Who Reads the Watchmen

Welcome to part one of my look at Watchmen the phenomena that's currently going on, starting with the Graphic Novel (or 12 part mini series depending on how you perceive it).

For those of you who don't know Watchmen is written by Alan Moore who has written V for Vendetta, Batman: Killing Joke and much more and is drawn by Dave Gibbons who has worked on Superman, Batman and Green Lantern (and was also the writer of Green Lantern Corps) it was first published in 1986 and is the only graphic novel named as Time Magazine's 100 Best English Language Novels since 1923.

Now what many people don't know is that The Watchmen was supposed to feature established characters and not the ones featured in the book,however since DC had just acquired the Charlton Comics characters and knowing what Alan Moore wanted to do with them, they decided not to let him have a crack at The Charlton characters (if you look closely there is a reference to Charlton in the book) the characters in Watchmen are actually loosely based on some of the Charlton characters.

I'll admit that the first time I read Watchmen, I had a hard time getting into the story, because the story can feel dense at times, and at first read the back up material can often feel unnecessary, but rereading it, it's inclusion provides an insight into this alternate world where Richard Nixon is still president in 1985. Although I still can't really see the point of The Black Freighter material inside, though I can guess why it's in there.

Each chapter of Watchmen is around 28 pages long, 6 pages longer than the average comic as well as back up material (except for chapter 12) and it is a slow read, even if you are a fast reader as Moore writes quite a bit of dialogue and uses alot of captions. This makes the book hard to get into at first especially if your brain is trained to read a modern comic book which often lacks captions and such wordy dialogue (unless it's a Brian Michael Bendis comic, but Bendis is nowhere near a masterful wordsmith as Moore) but the thing about the dialogue is that it really defines the characters, especially Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan.

The art is quite stylish from Rorschach's entrance into The Comedian's apartment to Dr Manhattan's appearance as just a nervous system to the horrific opening four pages of chapter 12. The only problem with the art is that it often feels constrained at times, Gibbon's mainly conforms himself to about 9 panels a page (although there are a lot of instances where he breaks his 9 panels per page to expand a scene).

Watchmen was one of the few comics that helped redefine the way fans and creators look at the comic book narrative, any trace of the happy-go-lucky era of comics slowly faded giving fans something more gritty, mature and realistic. If your thinking of picking up the graphic novel after seeing the film, my advice is to take your time reading it and once you've finished it put it away for a while before rereading it again. The book is difficult to get your head around at first but once you get further into it, it does become more enjoyable, because it isn't as predictable.

If you've read Watchmen before: did you find it hard to read at first? What's your favourite moment in the graphic novel (or issues if you got it back in the 80's)? and who is your favourite character?

Mine is Ozymandias.