February 22, 2009

Chapter I: “At Midnight, All the Agents ...”

... aaand, away we go! Hopefully, you’ve gotten started (re-)reading. At this point, the film opens in 11 days*, and of course there are 12 chapters. I can’t promise I’ll make a post per day, but who knows? Some days I might double-post. We’ll be in flow — like that frothy mix of blood and water on page one, trickling down the gutter (before the drains finally scab over and drown all the vermin).

So, without further ado:
Page 1. Best. First. Page. Ever.

What else is there to say, really? The text from Rorschach’s journal sets an extreme tone that perfectly suits this grim tale, yet it wouldn’t work as an intro without the genius visual, progressively pulling away from the close-cropped smiley image, up and up, all the way to the top of a very tall building. “That’s quite a drop,” says the cop. No kidding! And just like that, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons rope us in immediately.

Although you don’t notice it upon your first reading, Moore and Gibbons (hereafter referred to simply as “M&G”) don’t waste any time packing each panel with incredible detail. Some of it’s germane to the plot, though we won’t find out precisely how until later; some of it is just part of the background minutiae. There from the start, for example, is the “End is Nigh” freak, working the sidewalk; also there on page one is a truck with a pyramid logo, changing lanes in the street.

(Side note: I’m not going to write much about the film until after it opens on March 6 — you should all get the chance to form your own impressions — but I will offer this head’s-up: As counterintuitive as it might seem at first blush this incredibly effective, highly cinematic pan shot not how the movie begins. (And I’m OK with that.) Meanwhile, if you wanna enjoy Page One as a movie (of sorts), then check out the “motion comic” (available from iTunes — I downloaded the first chapter when it was free a few months back). It animates Gibbons’ artwork and turns “Watchmen” into a freaky cartoon/audiobook hybrid. It’s a bizarre thing, weird and cheesey and awesome all at once, but no matter what you end up thinking of it overall, the first minute is really delightful. Take a peek of it in action here: Some crazy YouTuber has found audio of Alan Moore reading Rorschach's lines. The British accent is all wrong, of course, but damn, it's still creepy.)

Pages 2-4. M & G quickly establish one of the series’ hallmarks: the chronological intercutting. It could’ve been tricky to follow, considering how they leapfrog back and forth with every panel, but colorist John Higgins comes to rescue with his clever color scheme, casting the Comedian’s death sequence entirely in red hues (except, of course, for the yellow smiley-face badge).

Despite Eddie Blake’s darkly ironic code name, “Watchmen” isn’t anyone’s idea of a comedy, yet the story does contain a few laugh lines. (At least upon later readings, if not initially.) At the bottom of page 3, we get our first grim joke: “Ground floor, comin’ up.”

And on page 4, M&G establish a few more background details: There’s a kid reading a “Tales of the Black Freighter” comic (can you imagine your 9-year-old reading that shit?!); there’s the Gunga Diner; and there’s that placard-parading nutcase again. Shiver. And what time is it? Eleven o’clock. That’s a.m., of course, not p.m., but still: Eleven o’clock is just one hour till midnight ...

Pages 5-8. Our first extended silent sequence. (There are precious few of these in the whole book; Moore usually has text juxtaposed with Gibbons’ art. I’ll keep an eye out for this as we go along, but off the top of my head, I’d say that the only other time we get this much purely visual storytelling is during one other sequence in Chapter 6, when we’re following who else but the taciturn Rorschach.) Anyway, I like how M&G encourage the reader to exert a little mental effort here, piecing together Rorschach’s thought process by following his actions (and his body language).

Two other random thoughts: One, we get our first glimpse of the Minutemen — which provides a great transition into the next sequence, introducing both Nite Owls. Two: How badass is Rorschach?! Him and that freakin’ grappling gun! Blake lived in a penthouse way at the top of that skyscraper. “Quite a drop,” nothing — that’s quite a motherfucking climb!

