Pros: Its unique...fascinating combination of literary forms, and it works!
Cons: A bit on the graphic side with the violence, perhaps unnecessarily.
The Bottom Line: Wonderful characters and great story, completely unique literary blend of styles....a true treasure, which will live in your memory strongly.
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Obviously love comic books, in addition to writing them.
I came across "Watchmen" by being given it as a gift when I left England. Since then I have re-read it countless times. I had not read anything in the comicbook format since my childhood, and I had a vague awareness that the genre had matured somewhat, but I was still taken aback by the sweeping scope, and maturity of comment present in this work.
This book deals with the fates of a group of "masked adventurers", essentially vigilantes, each of which has a colorful alter-ego when in costume. Known broadly to each other, their identities are otherwise secret. They are drawn together at the beginning of the book to mourn the death of one of their kin under suspicious circumstances. From here on in, the stories of them all begin to weave together...each one of these characters has very different goals, and we spy on their various investigations, machinations and affairs of the heart.
The heart of the plot is the attempt of a wealthy megalomaniac, who is one of the masked adventurers, to establish a new world order. He is intermittently helped and hindered by the others, as their awareness of this situation grows.
Now, bare in mind, that with one exception , these are not "superheroes" with all kinds of improbable powers...they are people, nothing more or less, with a penchant for justice, although their interpretation of justice varies widely. This is one of the beauties of this book....by employing normal people as the faces behind the masks, the authors have added a great deal of realism and believability to their characters. All the main characters are well fleshed-out, and the unique crafting of their story in prose, comic book, and other styles is very absorbing. By way of example, the authors cleverly run a vein of analogy to the evolving story all the way through the book. This is in the form of a man who is himself reading a comic book; through this vehicle commentary on the main story is delivered. It works wonderfully.
The one character who is most certainly a superperson in the usual sense is Dr Manhattan. I have lots of recommendations for this work, but if you read it only to slot Dr Manhattan into your imaginations' inner-life, you would never regret it. His story is fascinating, beautiful, mystical. And somewhat tragic. This is a book whose characters will live on in your mind long after you finish the read.
This book is an imaginative blend of styles...newspaper articles, magazine interviews, the comic book format, and others are all blended wonderfully to tell the tale, and give it a feel of realism. As I mentioned at the beginning of my review, the authors clearly have a lot of love and nostalgic care for the comic book Genre. They transmit this passion clearly and touchingly.
For a negative side, well, there are negatives, yes....there is a lot of harsh language, and very graphic violence. If such things bother you, skip this book. And another thing that ought to be made clear is that this book is not exactly "happy ending" material either. There is a good dose of scepticism and some dark commentary. Again, if you can't get past that, you might want to let this one go by.
I loved it. I hope I inspire someone else to discover it.
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