What is the Watchmen?
An attempt at explaining the classic “Graphic Novel” to the uninitiated.
Watchmen is a collection of twelve individual issues of a comic book series published in the 1980’s. It was written by Alan Moore and was illustrated by David Gibbons. Alan Moore wants nothing to do with the film adaptation due to previous issues dealing with Hollywood. Usually, as most do, it’s referred to as the War and Peace or Tale of Two Cities or whatever classic piece of literature the person speaking refers to as the pinnacle of writing excellence. The book that has sold millions of copies, has garnered critical acclaim, and is considered the greatest graphic novel ever written (though it is a trade Paperback, but I digress). These are all to certain degrees truths, and about the only thing I can tell any one person when asked “What is Watchmen?”
When my wife asked me what Watchmen was I attempted to trick her into interest (though there was already some there) by talking about how it wasn’t about superheroes but rather a human tragedy filled with sex and violence. My wife is one of those people who doesn’t like “comics” and does not like the medium finding it difficult to enjoy. However she reads Elfquest, and “Porno” comics, likes the X-Men and Batman Movies, and also read Promethia Book one at my insistence. She would like the record to state that she “only read it to get in my pants”, a cruel, but effective maneuver on her part.
I’ve thought a lot about Watchmen due to the constant and perpetual bombardment of media and ads assaulted upon the public. The irony is that people either shrug and don’t understand, or they take the road of not understanding to a comic shop or bookseller where they purchase a copy of Watchmen so they will be in the know. This also presents the future 17-27 age group that will decry Watchmen as “overrated” or “stupid” as one must rebel against the machine telling a generation how to think. Trust me, the irony is not lost on me and I’d imagine that a good number of you will chuckle amongst yourselves.
In sitting down to write this, I had the intention of attempting to dissect Watchmen and find the root of how one could really explain what Watchmen is. The thing is, Watchmen is too immense for any one person to distill into a soundbyte and many have tried to before me and will after as well. Thing is, I’ve got no definitive answers I can present that are more or less valid than anyone else’s.
Why?
Well, as I said before, Watchmen is in fact a collection of single issue comics. These comics have been reprinted and presented in a collected format enabling the reader to experience the story in it’s entirety. This serves two purposes, One- the purpose of presenting an entire story and Two- ensuring the rights never return back to Alan Moore and David Gibbons. Dave I imagine doesn’t mind this due to the fact all royalties and perks are going to him (Moore no longer accepts “royalties” on film adaptations, rather he defers them to the co-creator’s, usually the artist). Just listen to any recent interview with Gibbons, he sounds like the happiest Englishman in the history of the world.
This does very little to explain what the story is about, of which I’m certain is where peoples inquiries tend to lean. I’m reminded of a former co-worker’s ten hour explanation of the entire works of Terry Prachets Discworld books, blow by blow, to the tune of ten hours, for four days, therefore ensuring me to never read the books. So really, how do I hook someone with an explanation of Watchmen without running it? Truth be told, I can’t!
From this point on if you’ve found yourself still reading my blathering stream of cautiousness and you have not read Watchmen, stop reading now.
Seriously, I mean it, the book will be totally ruined from this point on, even though you may or may not have heard something of Watchmen’s story or plot. Hell, I’d argue seeing any of the trailers for the film have potentially ruined the story for you already. Even if I explain Watchmen in the vaguest manner, I’m still ruining the experience.
Final warning.
Still with us? Lets continue then.
Watchmen is a murder mystery. A murder mystery that reveals that the killer’s identity is not important to the grand scheme of things. Don’t get me wrong, we do find out who the killer is, it’s just a lot more complicated than someone saying “You’re nicked!” when the evil murderer is revealed (sorry, I’ve been watching the far superior original Life on Mars, too much faux British cop slang I guess). As a matter of fact, the murderer isn’t exactly evil! Then again none of the characters are apparently good either. If anything, they are all too human trying to understand what they are doing in the grand scheme of things. Unfortunately, as these things go, tragedy rears it’s ugly head and fortunately the “Good Guys” win in the end, Though there are no good guys to speak of.
So that tells the story right? That’s it, there you go. Now you know too much and the entire story is laid out upon the bloody sidewalk for everyone to see, not unlike when you read about a beloved comic character in a Tijuana Bible for the first time. Or is it?
You can’t tell someone what Watchmen is all about. The film version coming out next summer will be for all intents and purposes someone explaining the book to you the viewer. Sure, there are a lot of people involved but it’s not unlike playing telephone or re-telling a joke with your own piece of pizzazz on top. Some will have read the book and not enjoy the movie, some will. Some will not read the book and vice versa. This though is before the backlash of supercritics as I stated before.
Watchmen has deeply influenced the comic book medium and creators since its completion. Unfortunately, it has also lead to a “method” approach of “Grim and Gritty” or “Realistic” stories culminating into a collapse of almost the entire industry. The writers and artists of books taking this approach skimmed the surface of the material and took that away only, leaving many further important layers behind. We’re only just now beginning to see a deeper mining of the work where comics are catching up with Watchmen. This has been leading to only another single layer of the work lifted, mined and shined only to be put in an existing setting in an attempt to make an old ring look new. Not that this is anything new, as a matter of fact it’s almost an industry standard at this point (so says the man pining to write his Superman story).
Watchmen is for all intents and purposes a work with almost infinite layers. No two people can truly have the same experience reading the book simply because we’re all different people who have had different experiences shaping the person we chouse to be. Those choices we’ve made do dictate how we read the Watchmen, how we interact with the fiction which is not fiction. We view the page and we translate the words and images in our head and relate them to our own experiences. Watchmen is about life. Watchmen is about death. Watchmen is all about the parts in between. Sometimes we do something bad for a greater good, sometimes we stick to our guns when an idea is presented contrary to our beliefs. And all of us have worn goofy costumes at one point or another, just look back to high school where you wore clothes to fit in, or not fit in.
Still, with all of this information laid bare, I’m only scratching the surface of the book. This is unfortunately the downfall of the work. It’s become too huge of a thing to truly mean anything to a mass poptopian audience, presented in such a way. We tend to either take simple entertainment out of our fiction or we live within the small moments with our lives ending a page at a time. More often than not though, the latter road is taken due to the simplicity of the device. I could continue here going in an analyzing the motion comic medium the book has been translated to, but I think I’ve already covered it previously.
So, in closing what is the answer to “What is the Watchmen?”
The best I can come up with is “it’s 334 pages long and usually costs $19.99”.
And no, this is not a euphemism.
Or is it?
