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4.43 AVERAGE
4.43 AVERAGE
"Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon."
What a line. I'm still shook AF. OMG. I'm so glad it lived up to its hype. All I can say is wowwww.
What a line. I'm still shook AF. OMG. I'm so glad it lived up to its hype. All I can say is wowwww.
Wow. I don't read comics...excuse me, graphic novels, but this was amazing. A. maz. ing. There are so many levels of this book, with a very prophetic storyline despite the time in which it was written. The characters are great, and I really liked the "documents" interspersed with the illustrations. I probably won't be able to read any more graphic novels because they won't measure up to this one. Can't wait to see the movie!
DONE FINALLY! I liked Watchmen more than I thought I would. I underestimated the ~comic book medium~. Also watchmen is obviously super dark and sad but I don't think I was very personally invested in it for some reason? I didn't cry. Also I kept trying to read this book while eating and it was a bad idea. So much gross stuff. How many times did Alan Moore have to include the words "bloated corpses"?
An atom-bomb of a story. Superhumans and a host of wannabes grapple with very human issues and a plot to destroy the world, all against the backdrop of cold war annihilation.
While at face value the book appears to subscribe to the standard superhero tropes (superheroes and supervillains both bankrolled by wealthy, deceased parents; a master plan for world domination by a megalomaniac; latex outfits and animal costumes; etc), in reality the book manages to subvert those very same tropes even as it uses them.
The last 30 pages crush like a tidal wave. The ending is NOT what you'd expect--not by a long shot--and the final moral ambiguity of the entire story is both beautiful and thought-provoking, living up to the standards one would normally apply only to the most literary of novels.
While at face value the book appears to subscribe to the standard superhero tropes (superheroes and supervillains both bankrolled by wealthy, deceased parents; a master plan for world domination by a megalomaniac; latex outfits and animal costumes; etc), in reality the book manages to subvert those very same tropes even as it uses them.
The last 30 pages crush like a tidal wave. The ending is NOT what you'd expect--not by a long shot--and the final moral ambiguity of the entire story is both beautiful and thought-provoking, living up to the standards one would normally apply only to the most literary of novels.
Double narratives! Plot within a plot within another plot! Is that villain really a villain? A SQUID? GOOD GOD, THAT ART!
I remember trying to read this over a weekend Sophomore year, just sitting in my bed and just pounding through it, page after page, wanting to finish it in two days to come back Monday and talk about it with friends.
But, well, I failed at that.
That isn't to say I didn't finish, I did, but there was so much I missed by speed-reading it. Most of the above bits, for example, were glossed over in an attempt to add it back to my bookshelf in the finished section. That was the thing, I never paused, just kept reading through as quickly as possible.
First time through, I thought it was quite overrated, that it was nothing more than a defunct superhero story, a piece about failure and living in the past. To be completely honest, I skipped over a lot of the text pieces and much of the Tales of the Black Freighter, mainly because I believed them to be superfluous at the time, that they had little to no bearing to the story at the time.
I didn't pick it up again until about a week before the film came out and actually paced myself through it, one chapter a day for twelve consecutive days. I was reading a new book now, the little details that would be so obvious on a concentrated reading were opening up, Laurie's father being one of those things, the whole of the Fearful Symmetry chapter actually being symmetric with itself, etc. And then Dave Gibbons art, my word, I nearly skipped over most of it the first time, going directly for the speech bubbles, but now the art was there, it popped, it looked better than most recent books, possibly due to a recent recoloring in this collected edition, but still. And then Moore's text pieces at the end of each chapter, the critical background of what was happening, why a certain event never mentioned suddenly has a sense of time, that it's important.
This was actually my first comic, the fact that it appeared on that Time Magazine list made my literary snobbery subside for a moment and give something new a try. Quite glad for that.
I remember trying to read this over a weekend Sophomore year, just sitting in my bed and just pounding through it, page after page, wanting to finish it in two days to come back Monday and talk about it with friends.
But, well, I failed at that.
That isn't to say I didn't finish, I did, but there was so much I missed by speed-reading it. Most of the above bits, for example, were glossed over in an attempt to add it back to my bookshelf in the finished section. That was the thing, I never paused, just kept reading through as quickly as possible.
