easily exploited.
There are many people much more schooled in comics and superheroes than I that can tell you how much Watchmen changed the genre. I simply know that it did. Characters became more sophisticated and moral choices became less clear. But it is clear to me why this is such a landmark piece. Moore has that ability of all great writers to chastise and console in the same breath, on the same thought. He tells his readers that superheroes are pathetic refuge from reality, but then invites you to share in that fantasy. And for a time you are taken with this world, think maybe there could be a place for superheroes in our world. Then the end comes and you realize what kind of world our supposed heroes really want to bring us. ...less
Read in June, 2008
I've heard nothing but unflinching hyperbolic praise for this book. I wonder if it's even possible for anything to live up to the kind of hype this has suffered. It's the only graphic novel/comic book to be included on Time Magazine's list of 100 greatest novels since the beginning of Time's publication. That's a lot of pressure - to be the sole symbol and representation and of an entire art form for a popular and wide audience. I mean, this thing needs to be devastatingly good.
Forget al...more
I've heard nothing but unflinching hyperbolic praise for this book. I wonder if it's even possible for anything to live up to the kind of hype this has suffered. It's the only graphic novel/comic book to be included on Time Magazine's list of 100 greatest novels since the beginning of Time's publication. That's a lot of pressure - to be the sole symbol and representation and of an entire art form for a popular and wide audience. I mean, this thing needs to be devastatingly good.
Forget all that noise, and this is just a great book. "Best ever" - I'm not sure, but it definitely stands out as a milestone, and a sort of mile marker in superhero comics, along with Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns. 1985-86 is when comics got really dark, and really sinister and scary in a real life way that had never really been approached before. Sure Galactus had come around to eat the Earth and Doctor Doom, I'm sure had hatched some Armageddon schemes, and Darkseid had set out to control everybody's thoughts, but all of those doomsday scenarios were set at a safe distance from reality, all based on ridiculous, albeit compelling, contingencies. Furthermore, those stories always provided superheros you could rely on to save the day. The great myth-makers could never get away with letting the Silver Surfer or the Fantastic Four or Superman fail at their missions to save the world.
Moore's world of Watchmen is quite different. Superheros have seen their heyday decades ago, and the American public and government now sees these masked vigilantes as nothing more than criminals, head-cases not to be trusted. What's really grim, is the evils mankind faces in reality - corrupt governments, greedy corporations - are far more sinister than anything cooked up in a comic book. Moore deals brilliantly with these issues. Why do we trust those in charge? Why do we rely on other to protect us? Should we not protect ourselves instead?
Gibbons's art is wonderful. His use of very subdued, standard layout styles lets the story speaks for itself. There's no fancy splash pages to be found here, no overwrought action sequences, no onomatopoetic sounds, no motion lines. Gibbons uses symbolism and realistic rendering to create an atmosphere of grit and foreboding terror. I'm sure there's been papers written on his use of the smiley face throughout the book. I don't want to touch on any of the specific symbols here, but they're used in such a way that they never overshadow the plot, but are not so buried to become obscure.
I definitely wasn't let down by this book, but can't give it 5 stars. First of all, about half of the chapters in the book are diversions from the main thread of the story, giving insight and history to each of the characters. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't get rid of any of them, and honestly they are some of the best reading in the book - especially Rorschach's episodes - but therein may lie the problem. We are left with about 5 chapters that deal with the crisis at hand - the very fate of life on Earth. Most comic book stories can be dealt with in such a span, but Moore's story is too grand, too great to stop here. Or maybe that's a statement in itself. When it's too late, it's just too late. (Maybe Carole King should sing our Armageddon songs.) Any ending will come all too quickly.
Anyway, I'm willing to concede that this is probably one of the best superhero stories I've ever read - if it's actually a superhero story. It kind of destroys the whole notion of superheros, makes them irrelevant. I don't even want to get into the politics of this story. Too much, too much. ...less
Read in December, 2007
recommended to Lesliemae by:
Andrew Lesk
recommends it for:
if you love the anti-hero vigillante.
Each chapter was both a surprise and delight. Simply, I am astonished. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
Inscription: (May 2008)
I've been studying for most of the afternoon which means that Erik has needed to be out. We live in a bachelor apartment, so the options for the other person when one needs to read/study can be rather limiting.
