Who watches my word count?
Watchmen: The Graphic Novel
I can say without hyperbole that Watchmen is a masterpiece and needs to be read at some point by everyone who has any interest in comics/graphic novels/sequential art/etc. Everyone must make the pilgrimage back to this book to discover how the form of sequential art was changed forever by it.
If you go into Watchmen expecting your "typical" comic (bad guy shows up, good guy shows up, epic battle, snarky batter, good wins for now) you will be disappointed (not that there's anything wrong with Superman falcon punching a Luthor robot halfway across Metropolis or Spidy slingin' webs and quips). There are no epic battles, just skirmishes. There is a giant monster in the final chapter, but it is a pathetic dead thing, not a creature for the heroes to take down; it is the difference between a dogfight between to aces and a kamikaze run. There are no puns nor quips. There is laughter, but it comes from the discomfort the heroes and those that they interact with feel.
No, the Watchmen isn't a book about action. It is a series of character profiles examining why people don tights and masks to fight and what it does to them. It is a murder mystery. It is about the "little" people who scramble underfoot as Green Lantern and Star Sapphire do battle overhead. It is about what paranoia and fear of nuclear holocaust can do to a society. Above all, it is a great read. As much of a landmark as DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths is, much of the art and storytelling seems dated 25 years later. Watchmen, despite being published only a few months after the Crisis, still seems fresh today.
My favorite part of Watchmen is what I refer to as "counterpoint." In music, counterpoint is writing two or more different melodies which when played together fix together. A great example of this is in the 4th movement Beethoven's 3rd.
Notice how about a minute in the orchestra breaks in two with the lower half playing arpeggioes (do-do-do do-do-do, do-do-do do-do-do) and the upper half playing a dotted melody (di-ot da di-ot da daa da-da-da-da-da-da, di-ot da di-ot da daa da-da-da-da-da-da). Two melodies working together. Another example can be found in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.
Around halfway though the clip Mrs. Lovett joins in with Sweeney Todd. They're singing different melodies which blend together and they're both singing about friendship and love, yet the lyrics fight each other. Mrs. Lovett is singing about loving Mr. Todd while Todd is essentially singing about loving vengeance.
Watchmen features both types of counterpoint. An example of the first (two melodies working together) is found in the Black Freighter scenes in which the lines from a pirate comic book eerily echo the dialogue of the people talking around the youth reading the book. An example of the second is found when two characters attempt unsuccessfully to make love while a commentator on TV in the background gushes praise about a gymnastic exhibition done by another former superhero. The counterpoint is used extensively throughout the graphic novel and it could only be done it that format. Sure, in musicals and operas you can have two characters singing simultaneously, but having that happen throughout the entire performance would be tiresome. As would having a soundtrack or commentary run throughout a movie, TV show, or radio show (I used it sparingly in my editing of episode 13 of Made of Fail, though I wish I had done more [plug plug plug]). Only in the graphic novel medium can a story be augmented that way for so long. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons knew this and used the hell out of it. Sequential art is all the better for it even 25 years later.
Watchmen: the movie
Okay, so Watchmen the graphic novel has features that can only be done in graphic novel format. Can it be turned into a film? Seeing how there is a three hour film jamming almost every movie theater in the nation that's obviously a yes. The question is should it be turned into a film?
Here's the thing. Watchmen looks amazing. The skirmishes of the graphic novel are extended into demi-epic brawls (why all the capes fight like they were trained by the same sensei can be hand-waved as them all getting the same basic training. Still annoying. Rorschach should be a rage-fueled grappler, not a ninja master.) The costumes look great as does the CGI. The acting is great, except for a few parts with Silk Spectre II. The script hews very close to the book, cutting most of the "little" people out and focusing on the main character. The director, as he did in 300, was very faithful in replicating key scenes from the book such as Eddie Blake's pose as he was flung out the window.
All of that said, I don't know what the film adds to the story once one gets past the prettiness. Don't get me wrong--Watchmen isn't a bad film, even for non-comic fans (so long as they go in knowing not to expect a "typical" cape movie). It is entertaining. It's just not a great film. The Dark Knight--a movie that owes a lot to Moore and Gibbons's work--eclipses it.
Perhaps the best thing about the movie is the fact that is will turn many people onto the book and maybe from there, to a greater respect for the comic medium as a whole. Comics aren't all the camp Batman of the Adam West TV show, nor have they been ever and especially not in the past 25 years.