First time through, I thought it was quite overrated, that it was nothing more than a defunct superhero story, a piece about failure and living in the past. To be completely honest, I skipped over a lot of the text pieces and much of the Tales of the Black Freighter, mainly because I believed them to be superfluous at the time, that they had little to no bearing to the story at the time.
I didn't pick it up again until about a week before the film came out and actually paced myself through it, one chapter a day for twelve consecutive days. I was reading a new book now, the little details that would be so obvious on a concentrated reading were opening up, Laurie's father being one of those things, the whole of the Fearful Symmetry chapter actually being symmetric with itself, etc. And then Dave Gibbons art, my word, I nearly skipped over most of it the first time, going directly for the speech bubbles, but now the art was there, it popped, it looked better than most recent books, possibly due to a recent recoloring in this collected edition, but still. And then Moore's text pieces at the end of each chapter, the critical background of what was happening, why a certain event never mentioned suddenly has a sense of time, that it's important.
This was actually my first comic, the fact that it appeared on that Time Magazine list made my literary snobbery subside for a moment and give something new a try. Quite glad for that.
"The horror of this: in the end, it is simply a picture of empty meaningless blackness. We are alone. There is nothing else."
The first graphic novel I ever read was Jhonen Vasquez’s JTHM: Director’s Cut in high school, and I fell in love with Johnny as an anti-hero, and anti-heros in general. There’s something about the imperfections of these types of characters that make me enjoy the story completely.
That’s why I believe I enjoyed reading Watchmen so thoroughly. The characters, all of them, were so well developed, their stories so interesting, that I couldn’t put this graphic novel down. My absolute favorite story was Dr. Manhattan's. It was written very well, and I was able to see the depth of his character throughout his history and later on in the novel, as he became less and less human.
Other than Dr. Manhattan, none of the other masked heroes have super powers, but they all did what they could to help during a time when they were needed. And they were all, so very, very broken. None of the masked characters in Watchmen could ever be seen as fulfilled human beings, especially while they’re fighting crimes and the depravity of society.
The artwork of Watchmen was phenomenal, and after reading pages, I would take the time to relook at all of the art in this book.
And the storytelling, my was it completely captivating! I really could NOT put this graphic novel down, and when I finished it, it definitely made me want to see the movie and see how it compares to this.
Definitely looking forward to reading more graphic novels and comics in the near future.
Dark, creepy, an honest look at what a vigilante is and how far they should be allowed to go. When the watchmen get out of line, who will be there to stop them? Great characters who are often morally ambiguous or dislikeable, conflicting with their public heroic personas.
This was a huge gap in my graphic novel knowledge and I had to remedy that. After reading [b:V for Vendetta|5805|V for Vendetta|Alan Moore|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1343668985s/5805.jpg|392838], I knew I was going to like [a:Alan Moore|3961|Alan Moore|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1304944713p2/3961.jpg]'s version of superheroes, although I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting myself into. I really loved this. Caveat: I think it will be best appreciated by readers who are familiar with the traditional superhero lore.
Watchmen starts with the murder of a famous superhero, which is an atypical, but great way of starting a superhero story. Indeed, the whole structure of the comic made me think of noir detective fiction of the really gritty kind. The mistery drives the pace of the whole novel - it is really entertaining. But there's much more to this graphic novel than just entertainment.
Once again, Moore has created an uncomfortable and ugly world which reflects the worst of ours. I found this alternate reality to be less relatable than that of V for Vendetta. In a way, this fictional world is a product of the 1980s social problems - nuclear war, Vietnam, the tension between the US and the USSR... The differences with our 80s are subtle, and they mostly reflect changes in technology and consumerism caused by the existence of this particular set of superheroes, the Watchmen. The cars are slightly different, the fashions are similar but not quite the same and sweets have different names. Superhero comics are not a thing, and pirates are all the rage. It's easy to overlook these little changes. Together, they help create a complex new society, different enough from ours that we can feel safe reading this from our privileged point of view.
The protagonists who give Watchmen its name are a bunch of atypical superheroes, fallible, flawed. More human than most comic book characters. Moore has used these characters to make us think about the problems of superhero comics, and his critique is superb. Traditional superheroes are constructed upon a set of problematic premises: superhuman heroes are individuals with extreme power and very rigid moral codes. In many cases, they have a tragic backstory to explain their motivations, which turns these so-called heroes in unstable people who express their grief through violence. Problematic, huh?
