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Amazon.co.uk Review
Has any comic been as lauded as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen? Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns but Watchmen remains the critics' favourite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for many other of the genre's finest creations (Saga of the Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, and recently From Hell, with Eddie Campbell) first put out Watchmen in 12 issues for DC in 1986-87. It won a comic award at the time (the 1987 Jack Kirby Comics Industry Awards for Best Writer/Artist combination) and has continued to garner praise since.
The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore's characterisation is as sophisticated as any novel's. Importantly the costumes do not get in the way of the storytelling, rather they allow Moore to investigate issues of power and control--indeed it was Watchmen, and to a lesser extent Dark Knight, that propelled the comic genre forward, making "adult" comics a reality. The artwork of Gibbons (best known for 2000AD's Rogue Trooper and DC's Green Lantern) is very fine too, echoing Moore's paranoid mood perfectly throughout. Packed with symbolism, some of the overlying themes (arms control, nuclear threat, vigilantes) have dated but the intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself, its intertextuality (chapters appended with excerpts from other "works" and "studies" on Moore's characters, or with excerpts from another comic book being read by a child within the story), the fine pace of the writing and its humanity mean that Watchmen more than stands up--it retains its crown as the best the genre has yet produced. --Mark Thwaite
BookMunch Online Book Reviews June 2002
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quite simply stunning,
By
This review is from: Watchmen (Paperback)
The word on the street is that Watchmen is finally going to be made into a movie. Although I'm likely to be queueing to get a ticket, in many ways it's a shame, because Watchmen is quite simply one of the most complex, awesome and complete novels of the twentieth century, delivered in a form that is perfect for the tale. Anything that can be re-read time and time again and still unlock new surprises refunds its cover price ten times over, and this is certainly one of the few books that delivers on all levels. Forget the "SOCK POW" of the 60's Batman series, and even the original Superman film - instead examine the minds of masked vigilantes and how the existence of a real superhero would affect the planet. Those thoughts, and many, many more are explored here in a cracking yarn that remains tense, thrilling, consistent and amazing throughout - and all from two tiny brains that dared to challenge convention when the Superhero was believed to be dead.
Buy this now, before Holywood makes it hot property or buries it just as it did The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest. Bar none.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Watchmen (Paperback)
The best works of fiction are generally untranslatable into different media. It is impossible to make a film that encompasses all the great things about Catch-22. Citizen Kane and Vertigo would make lousy novels. Watchmen is comparable. Many people I know refuse to read it, just because it's a comic. But it couldn't work any other way. I'm trying not to spoil too much of the plot, but Alan Moore's writing, the pacing of the story - he somehow manages to overlay multiple plot lines on just one page. The dialogue is realistic: people talk over each other, conversations are drowned out by TV, the characters stutter and repeat themselves. The characters are real, flawed. the plot manages to mix high-concept science fiction, hard-boiled crime, philosophy, conspiracies, action, drama. Alan Moore isn't just one of the greatest comic writers ever, he's one of the greatest writers ever. His work stands comparison with anyone - Harper Lee, Joseph Conrad, Heller, Orwell. But Watchmen isn't just about the writing: Dave Gibbons' art isn't flashy, but no other artist could've drawn the story. Gibbons' work is realistic, insanely detailed. Again, I don't want to spoil the plot for you, but analyse every panel. Every detail, no matter how minor, has purpose. This book is flawless. It will never be surpassed.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moore remains the king,
By A Customer
This review is from: Watchmen (Paperback)
I have tried to work out why this has the quality almost everything else lacks and I think it's that Alan Moore doesn't refer to the field when he writes, he refers to his own complicated obsessions. Like Michael Moorcock, who admires Moore as much as Moore admires Moorcock, he is one of the wellsprings. He doesn't take his bucket to the common pool. He takes it to some very strange pools indeed and his dark imagination, which again reflects the work of the New Worlds writers like Harrison and Moorcock, with whom he's associated, is questing not for thrills or fresh wrinkles in an old security blanket but for something altogether his own. That is why he remains the king and why Watchmen remains a standard of graphic novels just as the Cornelius novels remain a standard for cyberpunk. This is nothing less than a classic in a field it made interesting. I had long since lost interest in comics until I came on Moore's work. He didn't just revive my interest in comics -- he revived the whole comics field! He deserves to be made a Knight Spiritual if not a new Lord! Buy two. One to read and one to throw at people who say comics are just for kids.
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