While I was reading over Alan Moore's Watchmen, I was considering his message: human ideologies, religious abstractions, and science have all failed us. What was ...more
Each chapter was both a surprise and delight. Simply, I am astonished. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
Inscription: (May 2008)
I've been studying for most of the afternoon which means that Erik has needed to be out. We live in a bachelor apartment, so the options for the other person when one needs to read/study can be rather limiting.
While I was reading over Alan Moore's Watchmen, I was considering his message: human ideologies, religious abstractions, and science have all failed us. What was it that a Jewish writer, who went through the Holocaust, said? "I have decided to become a bike mechanic, because words have failed us."
Moore deconstructs the idea of the superhero and writes a story, rather, about "masked adventurers." The importance is in the difference as masked adventurers are not heroes at all, but just people like us. One of the characters (Roscharch) says, "It is not god who kills children, it is not fate that butchers them, or destiny that feeds them to the gods. It is us." Moore may be trying to de-mask all our human mechanisms for human enlightenment or metaphysical hope, and place responsibility back in the hands it belongs = just average people.
I downloaded a song by Bob Dylan that also appears in the graphic novel called "Desolation Row". Many viewed/view Dylan as a visionary, and while I listened I understood something that both Moore and Dylan were expressing:
"Now Ophelia's in the window
For her I feel so afraid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row."
This expression fights against both vacuous exiting, and mechanical/religious profession building. She may be viewing the hope of the Rainbow, but stripped of all meaning and staring only in an empty way - actually peeking into "desolation row" - or the absences of meaning, self, and hope.
Interestingly, as I was thinking, connecting, and listening to Dylan - Erik was having a parallel experience in Kensington Market. Shannon, a very old friend of Erik's is a bike mechanic (not because words have failed humanity). Through the experience of socializing with this old friend Erik had a sensation that may be equated with disconnection/loss. He feels that with these old friends he expects something more (first the expectation is part of the problem), and would like for his old friends to grow with him in the way he is growing. Rather, they are falling into patterns of contented complacency. (Smoke a joint, join a band, have a laugh). Walking home via Nassau Street Erik again noticed that a street that was previously under developed has just this year sprouted its trendy wings. The street is becoming a hub for sub-culture, and this new development created within Erik a simultaneously positive and negative feeling. Viewing his potential peers coalescing in the patios, on the benches and laughing with one another he desired to be a part of it all, but also felt a level of emptiness both from not being a part but also from the people.
Are they really enjoying or only caught in the appearance of what they think looks both trendy and enjoyable? I sense the lifelessness in these situations often, but Erik is only beginning to examine old ways of thinking and seeing while considering a life of meaning.
That personal examination continued for both of us today....less
bookshelves:
book-club-selection,
graphicnovels,
recentlyread
Read in April, 2008
recommended to Elizabeth by:
book group
This is one of those books that I often picked up and looked at, but never read. I'm shallow enough to admit I was turned off by the artwork and lack of recognizable characters. I must say, I am so glad that Watchmen was chosen by one of my book groups, forcing me to get past my first impressions.
Watchmen takes place in alternative universe, where the emergence of costumed adventurers has altered the course of modern history. The superheroes, the majority which are neither supe...more
This is one of those books that I often picked up and looked at, but never read. I'm shallow enough to admit I was turned off by the artwork and lack of recognizable characters. I must say, I am so glad that Watchmen was chosen by one of my book groups, forcing me to get past my first impressions.
Watchmen takes place in alternative universe, where the emergence of costumed adventurers has altered the course of modern history. The superheroes, the majority which are neither super nor all that heroic (with one notable exception), are in forced retirement, until the murder of one of their own compels them to action once more. The plot twists and turns in unexpected ways, all the while introducing us to these masked men and women, their histories, and their motivations, and draws to a riveting and ambiguous conclusion that leaves the reader pondering what heroism really means.
This graphic novel, published originally in 1986, ushered in a new era for comic fans; comic books became literature, and superheroes became people with flaws and angst of their own. Alan Moore truly takes the genre to the level of literature, pulling out all those post modern favorite techniques like meta-fiction, intertextuality, and symbolism, while still retaining the classic elements of comic books; while there are no whizz-bang sound effects or thought bubbles, he stays true to the format and elevates it to a new level. Likewise, David Gibbons, the artist, uses the art in a deeper way; each panel is filled with meaning and symbolism, from the repeated use of the Comedian's smiley face, to the repeated graffiti asking, "Who watches the watchmen?" The art creates a cinematic feel and also evokes the "golden age" style of comics, and in the end I was appreciative of it. Both writer and artist have put a lot of thought into this work; for example, the chapter "Fearful Symmetry" is based on the William Blake poem, The Tyger, and not only are there numerous places where both plot and image symmetry are used, but the panels are symmetrical goign from first page to last page, second page to second-to-last page, and so on. The chapter also refers to the character, Rorschach, who wears a mask with a shifting, symmetrical inkblot, who tends to think in black and white, and is a character that others should be fearful of.
