Rereading “Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

While I was home for the holiday I reread the graphic novel “Watchmen” to prepare for my binging of the new tv show. My original thoughts are here, and I don’t think I’ve really touched the book since then. Going back to it was wild.

I can’t believe how much more you pick up on the second reading. The art and the writing is so meticulously planned. All of the different plots interweave and parallel each other, and they all come crashing together beautifully by the end. There are layers to it that I couldn’t have even imagined the first time I picked up the book. It’s really glorious. Bits of dialogue, or character positioning from panel to panel, connect the different perspectives being told on the page in a gorgeous way.

And the world-building is incredible, I had forgotten about the pages at the end of each chapter that are excepts from a newspaper or a book or some correspondence from the world of “Watchmen.” It really elaborates on the events of the comic, since not much is explained up-front, and demonstrates the extent of the thought put into the story.

I’d forgotten how… gritty the whole book is. Which I honestly really like about comics. I feel like so many are bright and bubbly and happy whereas I look forward to messy superhero stories like this one. Because this isn’t afraid to deal with the bigger problems of society and life that things like the MCU cheerfully ignore and make several million dollars in the process. Ticks me off. But yeah there are panels that are downright gruesome with blood and gore all over them. I don’t really have anything significant to say about that, other than you don’t see graphic novels like that all too often. Most fall into the bubbly MCU variety.

I’ve heard amazing things about the tv show but have yet to start it. I really hope that the rumors are true and that it lives up to its source material because this is a tough act to follow.

Hot take: the “Watchmen” movie is amazing and haters can suck it. I love it, maybe I’ll rewatch it as well as a run up to the show.