Watchmen
The Watchmen for me stood out above other graphic novels in two distinct areas. The coloring and storytelling. The story itself is beautifully gripping, while dark and interludes multiple storylines into central themes almost seamlessly.
Watchmen is set in an alternate universe, during the year 1985. In this world, powerless superheroes are running around in the streets. People are dressing up in costumes and acting as a vigilante of sorts, fighting crimes without any true legal association. By 1985, after years of experiencing these costumed heroes, the world started to resent them. They aren’t well-received unless you were fighting against the USSR like Dr. Manhattan (Only one with real powers). Dr. Manhattan, arguably the most important character, got his powers from a science lab accident giving him the incredible powers. Some of these include controlling the atomic makeup of anything, immortality, teleportation of himself and others, while also being able to see the past, future, and present simultaneously. Now, the story starts when one of these superheroes, named The Comedian, was murdered by being thrown out of a building. Another superhero, named Rorschach, investigates and has the suspicion that someone is after all the costumed heroes. As one would guess the story itself is pretty encapsulating but what drives it to the next level is the way the story is told.
Firstly, I think the comic is visually stunning. The sheer amount of color makes the graphic novel jump off the page, yet each and every color is used so meticulously. The reader sees much usage of red, yellow, and blue that are all tied to specific themes.
The picture below is a great example of the interesting storytelling that Alan Moore used. He gives us these two scenes simultaneously. One scene is a couple of the superheroes paying their respects at The Comedian's funeral. While the other is about Laurie’s visit to her mom in California. This isn’t the seldom time Moore uses this tactic. Throughout the graphic novel, there are many stories that are told interchangeably. We see pages of a different comic book being read by a boy while the real action is going on in the real world, the world the readers care about. These two stories are told just in the style below, switching off frames.
What I also like about this page is the imagery. There are two big differences between the two stories and that’s the coloring. We see one that is all bleak, dark, and depressing. This of course is the colors for the funeral. While in the California house, where Laurie is vising her mother, we see light colors like yellow. These of course are representing the difference in scenery that these two parties are in. What’s interesting about these color contrasts are the flashbacks that all relate in these scenes. All the heroes at the funeral and Laurie’s mother who was a superhero as well had flashbacks about specific personal encounters with their ‘friend’ The Comedian all revealing the horrible man he was. I believe that Moore symbolizes the color red (Hard red, not like the sand below) to represent despair and pain. So, possibly, seeing the accents of red in the California scene and the funeral could all represent the pain they feel with these memories being brought up again.
My second visual aid below is simply a page that made me stop and admire. For context, Dr. Manhatten is turning mars sand into Glass and creating a kingdom. I loved this because it shows how powerful Dr. Manhatten and it gives me something beautiful to look at. This page is also special because the three huge frames are one of the few times that Alan Moore goes away from his mundane 9 frame pages. I also love the drawings. The contrast of Dr. Manhatten’s skin compared to the dull sand or black sky shows more evidence of the power that Dr. Manhatten possesses as he’s shown as a bright powerful light.
The last image is to show more beautiful coloring and storytelling. This is a flashback of The Comedian’s death while being narrated by Rorschach (who wasn’t there) that transitions back to him at his grave. I loved that the entirety of the flashback was mostly in red. As mentioned before I believe red symbolizes pain, and if being thrown out of a skyscraper isn’t representative of that I don’t know what is. This is also beautiful storytelling as the transition of the story goes to Rorschach as he’s holding the red flowers. More symbolism of the color red in there as well. Moore’s ability to create separate scenes and timelines into one is truly something to behold.
Watchmen, By Alan Moore, was an incredible read. It gave a lot of commentary about humanity while providing something with impeccable color.
