The Watchmen: Classic, duh!

I'M POSTING THIS AGAIN BCUZ NOBODY SAID SHIT ABOUT IT LAST TIME AND I'M POUTING.

Stir and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with isotopes.

I had a funny conversation yesterday with a guy who is discovering "graphic novels", and was interested in reading Watchmen becuae he has seen it showing up in lists of best books of the 20th century and stuff. The great thing was that he seemed to basically have never heard of superheroes, so he was saying "I've looked at it in shops, and it seems to be about, you know, crime fighters and stuff, but it is meant to be very good".

It would be great to have never heard of superheroes... it would be so exciting to then discover them.

I'm not sure you could deal with superheros, without that childhood grounding.

if you have no previous, then watchmen has nothing to subvert.

I think the whole subversion angle is a bit overstated. For a lot of people, Watchmen would have been the first comic they ever read, and they still love it.

Yeah, strip it of all the deconstructive post-modernism and it's still a cracking mystery-cum-science-fiction story.

For real!

I'm the only person who hated Watchmen I guess. And not in an iconoclastic, "ain't I a rebel" way either. A friend gave me Watchmen and Transmet at the same time (when I was starting college and getting back into college for the first time since grade school). Transmet was amazing and I fell in love with comics again because of it. Watchmen felt boring, self-indulgent and way pretentious. The pages of text? The ridiculous pirate comics? Ugh. I still can't stand it today.

Getting back into comics for the first time, I meant.

Def. I was just thinking I want to re-read it now that I've read a bunch of the Golden/Silver Age stuff to which it was a response.

that was an xp to the conversation above mordy

Watchmen felt boring, self-indulgent and way pretentious. The pages of text?

Haha, let me tell you about a little comic called Cerebus.

I just wanna say, before the inevitable onslaught (I don't think I've ever articulated this opinion without being yelled at) that I don't think there's anything wrong with liking Watchmen (or Cerebus for that matter). It just isn't my cup of tea and in general, I've had a hard time enjoying Moore's work. Which isn't to say I only like comics to be pulpy. I like Morrison, who I think is trying to do more that just write pulpy stories (I loved Animal Man, for one). There's just something about Moore that's a huge turnoff for me, and that is epitomized in Watchmen.

Sorry, didn't mean to be snipey. I don't think Watchmen's pretentious at all, the storytelling is tight as a drum, and all the subtexts ultimately come second place to that. It is a little smug perhaps, you can practically hear Moore rubbing his hands together in the background going 'Haha, I've fucking nailed this one,' but, you know, he has a point.

Cerebus on the other hand is monumentally pretentious and self-indulgent, but still completely extraordinary and at times stunningly brilliant.

Watchmen definitely has every Moore quirk in a crystallized form, which can be a good or a bad thing I guess. Sometimes I feel Watchmen is kinda too dense, too loaded with signifiers, but then again you simply gotta admire Moore and Gibbons for managing to pull it off. And there's stuff you'll probably discover after you've reread it more than once. Like all the little details that emphasize it's a alternate timeline, such as the weird pipes people smoke instead of cigarettes, or the blimps constantly hovering in the sky, etc. I must've readed Wathcmen like four times before I noticed the word balloons are differently shaped in different decades.

But I think it's also a good thing Moore has sorta loosened up his scripts and not really tried to do another Watchmen, I don't think he would've succeeded, and his "lighter" comics are equally enjoyable. Though I guess Promethea is an example of what can go wrong with Moore's grandiose, pompose scripts: it's an admirable effort, but also boring in all the ways Watchmen isn't.

I may be far, far too biased, in that I read the thing when it came out when i was 16-17 and thus thought "I can't read super hero comics again after this, since it negates the need for them and now can go get laid"…and it was SO eye-opening to me at the time…I give it to people as a gift from time to time…

But its hard for me to understand that anyone can regard the thing as purely a cold exercise in "deconstruction." Indeed, while its a precisely executed formal triumph, it has characters that breath, live and love. The whole thing has heart.

On another note: it is well known that Moore sez "fuck hollywood" re: the films made thus far of his shit. But my understanding is that the Watchmen film is being made with superhuman levels of fidelity to his vision. I bet he'll never see it on principle, but it seems to be going the extra mile to do everything he would approve of.