One negative issue did get brought up in my book group meeting, and that was the treatment of the women in the book. Try as we might, we couldn't find many positive portrayals of female characters. We found the rape storyline distasteful, if only because all the characters but two, including the character who was the victim, are pretty dismissive of the serious nature of that act, and pretty forgiving of the rapist. I don't like seeing rape used as the start of a consensual, romantic relationship, and I don't like seeing a woman put her rapist up on a pedastal.
I still give the book five stars, however, because overall I loved the story and the characters, and found the writing stunning and moving. This is a landmark, watershed book, but it is also just a fine, enjoyable read. I'd recommend it to folks giving the genre a try for the first time, as well as graphic novel readers looking to branch out from Batman, Supes, and Spidey. ...less
bookshelves:
classics,
fantasy,
graphic-novels,
top-shelf
Read in July, 2008
What with the movie trailer finally out, I thought it'd be time to go through the book again. It's a graphic novel that has an immense history. It's considered to be one of the most important works in the genre in, well, ever. Read any analysis of Watchmen and you'll read that it revolutionized comics. It changed everything.
They're right.
Before I get to the actual story - and it's a formidable story - I want to address the immense technical achievement that is evident in this ...more
What with the movie trailer finally out, I thought it'd be time to go through the book again. It's a graphic novel that has an immense history. It's considered to be one of the most important works in the genre in, well, ever. Read any analysis of Watchmen and you'll read that it revolutionized comics. It changed everything.
They're right.
Before I get to the actual story - and it's a formidable story - I want to address the immense technical achievement that is evident in this book. Look at any panel, any page and you can spend a long time just admiring the artistry that has emerged from the Moore-Gibbons partnership. The words and the images fit together like the finest puzzle pieces, each one reinforcing and supporting the others. There are no unnecessary words, and there are no unnecessary pictures.
Goddamn it's good. It's a fantastic piece of work.
Just as much as the technical aspects of the book are a marvel, so is the story. It was written in - and set in - the mid-80s. It took the core genre of the comics industry, superheroes, and bent them to reality's will. These were not the iconic, ageless figures of Batman and Superman, people whose hearts and intentions were pure and who never aged. The superheroes - or "costumed adventurers," more appropriately - were very, very human. Not only did they age, but they made mistakes. They lied, they failed, they gave up. They were, with one notable exception, human, and their reasons for doing what they did were also very human. It's tempting to say, "These characters are us," because they're not, but they're still a lot closer to us than traditional superheroes are. And this was especially true in the mid-80s. The Darkening of comics hadn't begun yet, and it was probably Watchmen that kicked it off. Suddenly the idea of heroes with ethical failings, personality problems and a faulty moral compass flooded the market. Unfortunately, they were inferior copies of an exceptional original.
Anyway, the story. The world in 1985 is a different place. The rise of the costumed adventurer had a big impact on the social fabric of the United States, and the Cold War has reached levels of tension that nearly break the world in two. America owns a superweapon in the person of Jonathan Osterman, also known as the nearly godlike Doctor Manhattan, but even he can't stop the political super-powers from the intractable mess they have created. Everyone can feel it, the great burning and the end of the world. Everyone knows it's coming.
And then someone kills The Comedian.
The death of this adventurer-turned-mercenary sets off a chain reaction that leads to the discovery of a horrific plan to save the world. People who believe themselves to be heroes have to decide what it means to do good when there are no good choices left to make.
Seriously. Read this. As for the movie, I can only pray that they do it right. I have a high tolerance for adaptation - and I know there's no way the entire comic can be fit into a movie - so I will give the filmmakers some leeway. But I pray that they do it right....
...less
Read in June, 2008
I am an English teacher at a urban high school. Just this year, I got the go ahead to teach an Intro to Graphic Literature course. Graphic novels are becoming a very important writing form for the 21st century, and I have read some amazing work that is still under the genre title "comic book," a designation that is increasingly becoming outdated.
If you want to look for the Shakespeare of the graphic novel form, look no further than Alan Moore. His other graphic works include V f...more
I am an English teacher at a urban high school. Just this year, I got the go ahead to teach an Intro to Graphic Literature course. Graphic novels are becoming a very important writing form for the 21st century, and I have read some amazing work that is still under the genre title "comic book," a designation that is increasingly becoming outdated.
