Tangent #2

Watchmen

In case you haven’t noticed all the trailers, commercials and other advertisements, the Watchmen movie is coming out in 3 days on 3.6.09 (go see it on the IMAX screen at Pointe Orlando, you won’t regret it!). I have only read the graphic novel one time, but it was amazing. After this semester is over and I have some free time, I definitely plan on reading it again. Watchmen was created by Alan Moore (writer), Dave Gibbons (artist) and John Higgins (colorist) in 1986-1987. For more background information, you can go to the Wikipedia page but be careful of spoilers! I would also recommend IGN’s page on Watchmen.

I would love to take a graduate level English Literature class that looks at the genre of graphic novels / comics / manga. I know a lot of people tend to think that popular cultural literature, especially comics, is not worthy of literary analysis, but I think ignoring popular literature is a big mistake. It’s popular for a reason, and exploring those reasons of attraction can be highly revealing of that culture. Even Time magazine put Watchmen on its All-Time 100 novels (1923-current), making it the only graphic novel on the list (they have a separate list for graphic novels available here).

So, I decided to look up some scholarly articles on the graphic novel Watchmen and was pleasantly surprised. This is what I found at the MLA International Database:

Fishbaugh, B. "Moore and Gibbons's Watchmen: Exact Personifications of Science." Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 39.3: 189-198.

Goldsmith, J. "The Watchmen: Interview with David Hayter." Creative Screenwriting 9.1: 16-16.

Hughes, J. A. "'Who Watches the Watchmen?': Ideology and 'Real World' Superheroes." Journal of Popular Culture 39.4: 546-557.

Rosen, E. "'What's That You Smell Of?' Twenty Years of Watchmen Nostalgia." Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction 35.98: 85-98.

There are plenty of topics to be explored in the graphic novel: the anti-hero, apocalyptical fiction, narrative structure (example: the story of the comic book that keeps popping up throughout the storyline), art structure (go to issue 5, then go to page 14-15 and you’ll see a giant yellow X), binaries, the structures of power / knowledge, the super heroes as “other,” and comics as a genre are just a few that I could think of on the spot. I hope this post inspires you, if you haven’t already, to read and fall in love with Watchmen.