Watchmen
Ratings993
Average rating4.4
My first graphic novel and much more involving than I would have thought. Ambitious effort but ultimately too dark to be enjoyable. Too many characters, too many plotlines, too much intercutting and time-shifting, but interesting.
This ain't your father's comics.
I read this awhile back (sometime before the movie). It's dark and more realistic than typical comics, in that no one really has any super powers. That doesn't stop people from tossing on a mask and trying to be a super hero. The characters are far more flawed than the normal comic heroes that preceded this book.
I think this book changed comics forever.
I LOVED this. Absolutely loved it. I saw the film before I read the graphic novel, but I love the film, and I love the graphic novel. I highly recommend it. The plot is complex, the characters are interesting, the art work is great. I'll read it again and again!
Well I feel a fool for holding out on this one for so long. An intricate plot woven deftly and very much told in art as well as text. I was very impressed at the way meaning was layered and mirrored from the superheroes to the newsagent's corner to the comic book pirate story.
I was expecting to love this book, I ended up being glad that I read it - but wasn't in love.
A fascinating and irreverent take on superheroes as people–flawed, aging and all-too-human. Quite modern in its outlook and influential on the way the superhero has been portrayed since.
I enjoyed found this to be quite different than I expected. Having made a point to not look to closely at reviews others had written, and read it solely on the merit of the recommendations of friends, and was not disappointed.
I was very taken with the themes of Government and those supposedly helping others. The theme of questioning information around you I found pertinent in this election year.
I'll be interested to see how the film, set to be released later this year, will deal with it.
This wasn't my first time reading Watchmen, but it had been awhile since I'd last read it (since before 2001 for sure). It's funny how things go through phases of topicality; I know that last time I read it, I thought it was kind of dated, with its plot elements of war in Afghanistan and Russian military aggression. Sadly, the world has recently gotten caught up in such events again, making Watchmen seem all the more current on this reading.
Aside from that, there's not too much to say about Watchmen that hasn't been said a thousand times already - it's clearly the most important superhero comic since Showcase #4, if not Action #1, and has fundamentally altered the way that people think about and write about superheroes. As such, it's easy to lose track of how revolutionary it must have been when it came out - to someone who grew up reading the ‘grim and gritty' heroes of the late 80s and 90s, or has seen films like The Incredibles, the story contained in these pages would seem like just another comic story that's been told time and time again.
Luckily, however, there's more to the story than just the plot; Moore and Gibbons have created an immensely detailed world in this book, and you definitely feel like it's part of a larger world (even though it isn't), and one that has been uniquely affected by the presence of super-heroes in it to a degree that other super-populated worlds never seem to be. Add to that an ongoing debate about human nature and morality, held by shamanistic creatures that are both human and inhuman at the same time, and you're left with something that will stand the test of time as a work of literature, but is also quite firmly a work of comics literature rather than ‘regular' literature.
And, amazingly enough, the villian wins. In doing so, he saves the world, but at the same time, it's quite the accomplishment. :o)
a re-read; it had been awhile and i wanted to see if it was as good as i remembered. it wasn't... i remember it totally blowing my mind, and this time around it... didn't. but at one time it did, and it's still brilliant storytelling.
Nite Owl's Ornithology article would never get published in an actual peer-reviewed journal of repute.
Fucking fantastic graphic novel, BTW!
Too stark.
What is it about a graphic novel
that I have difficulty with?
I can't seem to take it seriously
somehow. Graphic novels seem to
lend themselves more to humor
than to tragedy. The darkness
of the book, the bleakness of
the perspective, the grimness
of the world....it appears
excessive.
Despite my problems with the genre,
I'd have to say that Watchmen is
the best graphic novel I've read
so far. The characters are more
complex and the plot is more
intricate than other graphic novels
I've read. I'd like to give this
genre another chance. Is there a
kinder, gentler world depicted
in a graphic novel? That's the
graphic novel I'd like to sample.