If you want to look for the Shakespeare of the graphic novel form, look no further than Alan Moore. His other graphic works include V for Vendetta, From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Lost Girls, and this novel, Watchmen, the ONLY graphic novel to make Time Magazine's list of important novels. There is a very good reason for this. Watchmen is the epitome of the graphic novel form, utilizing and stretching the boundaries of the form to make it more than merely comic text. The literary techniques he employs, both in traditional literary form and sequential art form, are astounding. His use of symmetry, parallelism, symbolism, etc., are genius.
The novel is very much tied in with its historical period, namely 80s Cold War paranoia, which any good piece of literature attempts to do, make sense of the zeitgeist of its age. It is also the ultimate philosophical discussion starter on the superhero, the contemporary archetype. I have only read it one time, and I am ready to read it over again, to catch a little more of what I haven't caught the first time. I haven't looked at what discussion groups exist for this novel, but I know I will be joining, if not starting one.
Anyone who sees graphic novels as simply children's comic books needs to read this novel and then see if they change their minds. I know discussion of this book is already increasing, with the set release of movie version in March, 2009. In fact, I am quite sure discussion and readership will increase after trailers for the movie come out with the release of The Dark Knight movie (which includes a performance by Heath Ledger that was partly inspired by another Alan Moore text, "The Killing Joke"). I am nervous about the movie release, as I was nervous about Lord of the Rings becoming a movie. However, it seems to be put in the capable hands of Zack Snyder. Anyone, though, who believes that seeing the movie could supplant actually reading this novel is sadly mistaken....less
bookshelves:
graphic-novel
Read in January, 2005
Graphic Novel. It's 1985. We won the Vietnam War. Nixon is still president. Someone is killing off costumed superheroes, and the world is on the brink of nuclear war. I wasn't expecting to like this book. What, I wondered, did a comic from the late eighties have to offer me, a hip and happening girl in the oughts? You can practically see the dots in the color! I'd checked it out from the library on the advice of friends, and I'd tried to read it once before, but gave up before I got even five pa...more
Graphic Novel. It's 1985. We won the Vietnam War. Nixon is still president. Someone is killing off costumed superheroes, and the world is on the brink of nuclear war. I wasn't expecting to like this book. What, I wondered, did a comic from the late eighties have to offer me, a hip and happening girl in the oughts? You can practically see the dots in the color! I'd checked it out from the library on the advice of friends, and I'd tried to read it once before, but gave up before I got even five pages in. I still had it, though, so I gave it another chance because it's supposed to have revolutionized the superhero genre and the cover promised me it was both brilliant and peerless. Well, it pretty much is.
The art's not memorable, but it does the job. It caries along a compelling, multi-layered story and never gets in the way. It actually has a lot of information in it, and I loved all the details, the ads for Nostalgia perfume and Meltdown candies, the ever changing face of Rorschach, the Gunga Diner elephant, the spraypainted and sometimes incomplete "Who watches the watchmen?" graffiti, the newspaper headlines, and the intercuts between the pirate comic and the superhero story. Things did get a little preachy while we were on Mars and Antarctica, but I forgive Moore because he delivers such engrossing prose pieces at the end of each chapter. The excerpts from magazines, scholarly journals, Hollis Mason's autobiography, and Veidt's personal papers were actually fun to read. I normally don't like large blocks of unillustrated text in graphic novels, but these complemented the story perfectly, giving us background we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
Five stars. Watchmen is a rich, clever, fully realized universe, and if you haven't read it, you really should. I hear it's peerless....less
Read in May, 2007
You can call it a graphic novel, but it's really a comic book about superheroes. And that's good, because that's the only way this story could be told! If you're creating a twisted ironic story about comic-book superheroes dealing with the real world, then you also need to be able to mess around with the conventions of the medium where your subjects arose. A novel or play or whatever just wouldn't work as well.
There are some really powerful sections (especially Rorschach's story and its effe...more
You can call it a graphic novel, but it's really a comic book about superheroes. And that's good, because that's the only way this story could be told! If you're creating a twisted ironic story about comic-book superheroes dealing with the real world, then you also need to be able to mess around with the conventions of the medium where your subjects arose. A novel or play or whatever just wouldn't work as well.