Page 9. I love Hollis. Also: More incredible detail, filling in background elements — a framed newspaper about Hollis retiring; a statuette of his costumed alter ego, awarded “in gratitude”; two copies of his autobiography, “Under the Hood”; his auto-repair business sign out front, ironically noting that he specializes in “obsolete models.” And — ah! — the first instance, I think, of some key graffiti: “Who watches the watchmen?”

Page 11. “Human bean juice”: Rorschach cracks a funny.

Pages 14-16. “I believe I shall take my exercise” — is this him cracking yet another joke? Hard to say. But his imminent exercise involves torturing innocent people who just happen to be hanging out in dive bars like Happy Harry’s. It says a lot of Rorschach’s badass factor that nobody dares challenge him while he breaks this poor guy’s fingers.

We’re also getting one of our first glimpses into the little ways that this world differs from ours: People tend to smoke out of those bizarre devices that look like a long cigarette holder, but instead of sticking a cigarette in the end, you apparently put the tabacco (or whatever?) into that little globe. Happy Harry notwithstanding, there are four different denizens of this underworld smoking from such a device.

Pages 17-18. Quick intro for Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias. More props to colorist Higgins: Veidt’s office, like his clothes and his costume, is awash in violet tones — purple long being a color associated with kings.

Higgins does great work throughout this book, often making counterintuitive choices. There’s a lot of great insight from Gibbons and Higgins about the color scheme in “Watching the Watchmen,” which just came out last autumn. There's plenty to say just about the coloring, but for now, I’ll simply note that superhero comics tend to traffic in full-spectrum color, with plenty of primary blasts of red and blue and yellow. (Even superhero costumes are full of primary colors, the notable exception being, for obvious reasons, Green Lantern.) Yet in “Watchmen,” Higgins sticks to secondary colors and earth tones whenever possible — the major exceptions being the yellow smiley face, Silk Spectre’s yellow costume, and blue Dr. Manhattan.

Anyway, after a tense exchange, there goes our favorite badass rightwing nutjob antihero, grappling down the side of the building. (Surely Adrian would’ve let him use the elevator, but clearly Rorschach prefers to do everything on his own.) And the New York Gazette headline notes: “Nuclear Doomsday Clock Stands at Five to Twelve.”

Page 19. Rorschach’s best line yet (though you don’t get the humor until reading the comic for at least the second time): “Why are so few of us left active, healthy, and without personality disorders?” Also: In that first panel, setting the scene at the Rockefeller Military Research Center, Gibbons has slyly placed the iconic Superman “S” inside that badge on the sign — oh-so-appropriate, given that Dr. Manhattan lives here and he’s the only true superman of the entire costumed bunch.

Page 20. Dr. Manhattan knows how to make an entrance. (And M&G know precisely when to deviate from their standard nine-panel grid for maximum storytelling impact.)

Page 24. Here’s a poster for the Pale Horse concert coming up at Madison Square Garden — on the surface, it’s the name of a band, but of course it’s also a reference to the end times from the biblical book of the Revelation ("And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."). In other words, more doomsday mood-setting. And the “Four More Years” poster lets us know who’s still in office.

Page 26. I don’t remember finding this particularly funny the first couple times I read it, but this time around, I laughed out loud at the idea of Rorschach dropping the masochistic Captain Carnage down an elevator shaft. Not incidentally, this anecdote explicitly introduces Moore’s ongoing suggestion that the “masks” (as Rorschach calls them) have some sort of sexual peccadillo, fetish or dysfunction.

Addendum pages. I’m saving my thoughts about Hollis Mason’s “Under the Hood” until Chapter 3, which gives us our third and final such excerpt.


* ummm, 11 days, 12 hours, 29 minutes and 56 seconds ... 55 ... 54 ... according to my handy little “Watchmen” app. Head’s up, those of you with an iPhone (or an iPod Touch)! It’s free, too, and naturally jam-packed with stuff. Some of the videos are slightly spoilerific, though, so you might wanna wait to watch those.

1 comment:

  1. I wish I had my copy here with me at school! But I'm still gonna watch the watchblog.

    ReplyDelete