Books - Watchmen (Paperback)
by Alan Moore (
Author), Dave Gibbons (
Illustrator)
Watchmen
Amazon.com Review
Has any comic been as acclaimed as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen?
Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, but Watchmen remains
the critics' favorite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen
a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic,
subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for many other of the
genre's finest creations (Saga of the Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, and
From Hell, with Eddie Campbell) first put out Watchmen in 12 issues for
DC in 1986-87. It won a comic award at the time (the 1987 Jack Kirby Comics
Industry Awards for Best Writer/Artist combination) and has continued to gather
praise since.
The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill
and discredit them. Moore's characterization is as sophisticated as any
novel's. Importantly the costumes do not get in the way of the storytelling;
rather they allow Moore to investigate issues of power and control--indeed
it was Watchmen, and to a lesser extent Dark Knight, that propelled the comic
genre forward, making "adult" comics a reality. The artwork of Gibbons
(best known for 2000AD's Rogue Trooper and DC's Green Lantern) is very fine too,
echoing Moore's paranoid mood perfectly throughout. Packed with symbolism, some
of the overlying themes (arms control, nuclear threat, vigilantes) have dated but
the intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself,
its intertextuality (chapters appended with excerpts from other "works" and "studies" on
Moore's characters, or with excerpts from another comic book being read by a
child within the story), the finepace of the writing and its humanity mean that
Watchmen more than stands up--it keeps its crown as the best the genre has yet
produced. --Mark Thwaite
Review
"A work of ruthless psychological realism, it's a landmark in the graphic novel medium. It would be a masterpiece in any."
-TIME, TIME MAGAZINE's 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present
Watchmen
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: DC Comics (April 1, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0930289234
ISBN-13: 978-0930289232