There are some really powerful sections (especially Rorschach's story and its effect on the psychiatrist and his wife). There are lots of great metaphorical parallel stories, illustrating one conversation with imagery of another event.
But my favorite part was how each character takes a different idea of justice to extremes:
- we have a duty to do good to one another, using only good means, whenever possible
- we should do good, but the ends justify the means
- forget the idea of "doing good"; evil must simply be punished by any means necessary
- the whole distinction between good and evil is all one big joke
- good and evil, and for that matter all of humanity, are irrelevant in the big scheme of things
In my view, the first philosophy is best since it's the only one that never treats human beings as mere things, abstractions, obstacles or toys. (Terry Pratchett's Discworld books have a surprising amount to say on this topic.)
<spoiler>
But in this book, the Machiavellian character proves most effective, though it feels extremely immoral. Hence I feel a little gratified (yet also largely saddened) that, in the wake of September 11th, it's clear that the these heroes' way of saving the world wouldn't really be effective at all. Terrorism should be a perfect foe to unite against; but instead, we managed to screw it up to the point where the world's nations are freaking out and becoming either more aggressive or more isolationist.
</spoiler>
I can't say it's an "enjoyable" read - quite depressing and creepy with too much blood and gore for my taste. But it's DEEP, and I definitely feel it'd be worthwhile to read it again....less
Read in July, 2008
Took me a couple of days to read Watchmen from cover to cover. The only reason it took even that long was because of my full-time job and the constant need to reference earlier parts of the story throughout. I don't think any book I've ever read -- textual and comic alike -- demanded so much back-referencing.
There are things going on in the background of almost every panel that have bearing later. Genuine clues to all the various mysteries crop up constantly if you pay close attention. ...more
Took me a couple of days to read Watchmen from cover to cover. The only reason it took even that long was because of my full-time job and the constant need to reference earlier parts of the story throughout. I don't think any book I've ever read -- textual and comic alike -- demanded so much back-referencing.
There are things going on in the background of almost every panel that have bearing later. Genuine clues to all the various mysteries crop up constantly if you pay close attention. How intricate this story is lends the reader this strange sense that all of this wacky stuff could truly happen. I thought that for no other reason than how preposterous it seems to consider that a normal person like you or I just dreamed it all up and wove it all together. It's not just a story -- it's an entire world, spanning just under a century's worth of many lives within that world.
In other words, it blew me away. Even as a true geek who has always enjoyed his comic books, I've still never been completely floored by one until Watchmen. It would not be hard for me to imagine some talented and ambitious comic writer/artist reading Watchmen and then deciding he's going to pursue a different profession -- since clearly Moore's work is a hard act to follow.
I often hear fellow geeks refer to comics as pre-Watchmen style or post-Watchmen style. Almost like AD and BC -- this 1986 book sometimes seems like year zero in the comic book world, everything else beforehand being primitive and everything after tending towards enlightened. I think that's a fair way to speak of it. Like the supposed messiah of the religion that brought about AD and BC as our reference to years, Watchmen is something that some people may not like or believe in, but it's still a cultural touchstone.
Other than that there's not a whole lot I could say that hasn't already been said. People love to heap praise onto this book. I'll just say that they do so for very good reason; all the love for this book is well deserved....less
Read in May, 2008
Watchmen is the only graphic novel to win the Hugo award and is considered one of the works that helped popularize the graphic novel medium. The story takes place in an alternative 1980s, where costumed heroes are real and have heavily influenced the history of the 20th century. Nixon is still president, the U.S. won the Vietnam war, and the U.S. (armed with the time and space controlling super-hero Dr. Manhattan) is winning the Cold War. By the mid-80s, most of the heroes are in retireme...more
Watchmen is the only graphic novel to win the Hugo award and is considered one of the works that helped popularize the graphic novel medium. The story takes place in an alternative 1980s, where costumed heroes are real and have heavily influenced the history of the 20th century. Nixon is still president, the U.S. won the Vietnam war, and the U.S. (armed with the time and space controlling super-hero Dr. Manhattan) is winning the Cold War. By the mid-80s, most of the heroes are in retirement, following the Keene Act of 1977, which made independent super-heroics illegal. The only remaining active heroes either work directly for the government or operate outside the law.
While investigating a murder, the brutal (and wanted) vigilante Rorschach discovers that the victim was the alter-ego of a super-hero, The Comedian. Rorschach visits other retired heroes to warn them of the possibility of a conspiracy to kill heroes. The likelihood of the conspiracy grows when Dr. Manhattan is taken out of the picture, tipping the balance of power between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. As nuclear war looms, Rorschach and the other heroes work to discover and counter the forces behind the conspiracy.
