Why Are We Still So Obsessed With Watchmen?
comicbook.com
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, changed the comic industry forever. The twelve issue maxiseries took a warts and all look at what superheroes would be like in the real world, one where their very presence completely changed history and the geopolitical situation of the world. Watchmen is considered the greatest comic of all-time, […]

It’s this idea that brings up the problem of Watchmen. No one was ready for this type of superhero story back then, and it created a legion of imitators. Some of these imitators — many of whom were brought over from the UK because of creators like Moore and Gibbons — were able to take the lesson of Watchmen and bring it to their books, leading to a renaissance of comics. However, most of the imitators just copied the “mature” themes — the violence, the sex, the darkness of the story — and that led the entire comic industry in a bad direction. Watchmen was a double-edged sword, and the changes it wrought re-created the comic industry in its image.

  • Sergio@slrpnk.net
    2·
    6 days ago

    The article focuses more on the effects of Watchmen, and less on why. Yes, Watchmen introduced (or at least popularized) the “grim” style in mainstream comics, especially to people who weren’t familiar with euro comics as introduced to the US in the Heavy Metal anthology (shoutout to !eurographicnovels@lemm.ee btw). And sure, there was meta commentary about comic books.

    But aside from its effect or its commentary on comic books, it was just a well-crafted story focused on character. Moore plotted the story panel-by-panel and populated it with characters who were realistic enough for any type of story. Imagine a Watchmen where we get rid of the violence and supernatural, and make it all about, say, investment banking intead of superheros. We begin with the disappearance of a grizzled veteran who had some shady work in his past. His former coworker, a creepy-old-man private investigator, looks into it and starts visiting the people who worked with him in the past – the guy who works for the government, the guy who retired and just sits at home now, etc. It all turns out to be a plot to do something spectacular on the world markets, and on the way you still have the disillusionment of the Comedian-character, the disaffectedness of the Owl-guy-character, the existential angst of the blue guy character, the alienation of the Rorschach-character, etc.

    tldr: character presentation is the heart of Watchmen, quite apart from anything it said about or did to comic books.