While in the US over the holidays I picked up Watchmen, it was the first graphic novel I have ever read. It was a nice, atmospheric work, dark and moody. But the blubs on the back claim it was one of the great works of fiction. It was one of Time’s best 100 novels since 1926 (or something).
OK, what say we? Important Work or Comic Book?
Why can’t it be both?
It can. It is.
It’s not a Great Book in the sense of Shakespeare or the Iliad or something. It’s very definitely locked into a particular era in time and a particular mindset. It’s aimed precisely at people about ,my age (Boomer) who grew up reading comic books in the Silver Age, with knowledge of a previous Golden Age. From a time when comic books and superheroes were a well-established tradition, and the comics were just really starting to explore New Territory and break into being proper Graphic Novels. That’s what’s assumed by the author and artist, because it takes the conception of superhoroes from that age and comments on the entire phenomenon, asks what gives it power and makes it tick, and shows up its shortcomings.
What kind of person becomes a Costumed Adventurer? it asks. Probably someone you wouldn’t want to know. Rohrshach is really good at what he does because he’s a monomaniac and driven. But he’s severely antisocial. he doesn’t even shave or bathe. And he sees things in uncompromising black and white (a clever play on the symbols of the Rohrshach test), with no shades of gray (which is why he ends up as he does in the last issue). A lot of the others have sexual problems. The ones who try to reach way beyond street crime and solve bigger human problems are ultimately amoral.
All of this is set during an alternate time line (mainly since Jon made such sweeping changes in the world – Nixon still president, US winning in Vietnam, Electric Cars and Blimps providing transport, since his work on batteries) in the 1980s that falls right in line with Boomer times. The whole idea of a Golden Age superhero society and a Silver Age society fits right in with Boomer memories of an old Justice Siciety of America (referred to in the Silver Age scripts) and a later Silver Age Justice League, with even the same name being passed on (like Night Owl).
This will look odd to comic readers who don’t know a bit of history in a few years. If it doesn’t already. It’ll look even weirder to people who didn’t grow up with and are familiar with the basic ideas of superheroes. It’s a really superb and intricately crafted piece of Graphic Novel (You can do a whole separate site devoted to discussing the comic. Heck, websites annotating it panel-by-panel already exist). But it’s not a Work for the Ages.
It’s a superhero comic about suprehero comics. It tweaks and plays with the genre, but at the same time is a compelling and entertaining story in its own right. I especailly admire the way Moore was able to create a complete and detailed comic book universe in twelve issues. Of course that wouldn’t have been possible without his readers having a certain amount of knowledge about superhero conventions.
I first read it as it was coming out. A new issue was an event. You’d see what seemed like the whole college reading it and talking about it.
Ah yes, “The Citizen Kane of comic books” - a position I happen to support!
I am a total fanboy about Watchmen - I think it holds its own as a literary work from the basic topics it is commenting on, the technical facility with which it was executed (keeping various plotlines, themes, diversions, etc. all flowing and in service to the main narrative requires masterful craftsmanship) and just its overall “whoa” factor. And it rocks as a straight up comic.
I think it is all that, and a bag of chips.
The Watchmen wikipedia page has a good discussion of it – one of the key points being when it was released, and that it many ways it’s the granddaddy of the graphic novel, something that helped elevate comics from their (commonly perceived) teen / dweeb status.
If it looks less fresh and ground-breaking now it is only that 20 years have gone past and what was revolutionary then is (still very high quality) but more main-stream now.
Heh, imagine if Prof. Tolkien was submitting his LoTR manuscript today: “An epic fantasy quest featuring a dark lord with an army of orcs opposed by our plucky adventuring party with a ranger, a warrior, an elf, a dwarf… send the standard rejection letter”. 
Sadly I think the response these days is more likely, “Send him a check for ten books.”
If we absolutely must choose one or the other – Important Work. Except that makes it sound like something one “should” read, because it’s Literature, and Good For One, instead of the fascinating, innovative, exciting and stirring joy-of-a-read it is.
To mention only one aspect: Rorschach and Doctor Manhattan are two of the best depicted characters to appear in recent fiction, and the fact that they’re both so believably human, while still utterly *comic book *characters, is proof of their creator’s brilliance.
Sooner or later, though, the setters of tastes and the wider public are going to realize how great an artform and unique storytelling medium the graphic novel/comic book/illustrated sequential narrative can be, and that whole dichotomy will finally be done for and discarded.And Watchmen will be one of the major works that bring about that realization.
I’m sorry…I just couldn’t get into it. It was slow-moving and dense to a fault. The pirate sub-story could have been done away with entirely. I know I’m in the minority, but I just don’t see the appeal of this book.
I’ll admit, I read it for the first time maybe six months ago. Maybe if I’d read it years ago, I would look at it differently. But I’ve read tons of “heroes in the real world” books before getting to Watchmen so maybe that altered my viewpoint. To me, I just didn’t get anything from this book that I hadn’t got from other books, like Invincible.
And none of the charcters came off as likeable in the least.
So did I. It was the longest year of my life; I spent every month waiting impatiently for the next issue to come out. 
But I have to say: I hated the pirates bit. Hated hated hated it. It was so heavy-handed, compared to the rest of the story.
The true “granddaddy of the graphic novel” was A Contract with God, published almost a decade before … however it was obviously not within the “superhero” genre.
Well, we’re a minority of at least two now. I read the first few issues when it first came out and thought it was a crashing bore. Realizing that I was 16 at the time and perhaps not able to fully appreciate it, I tried it again several years later. Nope, still duller than dishwater.
And, that’s more than just an arbitrary first – Eisner’s graphic novels are truly great as they are. He just worked outside the superhero genre, so it took things like Watchmen to prove the same point within the genre. And Eisner’s touch with characteriztion was among the best ever.
My friends and I would rush out to buy each issue. Then we would rush home to read it.
Then we would spend the next two weeks discussing it and arguing about it.
Then things would quiet down for about a week.
Then we would spend the next week speculating about what would happen in the upcoming issue.
I am proud to say that, among my group of friends, I was the first to figure out who the killer was. Nobody wanted to believe me, but when I turned out to be correct, I got major geek cred.
Plus, it’s just a complete rip-off of The Incredibles! I mean think about it…
d&r
No,no,no!
You’re thinking of The Fantastic Four
except for that line about “No Capes”
I didn’t read it until it was collected, and I think I might have enjoyed it more if I had a month between chapters to think about each one. There’s so much stuff in each one that if you read it at a normal pace, you miss most of it.
Amen. Even the street-corner stories could have been cut by half without irrevocably damaging the book.
I say that Watchmen is Moore’s best book, but V for Vendetta is my favorite Moore book.
Gotta agree with you on both counts.
We used to frequent the SF bookstore in Chapel Hill and were friends with some of the folks who worked there. I was in there one time and the guy working that day grabbed me and said “I will not let you leave the store without buying this” (holding up Watchmen issue 1). I doubt I’d have bought it otherwise but then we were hooked and I curse our friend every month when the issue was delayed (IIRC the 12 issues took well over a year to come out).
I should reread it - it’s been a few years. Maybe the pirate subplot will make more sense if I do.
The Pirate stuff was an interesting bit of business, but I agree it didn’t add much to the book.
The point was that it’s just a historical accident that comic books were associated with superheroes in the US. Comic books can be about anything! And they can have ambigious morality, and horror! Whoah.
It’s another thing that ties the book to its particular time, back when the idea of comic books that weren’t about superheroes was a strange idea. Nowadays it’s a pretty trivial point.