What makes Watchmen an award winning work is the complexity of the characters and presentation. None of the super-heroes are the simple do-gooders of traditional comics. Most have serious psychological problems, as one would assume to be the case of real people who wear costumes and fight crime. Nihilism, rape, megalomania, sociopathic tendencies, sexual fetishes, regret, parental issues, and love triangles all appear. The narrative structure itself is also complicated, making use false documents between chapters and a parallel plot contained in a fictional comic book that is read by one of the characters as the story progresses. Overall, Watchmen is an excellent story and demonstrates the abilities of the graphic novel format.
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Read in June, 2008
I first heard about this book at a book club meeting, probably almost a year ago now. It basically came with the warning 'It'll change the way you look at comic books forever.'
So then a few months later I'm in Borders trying to burn a coupon, and there it is on the shelf. So I pick it up, and rides around in the back of my car for a month or two.
So I finally get around to reading it, and it's riveting. At first, I get a little confused due to having to think like its 1986 again. But aft...more
I first heard about this book at a book club meeting, probably almost a year ago now. It basically came with the warning 'It'll change the way you look at comic books forever.'
So then a few months later I'm in Borders trying to burn a coupon, and there it is on the shelf. So I pick it up, and rides around in the back of my car for a month or two.
So I finally get around to reading it, and it's riveting. At first, I get a little confused due to having to think like its 1986 again. But after that adjustment, you start to notice all the little things that are different in this world. The differences in technology, some seemingly non-existant social stigmas we still deal with, and most of all, outlawed costumed vigilantes.
I'm gonna say that it's a fair bet most of you that are reading this have read it, so I won't go too far into the plot. If you haven't, go get it. Or I'll lend it to you just as soon as I get it back (The first thing I did was lend it to another friend of mine.)
Most novels I read don't get as deep into the minds of its characters as this, or have the guts to do what this one did. It's a brilliant look at what happens when all your heroes aren't super, they're just human. And the lengths some of them, the good guys, are willing to go to for peace and for the good of humanity rival pretty much anything the villains in any other universe have been able to pull off.
All in all, I was floored. How you can take a character you'd slated off is just plain crazy, and at the end just think he's just maladjusted compared to other characters. How you can make one of the the joking, funny characters into one of the darkest. And how you can take the lives of an old, retired cape and still make them relevant.
Trust me, go read it. You won't forget it any time soon, and you may not read your favorite comic books the same way again. ...less
Who’s watching Watchmen? Everybody apparently. This book—or comic book, or graphic novel, or whatever you want to call it—has been picked apart endlessly in the 20 years since it was first published, every frame microscopically studied, its plot, characters, and symbols charted out no less elaborately than Ulysses’. Its fans, like fans of everything else, are intensely protective and argumentative. Reading a book like this now, for the first time, is likely to result less in actual criti...more
Who’s watching Watchmen? Everybody apparently. This book—or comic book, or graphic novel, or whatever you want to call it—has been picked apart endlessly in the 20 years since it was first published, every frame microscopically studied, its plot, characters, and symbols charted out no less elaborately than Ulysses’. Its fans, like fans of everything else, are intensely protective and argumentative. Reading a book like this now, for the first time, is likely to result less in actual criticism than in intellectual alignment. What can be said has likely been said; the issue now is with whom do you agree.
So on the occasion of DC Comics’ Absolute Watchmen, a beautifully re-mastered anniversary edition with hard-to-find scripts from writer Alan Moore and sketches from artist Dave Gibbons, I’ll agree with everybody and nobody, the geeks and the eye-rollers both. You say I contradict myself? Very well then, but Watchmen contains multitudes: It’s big and important and brilliant and insufferable. It’s mythic; it’s gritty. It’s awesome and it’s dumb. In its pages are heroes, anti-heroes, and giant, blue-peckered superheroes. There are aliens, street-fighting lesbians, and pirates. There are ambiguously evil geniuses and average New Yorkers. When its violence isn’t intimate, it’s global. When the sex isn’t tender, it’s dirty. Watchmen’s story is part whodunit, part philosophical tract, its writing fierce and groundbreaking, pinched and pedantic. The art is always stiff and always utterly appropriate.
Watchmen is everything. At times it’s even boring.
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bookshelves:
graphicnovel
Read in January, 2006
This was my crash course for Alan Moore books, and admittedly, this kind of spoils the rest of the work I'm told by starting at the top and working my way down.
