2009/35: Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

[tamaranth]

Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

Things have their shape in time, not space alone. Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future.

Reread for bookclub. There's a lot in there -- primarily the connections between graphics and words, the visual tricks, the palindromic nature of the chapters that each start and end with the same, or similar, images -- that I hadn't noticed on previous reads: did I notice them this time because the film had referenced or reworked them? There are certainly plot elements that I didn't pick up on the first few readings, back in the 80s: JFK, genetic engineering, the right-wing leanings of most of the costumed heroes, the casual sexism. And I suspect that when I first read Watchmen I had far less idea of how comics worked -- how to read that connection between text and image.

Some observations:
- Rorschach may be a monster but he is a principled monster. We do not do this thing because it is permitted. We do it because we have to. We do it because we are compelled.
- This was never our world: for instance, the motto of the Watchmen USAF is per dolorum ad astra (through suffering to the stars).
- There is some glorious prose.
- Adrian Veidt (who would like to be the Buddha when he grows up) is clearly a Villain, given his expressed preference for Stockhausen and Cage. <g>

I really want to see the film again now, not instead of but as complement to the book.

Comments

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

I don't you'd be spotting the visual tricks due to seeing the film; I think they were by necessity dumped and they failed to find any cinematic "replacements". It's hard to manage the palindromic effect of different issues, for example, when it's just a less discrete quarter hour chunk. There seemed to be less smiley face simulacrums in the film than I expected too. I think there are a lot of those sort of things which you only notice on subsequent readings; well I know I did.

"Principled monster" is a good way of putting it. Despite Rorschach espousing probably the opposite of Alan Moore's views on most things he still makes him the most "heroic" character. He absolutely refuses to live in the world based on such a terrible lie and if it costs him his life, so be it.

(Hm, thinking of the "big lie", how about The Matrix, with Neo the analogue of Rorschach. Burble burble burble)

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

They did dump a lot of the graphic-novel tricks like palindromic chapters: but they kept a lot, in particular specific scenes which were composed exactly like the panels in the original. And the flashing neon light in Moloch's apartment ...