We see that it runs anti-Semitic cartoons and purveys conspiracy theories, hate and lies. Any magazine that Roschach loves - and to which he sends his journal - has gotta be out in right field somewhere.
So why name it after the New Frontier, John F. Kennedy’s name for his own administration and its policies? JFK was neither a right-wing nut, nor anti-Semitic nor a conspiracy theorist (although he posthumously, alas, became the subject of many). He even appears in the graphic novel, briefly, meeting Dr. Manhattan at a big White House photo op, and despite its brevity it’s an admiring portrayal, IIRC. The big blue guy’s later failure to stop the President’s assassination is depicted as a tragedy, and rightly so (I know that Dr. Manhattan felt himself powerless to do anything, since he saw all of time as a continuum, but it seemed more like apathy to me).
So what gives? Or is the magazine named after something else?
Some extreme right wingers (the kind that form militias out in Idaho) consider themselves to be the successors of the explorers and settlers that opened America’s western frontier. So I suppose a group like that might consider themselves new frontiersmen.
My interpretation is the same as Little Nemo’s. The New Frontiersman is a proud American patriot who has nothing but the log cabin he built with his own two hands (unless dad or grand dad built it) a flag, and a gun to defend freedom from Redcoats, injuns, or Mexicans. Think of the Alamo. The government has gotten lazy and corrupt and is run by Jews, the Vatican etc. But the New Frontiersman is still standing watch ready to fight any threat to liberty.
That may be so, but it also seems to be the only publication which tagged that the disappearance of the various writers, artists, scientists and composers - not to mention the head of psychic Robert Deschaines - actually was a conspiracy: “Talented and prominent Americans are being spirited away under our noses. Isn’t it time someone did something about it?” If someone had, Veidt’s plan might have been thwarted.
They were also at least partially justified in their criticism of Doug Roth’s Nova Express, which for all its liberal cred turned out to be merely another of Veidt’s pawns, running fawning profiles of Ozymandias and smearing Doctor Manhattan to force him into exile.
You know, I’ve read Watchmen several times, and never made any connection between the “New Frontiersman” and Kennedy’s New Frontier.
This is likely because I’m English: while JFK is, of course, about as well-known here as he is in the US, the phrase “New Frontier” is somewhat obscure. It is possible that Alan Moore, erudite though he is, simply didn’t spot that possible reading.
Having said that, obscure and esoteric references are pretty much Moore’s modus operandi, so there’s every chance he intended a double meaning – what point he might have been making in this case is beyond me, though.
Names that harken back to early American history are a common staple of conservative publications (and, nowadays, blogs), almost as if the publishers/writers are fearful that people might mistake them for being unpatriotic otherwise. Townhall.com, The New Republic, Free Republic, The Federalist, etc. “New Frontiersman” is a simple continuation of this pattern.
Slightly off topic, I don’t think Jon’s failure to save Kennedy was due to apathy; it was, rather, a cause of his slowly-developing detachment from humanity. He wanted to save JFK, but it was impossible for him to do so; the very fact of his foreknowledge prevented it. And I don’t think he was truly omniscient; he was only precognitive about his own life. Since he wasn’t present in Dallas that day to save JFK in the first place, but only became of it during the news reports. The grandfather paradox kept him from intervening.
Reading the Watchmen I know I’m pretty well read and know my history, but never put the New Frontier into being a slam on Kennedy. It’s a pretty generic name for small press, just as rjung said.
