Absolute Watchmen Edtion

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I'd love to own this, but 50 quid! (By the way guys, apropos of nothing, I have a birthday coming up...)

― chap who would dare to kill all the threads (chap), Saturday, 8 October 2005 12:55 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm particularly pleased about the recolouring, the shonky colouring being one of the few things that keeps Watchmen from absolute perfection. If only they could get Moore to rewrite the odd bit of clunky expositionary dialogue...

― chap who would dare to kill all the threads (chap), Saturday, 8 October 2005 16:11 (eighteen years ago) link

And maybe digitally insert Jabba the Hutt.

― chap who would dare to kill all the threads (chap), Saturday, 8 October 2005 16:15 (eighteen years ago) link

"Comedian did NOT jump!"

― David R. (popshots75`), Saturday, 8 October 2005 17:21 (eighteen years ago) link

The cop who gets a harpoon through him shoots first.

― chap who would dare to kill all the threads (chap), Saturday, 8 October 2005 17:23 (eighteen years ago) link

BTW, I am springing for this now (because I am weak). Also, I have no idea where my 10+ year old copy of the trade went, so what the hell.

― David R. (popshots75`), Saturday, 8 October 2005 17:25 (eighteen years ago) link

Does Rorschach win in this one?

― mike h. (mike h.), Saturday, 8 October 2005 21:10 (eighteen years ago) link

This should come with vodka.

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Sunday, 9 October 2005 00:46 (eighteen years ago) link

(bah Austin I hate you)

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Sunday, 9 October 2005 00:46 (eighteen years ago) link

It's okay, Dan. I hate me, too.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Sunday, 9 October 2005 03:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Roschach persuades Viedt not to go ahead with his plan, then Laurie calls Nixon and the head of the USSR and explains that they should, you know, just get along and be nice to each other, then Doctor Manhattan uses his powers to make the world a wonderful place full of bunny rabbits and rainbows, the end.

― chap who would dare to kill all the threads (chap), Sunday, 9 October 2005 15:01 (eighteen years ago) link

A quick perusal of this at my shop revealed that there's no new material in addition to what was reprinted in the Graphitti hardcover all those years ago. As I own one of those, the ABSOLUTE wasn't a must-buy, but I have to say that it is tempting. The coloring looks great, though I'll agree with Chuck in that it's just a tad too big. The hardcover was the perfect size and weight to flip through, but this one feels like you need to undertake special preparations in order to dive into its many secrets.

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Sunday, 9 October 2005 20:11 (eighteen years ago) link

Has there ever been a variant Watchmen?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Sunday, 9 October 2005 20:51 (eighteen years ago) link

> Has there ever been a variant Watchmen?

what do you mean?

the tpb did come in different covers iirc (classic yellow / picture of comedian being pushed through window). plus the french versions came oversized and 2 issues to a book.

did they ever fix that annoying red splodge in the middle of issue one(?) in later tpb printings?

― koogs (koogs), Monday, 10 October 2005 10:02 (eighteen years ago) link

I just meant that specifying that this edition is identical to the the Graphitti hardcover seems to suggest that there have been other editions that aren't.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 10 October 2005 11:30 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah, all the TPBs.

― kit brash (kit brash), Monday, 10 October 2005 11:33 (eighteen years ago) link

the old hardcover had 'minutes' and 'seconds' sections containing scripts and sketches and promo posters and stuff which weren't in the tpbs, another 30 odd pages of background iirc. new hardback seemed to have both of these but nothing else that i could see but then i only skimmed it.

― koogs (koogs), Monday, 10 October 2005 11:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Anybody else watch Rome last night? Two characters escape from certain starvation on a desert island by building a raft stuffed with bloating corpses.

Has that gimmick been used anywhere else?

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Monday, 10 October 2005 15:17 (eighteen years ago) link

This is not a thread where I was expecting a Rome spoiler!

Why is that download taking so long! Oh well.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 04:32 (eighteen years ago) link

Apparently I need to reread Watchmen, because I don't remember that part at all.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 08:24 (eighteen years ago) link

Its in the pirate comic the street kid reads, and peripheral to main plot.

― chap who would dare to kill all the threads (chap), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 09:43 (eighteen years ago) link

In my latest reread of Watchmen I found myself wondering why Doc Manhattan's blue balogna is ok to show, but Nite-Owl's pink prick is off limits.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 13:16 (eighteen years ago) link

I used to have a Watchmen watch.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 14:08 (eighteen years ago) link

I used to have a Manwich man.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 16:20 (eighteen years ago) link

I bet my Watchmen watch (which was fucking hassle for a 12-yr-old who'd only every had a digital watch that turned into a robot before) is still somewhere in my mom's basement.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 16:49 (eighteen years ago) link

Er, it was a hassle because it had no numbers on the face. It was just the Comedian happy face button with the blood splotch.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 16:50 (eighteen years ago) link

WATCHMEN SCORES SPOT ON BEST NOVELS EVAH POLL AT NYTIMES (Tintin not mentioned!):

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=5000622b4396f5911b655e4256b98856&threadid=46693

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 17 October 2005 16:58 (eighteen years ago) link

OOPSIES, that should be TIME MAGAZING not NYTIMES!
No bloated corpse cruise for me!

