Alan Moore's Watchmen

It was another week of 'what haven't I read on this list?' I hope that means I have good taste. Especially with some of my favorites on this list DC: The New Frontier being the top. I personally love the old feel of it and the history behind the times its set in. Not to mention the artist and writer Darwyn Cooke is one of my favorites. And as much as I'd like to talk about books that I've already read including Kingdom Come, the Authority, Batwoman, All Star Superman, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Arkham Asylum, and the Sandman (for a previous week no less) I'm going to talk about a series I only flipped through in the book store. Watchmen.

I admit to much embarrassment on my part that I had never actually read Watchmen before this class. I had given it a glance over years ago and honestly didn't think too much about it at the time. I still haven't seen the movie but from what I hear that's probably a good thing.

On of the first things I came to realize is how completely bonkers Rorschach is. but at the same time I still like him as a character. It might have to do with that fact he's the only 'superhero' left among them and that besides the fact he's completely psycho, he does want to stop bad guys. He's the only one who didn't stop when the law told him no, the only one who didn't work for them to keep going. And for that I do admire him. but I do at the same time find that I disprove of his extreme violence at times.

I found that besides Rorschach it was hard for me to like some of the other characters. They were likable, but there flaws made me want to flinch away and never look back. But at the same time that made them human. They had their flaws but thats not something I normally aim for in comics. I look for characters who despite their flaws aim to be better and succeed. That might be why the ending was so hard on me. For all my love of drama, I really do not like unhappy endings. I feel like nothing has gotten better in the end.

At the time this comic came out, the format and writing was new and different exciting the comic industry. But reading this today it seemed similar to things I have already seen before. I'm sure many of artists and writers have read Waterman and other works by Alan Moore and used him as an example. So what I really noticed from this was how cinematic the angles were and wonder if the same angles were used in the movie. I think they would have worked remarkably well in translation.

And now I feel I really have to go see the movie now, good or bad.