Watching

[zeppomarks]

In the early eighties when I started reading comics regularly I was very "girlish" about it. Let me clarify, comics that appeal generally to females have a certain flavor about them. They are either extremely fantastical or very introspective and personal. Sometimes they are both. The standard dude in tights rushing in to save innocent bystanders only appealed to me in theory plus I was completely in love with the art which could be distracting since the stories rarely spoke to me. It was easy for me to breeze through a superhero comic and even though I had read it, I couldn't tell you what it was about but I could tell you what the characters were wearing and what expression or explosion was the rendered in a way that I dug. I couldn't make it very far into Spiderman, or Superman or even Wonder Woman for that matter. The exception was Batman because he was just an ordinary human, impossibly flawed and neurotic and THAT was the perfect sand for me to get stuck in. The rest of the time I was either knee deep in the torment of Love and Rockets or being mindless with Peter Bagge's Neat Stuff.



Then I married Paul who lives and breathes comics and instead of insisting that I simply 'try again' with the superheroes instead put Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" into my hands and before I even got to the end I felt myself slipping down that slope with no hope of regaining my former skeptical attitude.
Then when I was ripe for the transformation he handed me "Watchmen."
I recall him describing that it wasn't really about superheroes, but more about the world if there were Superheroes actually living in it. I finished the entire graphic novel in one sitting.
It was complex but easy to read, it was delicious in its over arching implications about the nature of humans beings, it was gorgeous and it scared the living shit out of me. For the first time I lay awake thinking about a comic book feeling as if I had finished a remarkable novel, not just read a comic book with caped crusaders and incidental bystanders. I read it again and again. I have bought so many copies for friends hoping that just one of them will also have the Kool-Aid experience that I have long lost count.

Since the mid nineties rumors have spun out again and again about them making a movie of Watchmen. I was nervous about the prospect. Could they make me feel like I did reading it the first time, like I was an omniscient being hovering over a spectacle and at the same time feeling my heart in my throat, like I was running for my life down a smoke filled street? Each time the project fell through I felt disappointed and yet relieved that they did not destroy something on film that was so very precious to me.
When I heard Zach Snyder took the project and started to run with it I was cautiously optimistic. He had done a brilliant job directing "300" although it wasn't complex like Watchmen. They were going to have to create the visual punch of 300 but stack the layers of suspicion and sex and politicos and history and pop culture all into this impossible pie. They were going to have to draw me in and make me forget and then the second the mystery starts to unravel it is far too late and like Cassandra you are helpless in watching the inevitable end.

This is what they have so far and if you have never read a comic in your life, read "Watchmen" because it is simply a really great book and like all the best books - you won't be quite the same after.

Who watches the Watchmen?

Comments

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

This is why I buy you a drink every year at Dragon Con...

[theinnocence.livejournal.com]

i still want to see what gilliam would of done with it :p

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

you know - me too. That was the one I really was hoping for, but I think this one will be good too.

[emzebel.livejournal.com]

Now you have me trying to remember my gateway comics from feminist/lesbian black and white strips and it's all blurry. I just recently started catching up on Alan Moore stuff, so working back, it must have been Strange Toasters...

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

I can't remember that one directly... yet it seems familiar.
Was it "Stray Toasters" by chance? maybe I am remembering it wrong.
Man I am old.

[emzebel.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stray_Toasters

Hello, I fail at comic references. ;)

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

The Watchmen movie looks like its really good.

Why Alan Moore won't ever die.

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

that rocks me. :)

[herroyalflyness.livejournal.com]

I do love "Watchmen." A very lot. Maybe I will get bookshelves soon so I can unpack my books and reread it. But there's a narrow window there, because I don't want to reread it immediately before the movie comes out ... differences will distract me. Not (necessarily) piss me off, but distract me.

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

You know what is crazy, he is including stuff that I thought immediately they would drop, like the strange comic book narrative in the middle about the shipwreck survivor.