To put it simply, this is a pretty awesome book. It's not life changing, but it has a depth that many comic books don't get to investigate. The comic book industry pretty much has the comic code infuse morals and ethics into comics for a very long time. Few books were willing to buck it because lots of establishments wouldn't sell any...more
This was my crash course for Alan Moore books, and admittedly, this kind of spoils the rest of the work I'm told by starting at the top and working my way down.
To put it simply, this is a pretty awesome book. It's not life changing, but it has a depth that many comic books don't get to investigate. The comic book industry pretty much has the comic code infuse morals and ethics into comics for a very long time. Few books were willing to buck it because lots of establishments wouldn't sell anything but 'approved' comics.
'Screw that,' Moore must have said, and set to task.
The Watchmen is about a group of heroes (most surprisingly un-super) who in their early lives formed one of the most famous hero groups in vigilante history - the Crimebusters. However, the cast are not your typical heroes. The Comedian was hardly anything of the type - a misogynistic, sociopathic slimebag, . Then there is the deeply disturbed Ozymandius, the almost sad Night Owl, and the nigh-unto godlike Dr, Manhattan, and the series trademark anti-hero, Rorschach. The heroes careers have long faded into obscurity and in many cases disgrace, and when the Comedian turns up dead, Rorschach set out to investigate, because even though the Comedian was a scumbag, he was one of them. What he finds brings the old gang back into the limelight and stirs up a ton of trouble. It's a character study on a grand scale, and in reading it you realize the impact that the flawed heroes have had on their world and how their pasts have turned them into anything but heroes for the most part.
It's been a while since I read the book, but in writing this review (and knowing that the movie is coming) something tells me it's time for a second trip through. Give it a go. You'll be glad you did....less
Watchmen by Alan Moore Illustrated by Dave Gibbons
I've wanted to read Watchmen ever since the junior Goth comic book artist kid that we all idolized my freshmen year wore his Watchmen t-shirt to school. For some reason I was too deeply geeked in Batman that year so while I read A Dark Night Returns I missed this. It kept coming up and I kept adding back on my list, but finally when Dan mentioned in Lab the other night that the bumbling cosmonaut who turns into an inept God in...more
Watchmen by Alan Moore Illustrated by Dave Gibbons
I've wanted to read Watchmen ever since the junior Goth comic book artist kid that we all idolized my freshmen year wore his Watchmen t-shirt to school. For some reason I was too deeply geeked in Batman that year so while I read A Dark Night Returns I missed this. It kept coming up and I kept adding back on my list, but finally when Dan mentioned in Lab the other night that the bumbling cosmonaut who turns into an inept God in Mike's play reminded him of <i">Watchmen</i> I said, "Enough is enough" and bought a copy at Word, the best bookstore on Milton Street, Brooklyn, and America.
So at first I thought that while it was definitely good that maybe it was beginning to become dated because I was so familiar with everything that it had influenced (i">The Incredibles, Cavalier and Clay</i> and every graphic novel that came out in the late eighties.) So I sort of slowly made my way through it. But then it really started to seep into my subconscious like great writing should. The nuclear war fear in the story seems somewhat eighties, but the references to Afghanistan, an inept President with an indefinite term (Nixon never leaves office in this world),and the information overload seems incredibly current. It also boasts incredibly sophisticated storytelling techniques with the story being told not only be the comic but a comic within a comic and mock newspaper, magazine, and file dossiers.
I'm not convinced that if you were never into superheros that this would be the book to change your mind, but if you were at all than this will be the book to remind you how much power these stories can wield. ...less
Read in May, 2007
recommends it for:
Ricardo
I just finished Alan Moore's classic and seminal Watchmen, the graphic novel that is said to have changed the graphic novel genre and stretched it beyond its former limits. Now THAT one was DARK. It's about former costumed super-heroes who had been forced into retirement by law who are suddenly caught up in a mystery wherein someone seems to be offing the former super crusaders one by one as the apocalypse of the world nears. It's said that the current TV show hit HEROES is loosely based on this...more
I just finished Alan Moore's classic and seminal Watchmen, the graphic novel that is said to have changed the graphic novel genre and stretched it beyond its former limits. Now THAT one was DARK. It's about former costumed super-heroes who had been forced into retirement by law who are suddenly caught up in a mystery wherein someone seems to be offing the former super crusaders one by one as the apocalypse of the world nears. It's said that the current TV show hit HEROES is loosely based on this concept.