I've tried to read Transmetropolitan, but I have hard time getting past the main character. I think he's just extremely irritating, like a high school sci-fi nerd's idea what a cool, tough guy is. King Mob in Invisibles was kinda similar in that respect, but Spider Jerusalem is ten times worse.

(x-post)

Compared to Spider Jerusalem, you gotta sorta admire how Moore pulls the rug off of reader identification in Watchmen. Nigh Owl, the one guy who I guess the reader is supposed to identify most is shown to be an inefficient, bumbling fool, whereas it's only the fascist vigilante who has the moral backbone to oppose Veidt's scheme by the end of the story. Then again, the lack of characters one can identify with makes Watchmen sort of a "cold" read, and I'm glad Moore has created some sympathetic, likable characters in his other work.

Transmet's alright if you can get over the fact that every story arc is pretty much the same. I find the blockiness of Robertson's art a little hard to take as well.

I like some thing in Transmetropolitan, but really the main character is just so awful. Does anyone really think he's "cool"?

xpost to Tuomas' previous post - I've always maintained that Moore's attitude to Viedt's scheme is less clear cut than generally believed. He does disapprove (Pirate Comic allegory ahoy), but the whole work is obsessed with moral grey areas, so I think he does imply some kind of twisted logic and nobility in Adrian's actions.

Spider is great but clearly only works as a parody character; I was always way more on board with his bodyguard and his assistant.

I meant "caricature" rather than "parody charactor"; I don't know why I wrote that.

Also, I think the way Ellis builds the world of Transmetropolitan sorta contradicts what Spider Jerusalem does in the stories. I mean, the whole society is shown to be so value-pluralistic, morally relativist, and nihilist that it's hard to imagine people actually care that much about "shocking truths" revealed by one journalist.

(xx-post)

But I don't think Spider Jerusalem is a parody character all the time. To me it feels Ellis ultimately wants you think he's sorta cool and heroic, despite mocking him from time to time. (I guess he realized, if he wouldn't do that the character would be simply unbearable.)

I've always maintained that Moore's attitude to Viedt's scheme is less clear cut than generally believed. He does disapprove (Pirate Comic allegory ahoy), but the whole work is obsessed with moral grey areas, so I think he does imply some kind of twisted logic and nobility in Adrian's actions.

I agree, but I still think in the finale it's Rorschach who comes off better than Night Owl, and that it was deliberate on Moore's part to fuck with audience expectations by making the fascist guy look more heroic. I think I've read some interview where he pretty much states this was his intention.

I agree about Spider, but I did like him nonetheless - everything's so over-the-top about that book, the world, the "idealized" version of future-journalism. But I can see how his character would annoy the hell out of others.

They're not talked about as much for some reason (maybe because of being less ambitious), but Moore's more positive takes, or maybe reconstruction, were pretty damn fun to read too - Tom Strong and Supreme were, like Astro City, nods to the past while being solid works in their own right (especially Tom Strong).

Tom Strong is enormously fun and good-hearted.

Interesting discussion of the bloodstained smiley way upthread. A few quotes:

I don't think the bloody smiley is a symbol for The Comedian, rather than for the whole comic

The blood smiley and its variations are more symbolic of messy human flaws on inhuman perfections, I thought.

I see it as a symbol of what Moore was trying doing to the genre; a splash of messy, vivid human bean juice against a hyper-stylised, simplistic, two-dimensional representation of a human bean.

On another note: it is well known that Moore sez "fuck hollywood" re: the films made thus far of his shit. But my understanding is that the Watchmen film is being made with superhuman levels of fidelity to his vision.

Oh yeah, none more faithful.

I bet he'll never see it on principle, but it seems to be going the extra mile to do everything he would approve of.

Considering "everything he would approve of" consists of a) not making the film and b) goto a, and he's been on the record regarding this since 1989 (see the TCJ interview), there aren't many miles to go. All he wants with regard to Watchmen is his rights to the book back, not for a movie to be faithful or unfaithful.