I can say without hyperbole that Watchmen is a masterpiece and needs to be read at some point by everyone who has any interest in comics/graphic novels/sequential art/etc. Everyone must make the pilgrimage back to this book to discover how the form of sequential art was changed forever by it.
If you go into Watchmen expecting your "typical" comic (bad guy shows up, good guy shows up, epic battle, snarky batter, good wins for now) you will be disappointed (not that there's anything wrong with Superman falcon punching a Luthor robot halfway across Metropolis or Spidy slingin' webs and quips). There are no epic battles, just skirmishes. There is a giant monster in the final chapter, but it is a pathetic dead thing, not a creature for the heroes to take down; it is the difference between a dogfight between to aces and a kamikaze run. There are no puns nor quips. There is laughter, but it comes from the discomfort the heroes and those that they interact with feel.
No, the Watchmen isn't a book about action. It is a series of character profiles examining why people don tights and masks to fight and what it does to them. It is a murder mystery. It is about the "little" people who scramble underfoot as Green Lantern and Star Sapphire do battle overhead. It is about what paranoia and fear of nuclear holocaust can do to a society. Above all, it is a great read. As much of a landmark as DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths is, much of the art and storytelling seems dated 25 years later. Watchmen, despite being published only a few months after the Crisis, still seems fresh today.
My favorite part of Watchmen is what I refer to as "counterpoint." In music, counterpoint is writing two or more different melodies which when played together fix together. A great example of this is in the 4th movement Beethoven's 3rd.
Click to viewNotice how about a minute in the orchestra breaks in two with the lower half playing arpeggioes (do-do-do do-do-do, do-do-do do-do-do) and the upper half playing a dotted melody (di-ot da di-ot da daa da-da-da-da-da-da, di-ot da di-ot da daa da-da-da-da-da-da). Two melodies working together. Another example can be found in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.
Around halfway though the clip Mrs. Lovett joins in with Sweeney Todd. They're singing different melodies which blend together and they're both singing about friendship and love, yet the lyrics fight each other. Mrs. Lovett is singing about loving Mr. Todd while Todd is essentially singing about loving vengeance.
Watchmen features both types of counterpoint. An example of the first (two melodies working together) is found in the Black Freighter scenes in which the lines from a pirate comic book eerily echo the dialogue of the people talking around the youth reading the book. An example of the second is found when two characters attempt unsuccessfully to make love while a commentator on TV in the background gushes praise about a gymnastic exhibition done by another former superhero. The counterpoint is used extensively throughout the graphic novel and it could only be done it that format. Sure, in musicals and operas you can have two characters singing simultaneously, but having that happen throughout the entire performance would be tiresome. As would having a soundtrack or commentary run throughout a movie, TV show, or radio show (I used it sparingly in my editing of episode 13 of Made of Fail, though I wish I had done more [plug plug plug]). Only in the graphic novel medium can a story be augmented that way for so long. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons knew this and used the hell out of it. Sequential art is all the better for it even 25 years later.
Watchmen: the movie
Okay, so Watchmen the graphic novel has features that can only be done in graphic novel format. Can it be turned into a film? Seeing how there is a three hour film jamming almost every movie theater in the nation that's obviously a yes. The question is should it be turned into a film?
Here's the thing. Watchmen looks amazing. The skirmishes of the graphic novel are extended into demi-epic brawls (why all the capes fight like they were trained by the same sensei can be hand-waved as them all getting the same basic training. Still annoying. Rorschach should be a rage-fueled grappler, not a ninja master.) The costumes look great as does the CGI. The acting is great, except for a few parts with Silk Spectre II. The script hews very close to the book, cutting most of the "little" people out and focusing on the main character. The director, as he did in 300, was very faithful in replicating key scenes from the book such as Eddie Blake's pose as he was flung out the window.
All of that said, I don't know what the film adds to the story once one gets past the prettiness. Don't get me wrong--Watchmen isn't a bad film, even for non-comic fans (so long as they go in knowing not to expect a "typical" cape movie). It is entertaining. It's just not a great film. The Dark Knight--a movie that owes a lot to Moore and Gibbons's work--eclipses it.
Perhaps the best thing about the movie is the fact that is will turn many people onto the book and maybe from there, to a greater respect for the comic medium as a whole. Comics aren't all the camp Batman of the Adam West TV show, nor have they been ever and especially not in the past 25 years.