Before Watchmen: Rorschach #1

quozl wrote: Dude, you read a comic book. Literary greatness isn't found in that medium.

Well let's be reasonable here, I'm not expecting Shakespeare. However, with all the hype, it would have been nice to read something on par at least with Beetle Bailey or Sad Sack and the Sarge.

quozl wrote: Dude, you read a comic book. Literary greatness isn't found in that medium.

Actually, Watchmen is the one example where I disagree with that statement.

I can understand being a little let-down after tons of hype, but vehement hatred and disappointment? Uh...okay.

Quozl, two words that destroy your thesis:

FUNKY WINKERBEAN

I didn't enjoy the Watchmen very much when I read it about three years ago but like a lot of things I still appreciate it for it's historical significance. It's the same reason I'd have difficulty saying the Beatles suck or that I hate Elvis. You might not particularly enjoy either one of those artist's stuff but the impact they had on the landscape of music is undeniable and for that reason they are worthy of a bit of respect. So is Watchmen to comics except I'd argue that its influence was even more groundbreaking to its medium.

QPCloudy wrote:

quozl wrote: Dude, you read a comic book. Literary greatness isn't found in that medium.

Well let's be reasonable here, I'm not expecting Shakespeare. However, with all the hype, it would have been nice to read something on par at least with Beetle Bailey or Sad Sack and the Sarge.

Carmen, you done fucked up at F:AT. You're new here, so perhaps nobody explained the rules.

RULE #1 of FortressAT:
Thou Shalt Not Start A Rumble Until 12:01AM Eastern On Any Given Friday.

Premature rumbulation, jagoff.

Michael Barnes wrote: I have the "main" Rorschach from issue 6 on my right foreaarm- the butterfly/dog's head.

You realize that that's actually an image of a man's naked anus poised to be dominated, don't you? Look again.

QPCloudy wrote: Seriously. 3 hours of my life I will never get back. . .

If you had skimmed more quickly, you would have only wasted 30 minutes.

Cloudy, perhaps this is another Watchmen spinoff that you would likely enjoy. Dukester will read it just to demonstrate to the internet how unfazed he is by the Watchmen hype. This must be where they go the idea to do Before Watchmen.

Lol, that's actually funny. It will fit right in with my Bartman and Radioactive Man collection!

Obligatory

Michael Barnes wrote: Regardless of any and all efforts of hype-busting forumistas, Watchmen was beyond a shadow of a doubt the most important comic book of the 1980s.

I love Watchmen and all, and I've reread it more than any other book or comic I own, but regardless of how you feel about either book, the above statement is probably PROVABLY false: Maus is by far the most important comic book of the 1980s, and I don't think it's even close. Watchmen launched a still-continuing age of darker, mostly shitty superhero comics, and with Dark Knight Returns, Miller's Daredevil, Moore's Swamp Thing, et al, I'm not even sure Watchmen was needed to start that. Maus launched every literary or alternative graphic novel ever written, and over half the shelves of comics at your local bookstore.

That's true about Maus, which is the one that to my taste is the overrated title. But it doesn't matter, because its impact was profound whether I like to read it or not.

But let's not pretend that Maus didn't launch a million shitty "alternative" comics in the late 1980s-early 1990s...I think I'd prefer a shitty "oh woe is me it's so dark" superhero book to any kind of shitty "oh woe is me I'm so alternative" comic.

The thing is, Watchmen definitely had dark subject matter, but I don't think of it is a particularly grim, gritty, or angsty book. It's a deconstruction, sure, but it's hardly the teeth-grittingly bleak Miller stuff from that period.

Michael Barnes wrote: It also set this unusual precedent that really great writers and artists,when given B or even Z-list characters can work wonders outside of the old warhorses.

Mark Grunwald's Squadron Supreme mini-series, which was published slightly before Watchmen, I think also helped. I recommend that book quite a bit, very good.

VonTush wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: It also set this unusual precedent that really great writers and artists,when given B or even Z-list characters can work wonders outside of the old warhorses.

Mark Grunwald's Squadron Supreme mini-series, which was published slightly before Watchmen, I think also helped. I recommend that book quite a bit, very good.

Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme (plus a 1-issue crossover with Captain America) was almost on par with the very best pre-Watchmen comics. Well, aside from the mediocre artwork. Gru tackled some serious issues without easy answers, and took a superficial group of JLA ripoffs and imbued them with personalities, even gave them some character development as the series went on. It was nowhere near as good as Watchmen, but Watchmen was a major breakthrough.

The more I think about it, honestly, the *less* influential and more *singular* I think Watchmen was: mostly just the surface elements were copied. Show me again where the superhero comics are that have come since that are all-new characters (VERY VERY loosely based on Charlton characters, whatever) and a complete, VERY cohesive, start-to-finish, done-in-one book? And ambitious? Watchmen is unique in the superhero world. All the really good superhero comics that have come out since are not in its mold; they're more in the Miller Daredevil or Moore Swamp Thing mold: long-ish runs, with plenty of digressions, on corporate superheroes where the writer nonetheless put his personal stamp on it. I LIKE that mold, but it's not very Watchmen. Even the short, somewhat self-contained superhero graphic novels aren't about characters the creators invented.

It's like the (possibly misremembered) Kirby response to people working on his characters because they wanted to pay homage to him: "If you want to pay homage to me, then do what I did: create your OWN characters."