At least if this is to be believed, the movie is keeping the gist of the ending, even if changing some of its particulars. Which is much better than the nonsensical ending to the script that had been floating around in the 90s, in which Veidt tries to use a time machine to kill Dr. Manhattan before the accident which creates him.

don't read spoilers! I think people should stop reading about the film.

Then again, the lack of characters one can identify with makes Watchmen sort of a "cold" read, and I'm glad Moore has created some sympathetic, likable characters in his other work.

I find a lot of the characters somewhat sympathetic, even if they have very bad sides to them. Even Rorshach comes across like someone who would like a big hug.

This is making me imagine a "Rorshach Goes Raving" comic.

For a lot of people, Watchmen would have been the first comic they ever read

I'm not sure how true this is, but more importantly it would be very unlikely to be the first exposure to superheroes that they ever had.

I definitely considered Rorschach the identification character for the main engine of the plot, yes. But then I don't really understand the need to like the hero of a story.

I'm not sure how true this is, but more importantly it would be very unlikely completely impossible to be the first exposure to superheroes that they ever had.

Liking a character is not the same as identifying with them. You must have some kind of window into their motives in order for their actions to be dramatically compelling, but you can still think they're a bastard (example off the top my head: the Ripley novels).

So, yeah, the characters in Watchmen are not generally that 'likable' (at best weak and confused, at worst HELLO GIANT BRAIN SQUID), but the reader can still identify with every single one of them, with the exception of Doc M who is beyond that sort of thing.

The movie Silk Specter looks like the teenager Incredible!

In the future, we will all look like the teenager Incredible!

I definitely considered Rorschach the identification character for the main engine of the plot, yes. But then I don't really understand the need to like the hero of a story.

But the type of stories Moore is deconstructing in Watchmen are pretty much based on likable heros.

What I meant by fucking with reader identification is, I think Moore assumes the stereotypical Watchmen reader is pretty much like him - liberal, left-leaning, somewhat intellectual. But the types characters this sort of reader would normally sympathize with are either ineffective losers (Dreiberg) or authoritarian maniacs (Veidt), whereas by the end of the story it is the violent right-wing nutso Rorschach whose side most readers are kinda forced to take.

Are the readers really forced to take that side, Tuomas? My read of WATCHMEN is that Rorschach's inability to compromise is what turns him into a physically repellent (living in squalor, unable to connect to most everyone), morally repugnant ("If that made Blake a Nazi, you may as well call me a Nazi too") anti-hero who was not the center of sympathy in the story. Moore was turning the whole notion of the lone vigilante as a good thing on its head. There aren't any "good guys" in WATCHMEN; even Veidt doesn't have the courage of his own convictions and is well on his way to becoming the protagonist of the BLACK FREIGHTER story within a story.

But again, that's my read.

I'm with Matt here. I think Moore assumes his readers are, first and foremost, comic book fans. Remember that this was published in the revionist era of Miller's Dark Knight and at the Punisher's peak of popularity. I think Moore assumes his readers will be most inclined to identify with Rorschach from the very beginning - he's the most consistent with the then-dominant (still dominant?) wounded loner/vigilante antihero archetype. But at the same time, he's trying to get you to question that archetype, to get you to think about what the "loner vigilantes" who crop up in the real world are like. The fact that he refuses to condemn Rorschach, even after making it quite clear that he's a fascist psychopath, is just Moore playing with the gray areas. Travis Bickle looks a lot like a hero at the end of Taxi Driver, too.

I didn't mean to say that people sympathize with Rorschach all the way throughout the story, just that by the end of the story his refusal to accept Veidt's barve new world seems more "heroic" than what the other characters decide to do. I agree that there are multiple readings to the comic though, and of course one function of the Rorschach character is to point out to your typical Batman or Punisher fan what a vigilante crimefighter like that would be like in the "real" world.

I'm not sure I agree, Tuomas. The ending is grey, and while you might sympathise with Rorshach's stand, you also sympathise with Nite Owl's not rocking the boat and starting a nuclear war.

The ending is as ambiguous as they come. Finding a "right answer" out of the situation requires an Alexander to cut through the Gordian Knot of that conclusion, and there isn't one in sight.