Watchmen
Banned book month continues with Watchmen by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons. This book is a first for our podcast, a graphic novel. If you are unfamiliar with it, it is a superhero deconstruction with a hint of dystopia about it. And moral ambiguity. Lots and lots of moral ambiguity. Nothing about this book is simple, so this is one of our longer running episodes, covering cold war anxiety, complex characters, and detachment from humanity. Not to mention flaming boners, cat jailbreaks, and exploding psychic squid.
The music bump is “Times They Are A-Changin'” by Bob Dylan, referenced in the book, as well as the music for the opening of the not especially good Hollywood adaptation.
26 – Watchmen – Who Blanks the Blankmen
This entry was posted in Episodes and tagged Alan Moore, Alexander the Great podcast, cold war, complications, Dave Gibbons, deconstruction, detachment, exploding psychic squid, flaming boner, funnies ain't funny, kitty jailbreak, moral ambiguity, sad batman, Superman is real, to bone is human, visual interactions, Watchmen, who protags the protaganist, who watches the watchmen.
Novel Ideas 
May 20, 2013 at 10:15 am
I’m Nite Owl.
May 20, 2013 at 10:23 am
I had to read this book like, seven times before I understood everything that was going on in it. It blew my mind when I was 18. The costumes help.
May 20, 2013 at 10:28 am
Superman is real, and he’s not from Krypton. He’s from New York. Like most of the famous creators from the Golden Age.
Have you guys read any Wil Eisner?
May 21, 2013 at 10:23 am
I haven’t. I take it that we should? #Ben
May 20, 2013 at 2:04 pm
The only thing I liked about the movie was seeing the story with the actual music from the book, instead of just seeing the lyrics written out. Alan Moore set out to demonstrate what the graphic novel medium was capable of, and tried to do a lot of stuff that wouldn’t be possible in regular books or movies or tv (as you guys were noting with the interplay between the text and the visuals) But I guess he also wanted a weird multi-media experience too. In fairness, there was a lot less music to choose from in the 80’s.
I know why the faster plot points seemed slower, and I suspect it ties in with why you didn’t like the movie.