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4.3 AVERAGE
4.3 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
guys i think im too stupid to know what the fuck the point was
Yeah it's as good as everyone said. Love how time is represented; wish I had a better grasp on the use of color. Excited to re-read it someday.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Dark. As fuck. Front half drew me in, but I struggled to stay excited about the second half. Sat rugged up in my room, listening to Jimi Hendrix and Simon and Garfunkel as I read this. Pretty enjoyable, gorgeously illustrated.
“‘thermodynamic miracles, events with odds so astronomical that they’re effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. i long to observe such a thing. and yet in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for each egg. multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive- meeting- siring this precise son- that exact daughter… to distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air into gold- that is a crowning unlikelihood. the thermodynamic miracle.’
‘but if me, my birth, if that’s a thermodynamic miracle, i mean, you could say that about anyone in the world!’
‘yes, anybody in the world. come. dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. dry your eyes.’”
To say that The Watchmen is one of the most important works of the 20th century is, at this point, redundant. However, to describe it as morbidly hopeful, this piece of literature that documents a nuclear standoff and eventual WW3, seems initially miscalculated and yet I would argue that it is true. Amidst the devastation, the convulsing plots about the madness of humanity and the futility of morality in a modern world, we get little moments of beauty.
doctor manhattan, a godlike figure with no demonstrated stake in humanity, realizes the rarity of human existence. the two bernards embrace as they explode- their last act to embrace a friend disguised as a stranger. laurie forgives her mother.
this is not a light read that will give you faith in humanity, in fact it will do the opposite. however, Moore will continuously renege his own thesis that humanity is evil. he hides these moments among frames of violence, still they exist. Moore cannot fully commit to the violence of humanity because that would be too simple. It’s so easy to say that humanity is evil and not worth saying. it’s a story so rehashed it’s hardly saying anything anymore. what is so much harder to convey in media is that strange in between- the uncomfortable space of grey that humanity occupies. it is good and evil, kind and cruel. it is not possible to tie humanity into a neat bow, and Moore recognizes this. he portrays this grayness in the little moments so that you can’t finish this book and think “well, this proves it, humanity should all die.” he makes you finish the book with a brain blank with exhaustion, questioning everything.
What are we as humans supposed to do in this world? How are we meant to continue on when the world is so divided and muddled and not easy to explain. It’s Albert Camus’ concept of the Absurd. The problem of how to live our lives knowing that both nothing and everything matters in the grand scheme of things. And I don’t know. but i’m grateful to have confronted this philosophical dilemma through The Watchmen.
This is a work of fiction imbued with truths, a manifesto with no certain stances, a comic book of tragedy.
this is on my list of required reading.
‘but if me, my birth, if that’s a thermodynamic miracle, i mean, you could say that about anyone in the world!’
‘yes, anybody in the world. come. dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. dry your eyes.’”
To say that The Watchmen is one of the most important works of the 20th century is, at this point, redundant. However, to describe it as morbidly hopeful, this piece of literature that documents a nuclear standoff and eventual WW3, seems initially miscalculated and yet I would argue that it is true. Amidst the devastation, the convulsing plots about the madness of humanity and the futility of morality in a modern world, we get little moments of beauty.
doctor manhattan, a godlike figure with no demonstrated stake in humanity, realizes the rarity of human existence. the two bernards embrace as they explode- their last act to embrace a friend disguised as a stranger. laurie forgives her mother.
this is not a light read that will give you faith in humanity, in fact it will do the opposite. however, Moore will continuously renege his own thesis that humanity is evil. he hides these moments among frames of violence, still they exist. Moore cannot fully commit to the violence of humanity because that would be too simple. It’s so easy to say that humanity is evil and not worth saying. it’s a story so rehashed it’s hardly saying anything anymore. what is so much harder to convey in media is that strange in between- the uncomfortable space of grey that humanity occupies. it is good and evil, kind and cruel. it is not possible to tie humanity into a neat bow, and Moore recognizes this. he portrays this grayness in the little moments so that you can’t finish this book and think “well, this proves it, humanity should all die.” he makes you finish the book with a brain blank with exhaustion, questioning everything.
What are we as humans supposed to do in this world? How are we meant to continue on when the world is so divided and muddled and not easy to explain. It’s Albert Camus’ concept of the Absurd. The problem of how to live our lives knowing that both nothing and everything matters in the grand scheme of things. And I don’t know. but i’m grateful to have confronted this philosophical dilemma through The Watchmen.
This is a work of fiction imbued with truths, a manifesto with no certain stances, a comic book of tragedy.
this is on my list of required reading.
Had seen the movie years ago, so I figured I take a crack at the original source material. Very good and plenty of themes that still are relevant today
I was re-reading this for the first time since high school. It is still one of the best graphic novels ever and moved the medium forward. But...it is a tough read with a lot of heavy themes. Side note: Every character is an absolutely terrible person.
Absolutely fabulous story. I was never big into the superhero comics as a kid, much less as an adult, but the dark bent present in this graphic novel really hooked me. The "Behind the Mask" interludes were interesting to read for their contrast and compliment to the progression of the so-called "real story;" I strongly recommend reading the two as they are presented, and not privileging one text over the other. I suspect some of the effect of one is lost without the other.
The primary mode of character development is through flashbacks, in some cases striking a contrast with the present, and in others, suggesting the motives that still drive the character. These flashbacks, however, do not interrupt the story and are woven into it in such a way that the reader does not question their integrality.
I probably should have written this review a little closer to having read the graphic novel, but as it is something I will certainly read again, I can always expand on this later.
The primary mode of character development is through flashbacks, in some cases striking a contrast with the present, and in others, suggesting the motives that still drive the character. These flashbacks, however, do not interrupt the story and are woven into it in such a way that the reader does not question their integrality.
I probably should have written this review a little closer to having read the graphic novel, but as it is something I will certainly read again, I can always expand on this later.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My interest in the graphic novel has come and went and resurfaced and left again over the years. Someplace in the middle of one of the resurgences I convinced myself that I needed to read THE (as far as critical acclaim goes) graphic novel. I was finding myself enamored and blown away by Gaiman's "The Sandman" series (which I still refuse to finish because I never want it to end,) and bitter about the rest of what the genre had to offer's lack of depth and ingenuity. Watchmen is not a superhero comic. It is a mystery story with characters that happen to be superheroes. It read like a pretty standard murder mystery and felt very dated by art style and time period. I can see that it was groundbreaking for the reasons that it dealt with more serious real-life issue in a superhero comic format, but ultimately, I did not feel like I experienced anything extraordinary.