Who Watches The Watchmen (part 1)

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The Watchmen by Allen Moore and Dave Gibbons

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In preparation of the upcoming movie, I thought it would be fun to re-read, Watchmen. Here are some observations and thoughts from that reading.

Something to keep in mind with graphic novels is that nothing appears by accident. Every panel is drawn deliberately. Every element in a scene is there because the writer and artist put it there. (This is true, to a lesser extent, in movies; what you see was put there for you to see.)

But not everything in every scene has a deep meaning. To paraphrase Freud, "Sometimes a background is just a background." One of the striking things about Watchmen is the graphical richness. The panels are worth close study, because there is so much to see that does have meaning.

Motifs

Visual Motifs

These are cinematic tricks, and Watchmen is very cinematic. Both movies and comics are visual mediums that can be strongest when there is no dialog. Watchmen contains pages, sometimes more than one in a row, with no dialog.

Connections Motifs

Another repeated motif is the connectedness of things. We see Kovacs walking by many times before we discover who he is. The news vendor's stand is outside the Institute where Dr. Manhattan and Laurie live. Laurie's cab driver is Joey, and she pays the fare under a Nostalgia ad (by Veidt).

Chapter Notes

Chapter I

Red blood, a single splatter across a famous icon. The camera pulls up and up and up. We see Kovacs (Rorschach); the first living thing we see. Panels alternate between the detectives in The Comedian's apartment and flashbacks to the murder of The Comedian. Note how alternations are "odd/even" page to page, so two pages are complementary to each other. Two interesting keynote signs: Hollis Mason's "OBSOLETE MODELS A SPECIALTY" and the graffiti, "WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN"

By the end of the first chapter, we've met most of the major players: The Comedian (Blake), the two detectives (Fine & Bourquin), Rorschach (and Kovacs), Hollis Mason & Dan Dreiberg (& Nite Owl's "batcave"), Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias), Dr. Manhattan and Laurie Juspeczyk. Chapter ends with a foreshadowing of Dan & Laurie's future as the camera pulls up and up and up.

Chapter II

A funeral in the rain. (Rain is a common, if not over-used, cinematic metaphor for sorrow and tears. Note the "crying" statue.) Panels alternate between Laurie's visit to her mother and the funeral. Panels in the Moloch/Comedian flashback alternate color due to a flashing sign.

Red is a strong motif in this chapter. Laurie brings her mother red flowers, Moloch brings red roses to the funeral, red blood when Sally, and then Blake, are beaten. Blake is again blooded in the Vietnam flashback.

One panel of Blake being held by Hooded Justice matches a chapter one panel of his murder. Similar panel of his murder repeated in chapter two. Also similar to close up of Blake during Moloch/Comedian flashback.

The chapter ends with red blood, red roses, Rorschach visiting the grave in the still falling rain.

Chapter III

The nuclear radiation symbol begins and ends this chapter. The symbol appears many times throughout the chapter. And we learn that Dr. Manhattan (Jon) is radioactive and deadly to be around. Various people ponder the idea of nuclear war.

We meet the news stand vendor and comic-reading kid. We begin the pirate story! As he ponders war, note the change in the attitude of the vendor towards the kid (another motif: people change). (If you haven't begun to suspect who the red-haired sign-carrier is by now, you're not paying attention! :-)

Laurie leaves Jon and ends up with Dan. Panels alternate between Dr. Manhattan's TV interview and the street fight Dan & Laurie seem to go looking for. (They walk into a dark alleyway!) Jon vanishes from earth and goes to mars. The red planet. Named after the God of War.

Chapter IV

This chapter is all about time and Jon Osterman's becoming Dr. Manhattan. The symbol of watches repeats throughout ("watchmen", get it? :-). Jon's dad is a watchmaker, Jane's broken watch kick starts their affair, the Time cover Hiroshima watch. A time clock traps Jon in the test chamber.

To Dr. Manhattan, time is laid out like disassembled watch parts. We learn that he has lost all real touch with humanity. On Mars, he builds a vaguely hourglass-shaped structure from the sands of Mars (think: sands of time).

Jane and Jon brush fingers when Jane hands Jon a beer. Many years later (but one chapter earlier) Dan and Laurie brush fingers when Dan hands Laurie coffee.

The line, "The superman exists, and he is American". Obviously, Dr. Manhattan = Superman; The Comedian = Capt. America. Interestingly, The Comedian and Dr. Manhattan are the two most amoral characters, but also the most successful. They are the only two sanctified the U.S. government.

Rorschach and Nite Owl seem to represent two aspects of Batman. Nite Owl in particular is Batman's reflection. Bats and owls are both nocturnal creatures. Dan has a sort of Batcave and high tech goodies (and a utility belt!). Rorschach is "Batman gone bad."

Chapter V

The reflected image of a sign in water begins and ends this chapter. Does the water look like the blood from chapter one? Do the drops of rain remind you of the splatter of blood on the smiley icon? That's the same sign (I believe) that generates the color alternation in panels we see again in this chapter.

The reflected sign shows crossed bones and a reversed "R" back-to-back with a regular "R". Together they look somewhat skull-like. (In fact, doesn't The Punisher's icon look somewhat like the Rs?) Combined with the crossed bones, it makes the traditional pirate's icon. The back-to-back Rs also connect to Rorschach's back-to-back lowercase rs.

This chapter features a murder/suicide. At the scene, a poster of the Buddha shows blood splatter somewhat like the smiley. (Blood spattered icons!) There is a triangle on the poster, later repeated in Joey's GWAR poster.

The pirate story begins to get very dark and is headed for worse. It later becomes a story of a good man doing horrible evil in the name of good. That is a predominant theme of vigilantism in Watchmen. Another is that the innocent suffer from evil. Viedt's happy-go-lucky assistant is murdered (presumably accidentally).

One example of scene connections: the man in the pirate story's position on the raft matches that of the news stand vendor's putting up the tarp. There's a visual/verbal play in the man eating raw shark and the phone call to the detective. (Raw Shark visual, "Raw Shark" for Rorschach.)

EC comics! :-)

Chapter VI

This chapter is mostly about Kovacs becoming Rorschach. We meet the most foolish psychoanalyst in history. The chapter begins and ends with a Rorschach blot. Note the Rorschach-like pattern of the fruit on young Kovacs' face during the bullies scene.

The psychoanalyst descends into Rorschach's hell. Note the shadows cast by his wife and him. These parallel the painted couple shadows we've seen already. Both reference the shadows cast by victim of the Hiroshima bomb.

Hot cooking fat in the prison scene segues into hot coffee. Does the bone the dogs have resemble the crossed bones of the sign outside Moloch's? The psychoanalyst's life falls apart and he falls into blackness.

Some interesting lines by Rorschach: "Black and white. ... No gray." (about the fabric created by Dr. M (another connection)) "Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine. ... No meaning save what we choose to impose."

Halfway Point

This brings us about halfway through the book. This article has already grown longer than it should be, so I'll stop here.

© 2008 Chris from MN

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published Sun Aug 10, 2008 3:27 PM CDT
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entertainment, movies, comics, science-fiction, graphic-novels, watchmen, alan-moore, superheroes, dave-gibbons, programmerdude