Who Watches The Watchmen?
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen has enjoyed a long run of critical acclaim from both in and outside the comics industry. Why? What--if anything--is compelling about this story, these characters, and the larger project? Furthermore: how does Watchmen work within the superhero comics mold, while at the same time breaking that mold?
posted by Trevor Dodge @ 7:21 PM
3 Comments:
At 10:07 AM,
Anonymous said…
I'm sorry I missed the discussion last week, but I'm certainly enjoying reading Watchmen. I think the main reason that Watchmen has been lauded for years as such a seminal piece of comics literature is, of course, Alan Moore's writing. While Gibbons' art is decent, it doesn't seem all that ground-breaking, instead looking like most of the super hero books of the day. But the storyline does more than the typical super hero story. It peels back the layers of the genre. Where most typical super hero books simply place "super" characters into our normal, humdrum world (coming off as almost a parody or farce of the real in the process), I think that Moore has transformed the entire world, as a sci-fi author would. This world has parallels to ours, but it's completely remade: U.S. won the Vietnam war, People travel in electric cars, and airships...(and what's up with those weird ball cigarettes everyone smokes?)
Also, I love the way Moore juxtaposes (great art school term) what's going on in the imagery with the words, sometimes from two narratives running in parallel, creating ominous or hilarious pairings in the process (the awkward sex scene in front of the TV comes to mind.)
At 12:25 PM,
Anonymous said…
zacharys says
Alan Moore is definetly the reason why Watchman has reached such high stature in the comics world. I agree with Casey that Gibbon's artwork is solid but by no means revolutionary. It is not only the structure and plot of Moore's writing that is impressive but it is Moore's characters which also puts him a step above other comic writers.From the ingenous and puzzling plot to the complex relationships between characters in this story Alan Moore has created a world similiar to the real world yet skewed to fit in a world of masked superhereos.
At 7:28 AM,
Anonymous said…
Speaking of superheroes...
I came across this book while in my local library recently: Project Superior. Its a comics anthology that explores the theme of the superhero as seen through the eyes of some of today's "indy comics and alternative artist creators", including a story by everybody's favorite Jeffrey Brown.
A few years back, in an anthology called Bizarro Comics, DC comics also explored a similar theme of "alternative" comics creators doing stories with mainstream DC heores like Superman and Batman. Creators include Harvey Pekar, Pete Bagge, and a really weird/cool Batman story by Tony Millionare (who does the "Maakies" strip in the Mercury).
Its very interesting to see how a different take on the seemingly mundane theme of super hero comics can open up the genre to a myriad of fresh possibilities...
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