I think the release date is May, so you have a month or two depending on your recollection skills, but if you drink heavily during this upcoming holiday season you may be able to shave that down! :)

[herroyalflyness.livejournal.com]

That last bit caused me to laugh out loud at my desk.

A few months might do it. (Hmmmm, which box is Watchmen in?) I was in the middle of rereading the Harry Potter series in advance of Deathly Hallows and had just finished Order of the Phoenix when that film hit theaters. I didn't dislike the film, but I was constantly distracted by my brain going "But what about ... "

[pharminatrix.livejournal.com]

I remember reading Understanding Comics for the first time and deciding that if I ever taught a Philosophy course, this would sooo be on the syllabus. Like, first.

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

YES!
His definition of art was completely fabulous. I mention it frequently to people.

[herroyalflyness.livejournal.com]

I am very curious to know what his definition of art is. One of my favorite statements about art is by Muriel Rukeyser, who said calling one thing "good art" and another thing "bad art" is like calling one color "good red" and another "bad red" when the second color is green.

[aveareya.livejournal.com]

I remember the days of love and rockets - it's the first thing I thought of when you said 'girl comics'. Hmmmm, tempting to find them again....

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

If you want I can lend you my hardcover compilation - it is GIGANTIC but it has everything. :)

[aveareya.livejournal.com]

that would be so awesome!!!

[mistervimes.livejournal.com]

It is the pinnacle of comics writing.

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

true dat brother. :)

[a-littleunwell.livejournal.com]

I too was leery of the movie but have made my peace with it. It seems that Synder really gets the material.

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

He has fought tooth and nail about some things with the studio which has bolstered my opinion of him and the potential for the film. They wanted him to move the movie to present day and he refused. They wanted him to drop the comic narrative about the shipwreck survivor and he still has it in there.

As long as the performances are good I think we may have a winner, I am still keeping my fingers crossed though.

[pipistrella.livejournal.com]

I suppose I should actually read it. :)

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

YOU of all people should. There is so much obscure literary reference shoved here and there I think you would dig it.
It is the only comic I have ever read where a few pages later I suddenly thought, "did I actually see that?" and I have to flip back.
Let me know if you end up reading it, i would love to know what you thought.

[pipistrella.livejournal.com]

I'll definitely check it out.

[wonderbink.livejournal.com]

Oh . . . My . . . God . . .

It's almost as if they had to delay things for technology to catch up with properly recreating it.

I am . . . stunned, really.

I'm curious if it will wind up being something like V For Vendetta--an imperfect rendering of the moral ambiguities but well-presented enough that you don't mind as much. (Unless you do.)

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

You know I have to agree there. If this movie had happened before the technology was where it is now, it might have fell short.

[twizmo.livejournal.com]

I saw a trailer for Watchmen on the big screen recently. It's left me intrigued and eagerly anticipating the movie. Your post now has me all the more inclined to get my hands on a copy of the print version.

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

Oh please do, it is really such a great book. If you pick it up let me know what you think.

[twizmo.livejournal.com]

Indeed, I will.

[voxsjournal.livejournal.com]

I've never read it, but I just ordered it from the library.

I kind of think of comics as our new myths.

Oh, and if you've never read (though of course you have) The Dark Knight Returns (http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Knight-Returns-Frank-Miller/dp/1563893428) by Frank Miller, you reallyreally should.

vox (absolutely adored the Flash as a boy)

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you and let me know what you think about it when you are done.

Oh I am ALL about Dark Knight Returns. ;)

[voxsjournal.livejournal.com]

I'm still waiting for it to come in, but I found the following and thought you or someone you know might be interested in it.

Watching the Watchmen: The Definitive Companion to the Ultimate Graphic Novel (http://www.bookmarksmagazine.com/book-review/watching-watchmen/david-gibbons) by David Gibbons.

[zeppo.livejournal.com]

I have the annotated Watchmen book right now, but this looks very cool thank you!