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 17 October 2005 16:59 (eighteen years ago) link

It's the best English-language novels since 1923 (whatever made them choose that year?), not the best novels ever. While the list looks refreshingly non-highbrow, and it's great that they've included a comic, I would've maybe chosen something else than Watchmen, even among English-language graphic novels (a definition that, obviously, excludes a lot of the best comics ever - though Watchmen itself wasn't originally a novel). Stuck Rubber Baby, perhaps. While I admire the work put in Watchmen, it kinda falls flat in the end, and is perhaps more "ambitious" than "great". That ambition certainly gets it far, but not as far as my personal top ten.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 17 October 2005 18:30 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm guessing they chose 1923 because it is the year after the publication of Ulysses .

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 17 October 2005 18:47 (eighteen years ago) link

1923 = the year Time started. Also, Watchmen isn't a novel at all, however good it is. It's a comic.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 17 October 2005 19:32 (eighteen years ago) link

IT's kinda wack how it says "ABSOLUTE WATCHMEN" on the spine.

― Old School (sexyDancer), Monday, 17 October 2005 20:04 (eighteen years ago) link

> though Watchmen itself wasn't originally a novel

Setting aside quibbles about what constitutes a novel, what exactly do you mean here?

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Monday, 17 October 2005 20:24 (eighteen years ago) link

I imagine he's referring to it being a maxi-series of 12 comics. I don't think that's an argument against it being a graphic novel, since it was conceived as a single whole work. Lots of novels in the past were serialised at first.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 17 October 2005 20:56 (eighteen years ago) link

I was going to say...The Count of Monte Cristo, for example (which is my favourite novel, which maybe says something about me, but not what I wished it said about me).

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 17 October 2005 21:03 (eighteen years ago) link

Dickens, yeah.

― Old School (sexyDancer), Monday, 17 October 2005 21:20 (eighteen years ago) link

Ulysses started off as a serial.

WILL BLOOM REMEMBER TO PICK UP HIS HOUSE KEY? WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE BAR OF SOAP? STAY TUNED...

― Leeeeeeeeee (Leee), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 01:49 (eighteen years ago) link

The interiors look gorgeous, but I'm not gonna pay seventy five or whatever bucks for it.

― Special Agent Dale Koopa (orion), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 02:18 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't see what the problem with the original color job is, personally.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 02:25 (eighteen years ago) link

― William Paper Scissors (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 03:36 (eighteen years ago) link

― William Paper Scissors (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 03:37 (eighteen years ago) link

I paid $62 for it. It's sitting on my shelf. It's fucking huge. Alas, the slipcover was damaged a bit in transit - little dents here & there. My inner book-anal phreak is still crying. It's fucking huge - I have Klimt & Monet artbooks that are fucking huge, and they're an inch shorter. I flipped through it. It'll get read soon (probably after I finish the book I'm currently reading) (lest I choose to read another non-illustrated type of thing) (or actually do homework).

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 05:14 (eighteen years ago) link

Unfortunately, I kinda associate Watchmen w/ a high school whale watch (during a week-long Cape Cod trip) - I brought the TPB w/ me on the boat, and ended up getting seasick. I actually got a little nauseous flipping through the book. I'll need some Dramamine before I crack the spine again.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 05:16 (eighteen years ago) link

The original color was fine but would've looked weirdly distorted and grainy if you blew it up to Absolute size. The recoloring job is beautiful--basically it looks the same except that the color blending is a little smoother (except for the Black Freighter sequences, which have the dot-matrix effect of old comics and the 64-color palette: nice touch). I am usually very touchy about this kind of retouching-after-the-fact, and I have no complaints at all about this one.

― Douglas (Douglas), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 05:24 (eighteen years ago) link

eleven years pass...

http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/watchmen-noir-hardcover

now available in black and white

― koogs, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 10:17 (seven years ago) link

gotta give dc their due, they're really working hard to squeeze cash out of a 30-year-old property

pissing off alan moore even more is presumably viewed as a side benefit

― not all those who chunder are sloshed (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 11:38 (seven years ago) link

TBF, they're milking a lot of their shit in a similar fashion. You'll need to be extra-vigilant about buying DC collections in the future lest you inadvertently pick up the Great Darkness Saga crayon-scribbled variant done by Didio's three-year-old niece.

― i need microsoft installed on my desktop, can you help (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 14:22 (seven years ago) link

The deadshittedness of this is underscored by a) the fact that Watchmen isn't meant to be noir and b) it's been 29 years and they still haven't done V For Vendetta in a NON-colourised version

― sad, hombres (sic), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 15:18 (seven years ago) link

it's almost like dc don't have a fucking clue innit

― not all those who chunder are sloshed (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 15:21 (seven years ago) link

DC doesn't currently have a clue but they're feverishly engaged in securing the rights to a clue, at which point they plan on radically altering said clue into something no one recognizes or would've ever wanted a clue to resemble and you will ultimately live to regret ever wishing that they would get a clue.

― i need microsoft installed on my desktop, can you help (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 15:47 (seven years ago) link

i wonder if i can ever re-read watchmen again though
― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, March 20, 2005 10:27 PM (eleven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― mh 😏, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 16:12 (seven years ago) link

The whole noir series is stupid IMO.

A new special edition of Watchmen came out last week that packaged each individual issue as a small hardcover inside of a big slipcase. It weighs about 20 pounds.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Monday, 21 November 2016 19:28 (seven years ago) link

The state of reality these days is such that I have no idea whether that's a joke or yet another sign that the world is all the way in the terlet.

― i need microsoft installed on my desktop, can you help (Old Lunch), Monday, 21 November 2016 19:30 (seven years ago) link

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