Graphic Novel: Watchmen

 

This graphic novel was first published in 1985 (also takes place in '85). It's about masked "Heroes" and their effect on the World. Basically, what if all heroes were insecure jerks who did unheroic things (like murder)? Would they still be heroes? Does doing bad things with good intent justify horrible actions? These are the questions it brings up and doesn't really answer, at best it's a maybe.

   Mainly there is a lot of gross imagery, a lot of sexism (seriously a female character is nearly raped, and then she says it was just as much as her fault as his), and random pages of text that don't add to the plot. Sometimes they're excerpts of someone's autobiography, sometimes fake news articles, and one time a psychological analysis on analyzing owls. No not on the owls themselves an analysis on analyzing owls. What does that have to do with anything? Also, there's this black kid who reads a disturbing comic book at a newsstand, and whenever it cuts to the newsman talking about current events the panels show us what the kid is reading as if its' plot-relevant. The comic the kid is reading is about a dude surviving by making a corpse raft so there's rotting flesh in almost every panel that again has to do with diddly squat with the main plot!

   So why is it in there? To pad out a comic book that would be six issues instead of 12. Probably. To satisfy someone's desire to see disturbing imagery for the sake of it. Possibly. All I know is that this is somehow considered a comic book classic and reflects the "real world". Although in the real-world Richard Nixon would've never been able to be President in '85. If you can't get the history of your own generation right, I question your intelligence Alan Moore.

My thoughts:

Needless to say, I don't recommend this graphic novel unless you are a fan of disturbing imagery or the Grimdark genre. (To those who don't know Grimdark is a genre that has both grim and dark themes where no one is the "hero" in the traditional sense and hope is seen as naïve, childish, etc. It supposedly represents the "actual" world while ignoring the positives that do exist in the actual world.)

The themes are mature and could've been deep, but the execution could've been so much better if things weren't thrown in there for mere shock value alone. Perhaps if all the unnecessary things were taken out I would give it a higher rating. Genuinely I felt this thing was a depressing waste of time. I rate this 1 out of 5 angry cats 😾.

 

Kat K out