Also, they almost always have their way with the ladies, who don't get to be portrayed very accurately. Either they are the lady in distress, or the motherly figure, or a bitch. Even superheroines are constantly sexualized. So, if you put two and two together, you get a violent and volatile macho ideal as the protagonist of a power fantasy for the reader to identify with. Moore addresses rape openly, establishing that he respects female characters as much as male ones, and that the casual rejection of sexual assault in comics is not okay.
I enjoy reading and watching superhero stories (they are fun!), but wish that everyone would be aware of their problems. Unfortunately, some comic book readers have really interiorized this or have found their beliefs reinforced by superheroes, and you know how the saying goes: one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. Moore's deconstruction is particularly relevant, since this nasty comics reader clique can be very hostile to women and to minorities. My adolescent self suffered the consequences of daring to enter into a comic shop when there was an ongoing Warhammer game. Not nice.
I also appreciated the inclusion of homosexuality as a normal thing, with the casual feature of gay partners as secondary characters or as filler/background characters. I was over the moon glad to find that some of the Minutemen were also gay, although they aren't shown in the best of lights. I understand how this depiction is tied to the main point of presenting superheroes as human, but I couldn't help feeling a bit uncomfortable about this dire portrayal of homosexuals. It's not that every gay character in print has to be a saint, and it's not like good gay characters aren't present in Alan Moore's body of work (see Valerie Page in V for Vendetta, for example), so I am possibly being too sensitive.
Watchmen also questions the rigid morality that regulates superheroes, thus questioning traditional villains. In the superhero lore, good and evil tend to be quite black and white. This poses the problem of having to oversimplify reality to make it fit inside comics, and can lead to very absurd situations. I'm going to get spoiler-ish from here on, so stop reading if you haven't read this book yet! On the one hand, we have a driven character who supposedly discerns good from evil. I'm talking about Rorschach who, in Alan Moore's own words, is a parody of Batman. His motivation is commendable - he wants to save humanity one person at a time. However, he doesn't mind being extremely brutal to do so and, what's more, he's out to kill whoever doesn't make the cut of his extreme right-wing convictions. On the other hand, we have a very intelligent character who wants to avoid a nuclear war and establish his greatness. He also voluntarily kills half of the New York population to do so. He fits within the traditional villain role, except for the fact that he really avoids a nuclear war that would wipe the human race from the face of the earth. This moral conflict is never resolved, forcing the reader to form a judgement.
This novel is also very intelligent narrative-wise. There is a number of metafiction devices involved, and we all know I love that. There are some footnotes, and little excerpts of fictional biographies and interviews which are mentioned during the overarching story. They add depth to the characters and don't feel gimmicky at all. I specially liked the comic within the comic. It worked as a separate substory (I was really interested in the ending of The Black Freight!) but it also tied in nicely with the tumultuous events happening in this alternate New York.
The artwork, by [a:Dave Gibbons|13285|Dave Gibbons|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1308663000p2/13285.jpg], is also a masterwork. It is very detailed and very subtle - many frames give more information than the dialogue itself. The complete edition states that Moore himself wrote in-depth descriptions of each frame, and then shows the actual text that was swiftly translated by Gibbons into the iconic first frames, zooming out from the bloody smiley face to the top of the building where the murder has been committed. While it's true that Moore is responsible for the overall layout of the frames, Gibbon's artistic vision is what really has transformed this graphic novel into the masterwork it is, deceptively simple and fast flowing.
Watchmen starts with the murder of a famous superhero, which is an atypical, but great way of starting a superhero story. Indeed, the whole structure of the comic made me think of noir detective fiction of the really gritty kind. The mistery drives the pace of the whole novel - it is really entertaining. But there's much more to this graphic novel than just entertainment.
