The Watchmen
With the movie coming out in six months the buzz around Watchmen is getting loud – especially since the trailer is being run before The Dark Knight. In July and August combined the comic sold over 62,000 copies from comic specialty stores – this doesn’t include regular book stores like Chapters – and will most likely continue to fly off the shelf until March 2009.
Just like the other 62,000 people (and counting) I jumped on this bandwagon and picked myself up a copy of the book. Now, most true comic book fans will shun me for not having read “one of the greatest graphic novels ever written” until now, but I had my reasons.
Mostly, I couldn’t get on board with the artwork. I’m a bit of a art snob and I’ve never been a fan of the 1980’s comic book style. And if I don’t like the artwork, I won’t read the book. However, after reading the first few pages of the Watchmen I stopped critiquing the style and even started to enjoy it. I looked past the “80’s-ness” of it all and began to appreciate the grit of the art which gives the story its noir tone. I was also blown away by a lot of the compositions brought into the panels to create a dynamic visual story. I can see this book definitely being a cinematographers wet dream.
A Few Panels
Even with my doubts the story absorbed me completely. There were nights when I knew I needed to be up at 7am, but ended up reading until 1am. It was with me on my bus to and from work and it still took me a few days to read because I wanted to pay attention to every detail of the story – both written and visual. I fell in love (and hate) with all the characters, my favourite being Dr. Manhattan and not because he was the only real superhuman. Each of them felt real. They all had their own special insecurties, passions and proficiencies that promoted the regular Joe trying to be a hero story. The only exceptions to the regular Joe scenario were Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias, both having some form of meta-human trait. However, going against the stereotype of the superhero both of these characters also maintained flaws and in some ways are the biggest jerks in the entire story.
All the core and supporting characters tell the story of a world gone mad, whether it be from human prejudice, the count down to the end of the world, or the feeling that human rights are a thing of the past. Even the sub-story following a comic book being read by one of the characters emphasizes and parallels the overall story being told. This part actually confused me at first because you had to pay attention to what the comic book narrator was trying to say while at the same time trying to decipher what was going on in the reality of the story. It takes a few pages to get into the flow of the parallel stories, but it is so important to make sure you get it.
Part of me regrets not having read this book earlier, and letting my previous judgment hold such power over my decision. Now that I have consumed it I wish for every person who appreciates story -comic fan or not – to pick this up for themselves. I promise you, you will not be disappointed.
Oh, and try and get it read before the movie comes out.
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Brie your an awesome teacher!!
I definitely want to read Watchmen, but I’m not a real fan of graphic novels, so I imagine it’ll take me a while to actually convince myself to read it. I’ll end up seeing the movie first, and if it’s halfway decent, I’ll read it. The trailer looks really freakin’ awesome, can’t wait until it comes out!