Watchmen (Paperback)
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|Short Description for Watchmen Rorschach, a half-psychotic vigilante must convince his ex team-mates, now middle-aged and retired, that he has uncovered a plot to murder the remaining superheroes - along with millions of innocent civilians. Even reunited, will the remnants of the 'Watchmen' be enough to avert a global apocalypse?
Full description- Publisher: Titan Books Ltd
- Published: 01 October 1987
- Format: Paperback 424 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Graphic Novels: Superheroes
- ISBN 13: 9781852860240 ISBN 10: 1852860243
- Sales rank: 3,457
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Reviews for Watchmen
- Staff review
Watchmen
Has any comic been as lauded as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen? Recently comic lovers have been blessed with some quite stunning work (like Clowes's David Boring and his superb Ghost World); Joe Sacco's Palestine; the beautiful and melancholy Jimmy Corrigan). But all those excellent books take the comic form, divest it of its super-heroes and create something new and fresh. Watchmen remains a genre comic but it hugely expands the possibilities - and intelligence - of the genre. Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns comes close, but Watchmen remains readers' favourite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex, dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth.
The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore's characterisation 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. The artwork of Gibbons (best known for 2000 AD'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 fine pace of the writing and its humanity mean that Watchmen more than stands up. It retains its crown as the best the genre has yet produced.
Mark Thwaite by Mark Thwaite
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