Watchmen

By Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
1986-1987

Watchmen is a comic. Or, if you prefer, a graphic novel. Despite these unsophisticated labels, Watchmen has won the Hugo Award and was named one of Time magazine’s top 100 novels of the century. You can find copies in most major bookstores, in addition to every comic shop on earth. Watchmen is the story that forced the “literary” world to start paying attention to comics, hence the origin of the term “graphic novel.” If Watchmen hadn’t paved the way, so the story goes, then the comic-world would never have exploded on society quite the way it has. The most obvious effect of comic’s increased appeal can be found in the movies. Without the precedent set by Watchmen, Batman the movie would never have come into existence, based as it was on Frank Miller’s psychologically dark comic stories of the dark knight. And without Batman there never would have been a market for the numerous comic-related movies such as X-Men, Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, the much-maligned Hulk movie from academy-award winning director Ang Lee, or even Sin City. Comics drive the plot of Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy, while the mythology of the comic world is central to M. Night Shamyalan’s Unbreakable. Comics, like it or not, are mainstream.

Just how mainstream are we talking about here? If we want to follow this comic resurgence into more tenuous territory, we might argue that Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay would never have been written (or won the Pulitzer Prize), based as it is on comics and super-heroes, because there would not have been enough interest in comics to warrant such an undertaking by a novelist. Of course, such an argument isn’t exactly convincing, but it suggests that comics and graphic novels have clawed their way into the realm of literature and solidified their position in that strange phenomenon called culture.

All because of Watchmen?

I was skeptical. Friends had been recommending Watchmen for years. And while I had been collecting comics since I was a kid, and while I loved Alan Moore’s work in Swamp Thing and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the comic, not the movie), I just didn’t believe that a comic could hold it’s own against 100 Years of Solitude or The Odyssey. Alan Moore, brilliant as he is, is no Hemingway. After reading Watchmen, I can honestly say that Moore isn’t Hemingway, at all. . . . He’s more like Faulkner, with a touch of Jung, and a little MacGyver thrown in for good effect. Watchmen is amazing.

It’s a critique of the absurdity of superheroes. It’s an insight into the fucked-up psychology of vigilantes. It’s about the connection between power and evil, despite good intentions. It’s about the value of building relationships even when there are more “important” things to be doing. It’s a weird combination of Charlotte Bronte, Albert Camus, Charlie Brown, and Walker Texas Ranger. It’s disturbing: if you’ve ever read Native Son by Richard Wright, then you’ll have an idea of what I’m talking about. It’s not always a comfortable read, but it’s definitely a rewarding read. And it’s worth taking a day or two off and reading it cover-to-cover. But be warned – reading Watchmen takes concentration.

So, based on all my rambling and drivel, you’ve decided to pick up a copy of Watchmen and read it next weekend. Great! A warning though: it might be a little jarring. You might be put off at first; you might be tempted to put it down, call me a raving lunatic, and swear off graphic novels forever. So here’s a few tips for reading. Reading a graphic novel is entirely different from reading a book. Obvious, right? Sure, but it still took me a while to really figure out how to read Watchmen. The characters are as complete as any you’ll find in a work of “literature.” The plot is just as complex and mysterious as an Alfred Hitchcock movie. And to really read a graphic novel in an effective way, you have to combine the habits of reading a novel and the habits of watching a movie. It doesn’t work to read just the dialogue bubbles, and it’s hardly helpful just to look at the pictures. You need to train your eyes to do both simultaneously, and for a lot of readers this means slowing down. So…slow down. One study said that the average museum-goer looks at a painting for an average of three seconds. Three seconds! That’s ridiculous. And it’s just as ridiculous to read the words of a graphic novel and ignore the art. Slow down and pay attention to the pictures. They’re just as crucial to what’s going on as the words. If you train your eyes to read Watchmen effectively, I guarantee you’ll dig it.