I highly suggest this read, not only because the story is so engaging, but reading a graphic novel is quite the experience. It's like watching a movie alongside the book. And working your way through the layers of stories and images, the superimposition sometimes of each on the other, and the deepening of context with inserted supplemental materials such as fictional newspaper articles, advertisements, and official documents, makes for a really comprehensive and rich reading experience.
It really expanded the way I look at storytelling and also, I marveled at the genius of it. Moore wrote this book in 1986 and creates a world in which Nixon is still president and America has become the unilateral world power, with Russia aching to spoil things. Yet so much of its political elements and philosophical themes really resonate in modern times, as if he called it from way back then. And his narrative style predates today's multi-tasking, scrolling headlines, and jumping concurrent stories that still, somehow, impact one another. And the ending...very dark indeed.
It was an awesome, absorbing read.
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Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
Fanatical comic book readers
The Watchmen is considered one of the most important comic books in history. The costumes are less spectacular, the origins more bleak, the heroes more despicable and/or self-loathing, the villains almost non-existent, the relationships more strained and the political overtones more blatant than were almost ever seen in mainstream comics before. Its effects were massive: it ushered in a new wave of "cool," where Superman and Spider-Man were lame, and everyone wanted murderous an...more
The Watchmen is considered one of the most important comic books in history. The costumes are less spectacular, the origins more bleak, the heroes more despicable and/or self-loathing, the villains almost non-existent, the relationships more strained and the political overtones more blatant than were almost ever seen in mainstream comics before. Its effects were massive: it ushered in a new wave of "cool," where Superman and Spider-Man were lame, and everyone wanted murderous and self-destructive anti-heroes. This movement spawned approximately ten good characters and hundreds of thousands of pages of worthless crap, so I'm still not sure why it's considered a good thing, but it's certainly a landmark in the history of comic book writers who were so self-loathing they had to call their work "graphic novels." I found it simply painful to read back then and not worth owning today. Behind what has fast become the cliché of comics (and popular film in general) are some slivers of real humanity and possible redemption or at least love, which are vital. Yet new readers who pick this up today are going to wonder what was so important about a slow, long, drawn-out murder mystery surrounding sociopaths, rapists and killers who call themselves superheroes, yet who only care about each other when they die, in a dated dystopia that isn't even half as self-aware, cynical or meaningful as what's being pumped out today....less
Read in April, 2008
i can see why this book gets such high praise. it seems that it was revolutionary for its time. however, to a person not living in the eighties, i think that it is less powerful than it used to be. the biggest theme that it discusses is the Cold War, which obviously ended two decades ago. now, if i had read this book DURING the Cold War, i'm sure that i'd give it 5 stars.
to me, i think i just like V for Vendetta better than this.
there were a lot of things that i did like in this novel, t...more
i can see why this book gets such high praise. it seems that it was revolutionary for its time. however, to a person not living in the eighties, i think that it is less powerful than it used to be. the biggest theme that it discusses is the Cold War, which obviously ended two decades ago. now, if i had read this book DURING the Cold War, i'm sure that i'd give it 5 stars.
to me, i think i just like V for Vendetta better than this.
there were a lot of things that i did like in this novel, though. actually, i debated whether i should give this book 3 or 4 stars, but, in the end, the cons dropped it down to 3. i loved one of the main characters, Rorschach. i loved the comic book entries about a person attacked by pirates and shipwrecked. i loved all the little things in the artwork like the prophetic times on the clocks and hidden messages written everywhere. i loved the last two episodes in the novel, which ended very nicely. i love the episode that dealt with Jon and his omniscience.
but the cons were too much. the biggest thing was that it was overly verbose, saying way too much. there were needless character threads. the additional material at the end of every episode was awful. i only read two, and just skipped the other ones. there were many scenes which were supposed to weighty and resonant but came off as trite and contrived. but the biggest thing i quibble with is that it was way too slow. this was, in truth, a simple story that was drawn out unnecessarily.
but thats just my opinion. i still need to read some of Moore's other works like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Swamp Thing....less
bookshelves:
picture-books
Read in September, 2007
So, Watchmen. For starters, it is a landmark in the world of comics, one of those cosmic events after which nothing in the genre was the same. It turned the world of super heroes inside out, turned it on its ear, deconstructed it, parodied and elevated it. And you want to know the most amazing part? Alan Moore knew what he was doing. Read The Watchmen or read it again and pay attention to the prose sections in between comics. He tells you, alm
