Alan Moore: Comics Won’t Save You, but Dodgem Logic Might.
Alan Moore, the influential comics visionary who wrote Watchmen and V for Vendetta, has taken up a new mission for our age of global depression: Bringing back the underground fanzine.
Tag Archive for 'Alan Moore'
God! How does one even begin to review this. I’m blown away! I’m in geekboy/fanboy ubergeek nirvana! I saw Watchmen last night. Watchmen!!! I first read the graphic novel back in the late 80’s. It was a time in my life where in terms of comic-book reading, I was looking to move on from the standard Marvel/DC superhero-fare.
The comic book industry was about to be turned upside down. The birth of the internet was about to hit and many of the leading artists and writers from the big two (Marvel & DC) were about to split and form their own companies. Comic books became more about multiple covers and gimmicks. Fellow fanboys were being sucked in to buying a bazillion copies of each issue no matter how dire and crap the stories were. (I know this first hand. Anyone wanna buy a copy of the 5 different versions of X-Men that were released? I have 30 copies! Howzabout Todd McFarlane’s Spiderman title? Several available!)
I digress.
In short, I was growing up and needed more than the normal superhero schlock that was being offered.
Titles such as V For Vendetta, The Dark Knight Returns, Killing Joke were books I was beginning to gravitate to, and later the brilliant Vertigo imprint hit me hard with titles such as Preacher, Sandman, Swamp Thing, and of course Hellblazer becoming my constant companion.
But the title that turned it all upside down for me, the title that left me with my mouth agape and blew me to hell and back – was Watchmen. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I digested each page as if my life depended on it. I was hooked beyond belief.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect that masterpiece to ever translate on screen.
Last night, from beginning to end, I witnessed an adaption of the Watchmen that reminded me so much of the first time I read it. I was transfixed at the beauty and majesty before me. Each character was so beautifully portrayed by by their respective actors. Scenes from the comic book were perfectly translated to film and many times throughout the movie, I had flashbacks to twenty years ago when I first laid eyes on it all.
So is it as masterful as the Alan Moore’s graphic novel? (Moore who has publicly and vocally disassociated himself from the film) – well, yes and no. There is no way one can totally and faithfully recreate such a vastly dense and intricate tale. Impossible. But it comes close in a ‘edited’ ‘outline’ kinda way. I would have liked to have seen the characters fleshed out more, but with a running time of two hours and forty one minutes… how much longer can one make a commercial release these days?
It is a visual treat but please, please, please – grab a copy of the graphic novel and see for yourself – just how amazingly good the medium can be.
I’m in the process or re-reading the Watchmen. With the movie about to launch… (hopefully seeing as it is tied up in all sorts of legal conflict between Warners & Fox!)
Regardless…
Going back to this incredible graphic novel has been such a rewarding reading experience. I realized that the last time I read it, was nearly 20 years ago. God! How time just passes you by when you least expect it.
Watchmen totally and utterly blew me away when I first read its pages. It opened up a whole new world of comics for me and took me away from the standard fare ’super hero’ books of Marvel and DC and introduced me to more mature titles such as ‘Hellblazer’, ‘Swamp Thing’, ‘Sandman’, ‘V For Vendetta’, ‘Preacher’ et al.
I distinctly remember reading through this baby with suchconcentration and overwhelming joy. It was one of the best comic book experiences I had ever had.
Re-reading it has just reminded me again why Time magazine has gone so far as to name it in its top 100 best novels of all time. Yeah, it is that good!
So, with all the recent press about this movie, and there’s only more to come… there is a really cool new featurette that has been posted on the Apple Quicktime site.
Check it out here and look for the awesome Minutemen footage which looks like it has come directly from the pages of the comic book! Awesome stuff abounds!
Meanwhile… check out the Japanese trailer below…
Warner Bros has released six new character posters for Zack Snyder’s Watchmen. The line-up includes: The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) and Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson).
The countdown is on… officially one year and counting until the release of Watchmen on March 6 2009.
Watchmen was a twelve-issue comic book limited series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Originally published by DC Comics as a monthly limited series from 1986 to 1987, it was later republished as a trade paperback, which popularized the ‘graphic novel’ format.
To date, Watchmen remains the only graphic novel to win a Hugo Award, and is also the only graphic novel to appear on Time Magazine’s 2005 list of ‘the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.’
Watchmen is set in 1985, in an alternative history United States where costumed adventurers are real and the country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union (the Doomsday Clock is at five minutes to midnight). It tells the story of a group of past and present superheroes and the events surrounding the mysterious murder of one of their own. Watchmen depicts superheroes as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues, who struggle with neuroses and failings, and who – with one notable exception – lack anything recognizable as super powers. Watchmen’s deconstruction of the conventional superhero archetype, combined with its innovative adaptation of cinematic techniques and heavy use of symbolism, multi-layered dialogue, and metafiction, has influenced both comics and film.
So without further adieu…
