Ah maybe my perception’s wrong then but one or two of the comments in this other comix thread refer to what i was on about.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=435595&highlight=maus
What is this term you keep using: comix?
This thread has me wanting to go back and read it again, for the 20th or so time. Every time I re-read it, I discover something new. It’s by far the most intricate and detailed graphic novel/comic/whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-it I’ve every read, and I love it. I’m not much of a comic reader, but Watchmen is the gold standard, IMO.
I predict that the movie coming out will be vaguely entertaining, but will not be able to do the material justice. I always thought a limited edition series on HBO or Showtime would be the way to go - six 1 hour chapters, each taking 2 issues. Oh well.
(At least this movie will be better than a script treatment I read for a Watchmen movie like 20 or so years ago. It was so god-awful I nearly cried. I don’t remember all the details, but IIRC the plot was altered such that Rorschach, Silk Spectre and Nite Owl foil Ozy’s plot [which was completely different than the real one], and end up in some dimension bubble that deposits them in Times Square…in our universe! AAAGGGHH!)
I’m sorry, it’s been too long and I just don’t remember. I was selling off bits of my collection piecemeal and there were too many comic auctions to keep track. I remember thinking it was a pretty good payoff on my investment. I also made quite a bit from a first edition Dark Knight Returns, a set of Crisis on Infinite Earths and, interestingly, a set of Emerald Dawn.
The one auction amount I do remember was an LP of Disney’s “The Haunted Mansion” from c. 1972. I got IIRC $80 for that and learned that Disney fans are insane.
That sounds like it could be an interesting thread.
I associate the term “comix” with 1960s and '70s alternative comics, subversive stuff like R. Crumb, the drug-influenced Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and to a lesser extent, small-press, self-published, “unpolished” personal comics like Yummy Fur from the '80s or the works of Harvey Pekar.
I wouldn’t consider Maus or Persepolis “comix” due to its mainstream appeal and critical acclaim, nor the work of Will Eisner, Adrian “Optic Nerve” Tomine, or Chris “Jimmy Corrigan” Ware. However, I think of Charles Burns’ work, such as Black Hole, more like the edgy, often-unsettling “comix” of decades past.
Not really. It was one of those LPs with a booklet attached and I got a ton of emails from people wanted extremely specific details about it, along the lines of “what color is the hat on the third ghost from the left on page 7?” I guess there’s some big difference between the ones with the ghosts in the purple hats and the ones with the ghosts in the blue hats or whatever it was. Which, fine by me, I guess I had a good hat color. I wouldn’t mind having a few more just like it.
Sorry for the hijack; back to Watchmen! Go Watchmen!
Huh? I understand that the guy who WROTE the disturbing pirate stories also came up with the scenario that killed half of New York. But where is it implied that the pirate stories themselves are what was broadcast into the minds of those killed?
Ah yeah Black Hole is amazing as well. I must reread that sometime. Burns’ older Hardboiled Defective Stories is pretty good too. I wasn’t aware of the specific distinction between comics and comix, just thought it was alternate spelling.
I liked the pirates/newstand subplot.
I also don’t see a movie doing it justice - speaking as someone who’se seen LoEG/From Hell and seeing where Alan is coming from.
So let’s have your take on it. How does the pirate story fit into the entire point?
I loved Watchmen. I should read it again.
Great news! The pirate story, “Tales of the Black Freighter,” won’t be part of the Watchmen movie, BUT it will be animated and included on the eventual Watchmen DVD, with Gerard Butler doing the main character’s voice: http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=22088
Oh, and I agree with TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW. I used to hate the pirate story because it took me so far out of the main narrative, but when I reread it more recently, I realized how important it is, because it reflects the actions taken by Ozymandias.
Fearful symmetry, if you will.
Yes, and he makes a remark to Dr Manhattan in their final interview that echoes the last frame of the pirate comic (as you, obviously, already knew).
The actors in their costumes have finally been revealed:
Wow! That is amazingly good. Fingers crossed…
How many here think Don Quixote is a Great Book? Well, it is a parody, too, and what’s more it parodizes works so far out of the mainstream you’d have a difficult time finding them in bookstores today. However, it rises or falls on its own merits regardless of how many people are really familiar with the things it was written to take the piss out of. Watchmen is easily a Don Quixote.
I read it as a collection too, and I agree, if I had one chapter to pore over for a month, I might have taken it in more.
It does sound like Zack Snyder and his crew have the right attitude about the work. Think I’ll reread the graphic novel. (I wonder – will Dr. Manhattan be nude, blue penis and all? Always seemed like a great visual way to show that, as the only character with actual superpowers, he’s not bound by human rules and conventions.)
I’m hoping that’s supposed to be them in their prime and not how they appear as the main story…
No pics of Dr Manhattan in “costume”? Disappointing.