Once again, Moore has created an uncomfortable and ugly world which reflects the worst of ours. I found this alternate reality to be less relatable than that of V for Vendetta. In a way, this fictional world is a product of the 1980s social problems - nuclear war, Vietnam, the tension between the US and the USSR... The differences with our 80s are subtle, and they mostly reflect changes in technology and consumerism caused by the existence of this particular set of superheroes, the Watchmen. The cars are slightly different, the fashions are similar but not quite the same and sweets have different names. Superhero comics are not a thing, and pirates are all the rage. It's easy to overlook these little changes. Together, they help create a complex new society, different enough from ours that we can feel safe reading this from our privileged point of view.
The protagonists who give Watchmen its name are a bunch of atypical superheroes, fallible, flawed. More human than most comic book characters. Moore has used these characters to make us think about the problems of superhero comics, and his critique is superb. Traditional superheroes are constructed upon a set of problematic premises: superhuman heroes are individuals with extreme power and very rigid moral codes. In many cases, they have a tragic backstory to explain their motivations, which turns these so-called heroes in unstable people who express their grief through violence. Problematic, huh?
Also, they almost always have their way with the ladies, who don't get to be portrayed very accurately. Either they are the lady in distress, or the motherly figure, or a bitch. Even superheroines are constantly sexualized. So, if you put two and two together, you get a violent and volatile macho ideal as the protagonist of a power fantasy for the reader to identify with. Moore addresses rape openly, establishing that he respects female characters as much as male ones, and that the casual rejection of sexual assault in comics is not okay.
I enjoy reading and watching superhero stories (they are fun!), but wish that everyone would be aware of their problems. Unfortunately, some comic book readers have really interiorized this or have found their beliefs reinforced by superheroes, and you know how the saying goes: one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. Moore's deconstruction is particularly relevant, since this nasty comics reader clique can be very hostile to women and to minorities. My adolescent self suffered the consequences of daring to enter into a comic shop when there was an ongoing Warhammer game. Not nice.
I also appreciated the inclusion of homosexuality as a normal thing, with the casual feature of gay partners as secondary characters or as filler/background characters. I was over the moon glad to find that some of the Minutemen were also gay, although they aren't shown in the best of lights. I understand how this depiction is tied to the main point of presenting superheroes as human, but I couldn't help feeling a bit uncomfortable about this dire portrayal of homosexuals. It's not that every gay character in print has to be a saint, and it's not like good gay characters aren't present in Alan Moore's body of work (see Valerie Page in V for Vendetta, for example), so I am possibly being too sensitive.
Watchmen also questions the rigid morality that regulates superheroes, thus questioning traditional villains. In the superhero lore, good and evil tend to be quite black and white. This poses the problem of having to oversimplify reality to make it fit inside comics, and can lead to very absurd situations. I'm going to get spoiler-ish from here on, so stop reading if you haven't read this book yet! On the one hand, we have a driven character who supposedly discerns good from evil. I'm talking about Rorschach who, in Alan Moore's own words, is a parody of Batman. His motivation is commendable - he wants to save humanity one person at a time. However, he doesn't mind being extremely brutal to do so and, what's more, he's out to kill whoever doesn't make the cut of his extreme right-wing convictions. On the other hand, we have a very intelligent character who wants to avoid a nuclear war and establish his greatness. He also voluntarily kills half of the New York population to do so. He fits within the traditional villain role, except for the fact that he really avoids a nuclear war that would wipe the human race from the face of the earth. This moral conflict is never resolved, forcing the reader to form a judgement.
This novel is also very intelligent narrative-wise. There is a number of metafiction devices involved, and we all know I love that. There are some footnotes, and little excerpts of fictional biographies and interviews which are mentioned during the overarching story. They add depth to the characters and don't feel gimmicky at all. I specially liked the comic within the comic. It worked as a separate substory (I was really interested in the ending of The Black Freight!) but it also tied in nicely with the tumultuous events happening in this alternate New York.
The artwork, by [a:Dave Gibbons|13285|Dave Gibbons|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1308663000p2/13285.jpg], is also a masterwork. It is very detailed and very subtle - many frames give more information than the dialogue itself. The complete edition states that Moore himself wrote in-depth descriptions of each frame, and then shows the actual text that was swiftly translated by Gibbons into the iconic first frames, zooming out from the bloody smiley face to the top of the building where the murder has been committed. While it's true that Moore is responsible for the overall layout of the frames, Gibbon's artistic vision is what really has transformed this graphic novel into the masterwork it is, deceptively simple and fast flowing.