Alan Moore's Classic "Watchmen"

I loved comic books as a kid. I bet everyone did. Superman, Tarzan, Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom and countless others which fascinated us as kids. Plus the fantastic Disney comics which I loved - Donald Duck, Goofy, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Huey, Dewey and Louie stories which were great if you get sick of the super-heroes. Then the comics for teenagers who longed to be residents of Riverdale along with Archie, Jughead and his gang, not to mention Betty and Veronica.

But most of us grew out of it. Lately, there has been a spate of literature from the boys-at-heart authors like Michael Chabon (The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay) and others who have written books telling of their love for comics. Neil Gaiman has not only expressed his love for them, but has given himself to creating comics with a gusto, and a writer of his caliber comes out with some pretty good comics i hear, haven't read them yet.

And then there is Mr. Alan Moore. Universally considered one of the best comics writers in the history of the art-form. And when we talk about Alan Moore's comics, they are ART. I can vouch for this after completing "Watchmen". Incidentally, "Watchmen" happens to be the only comic which is listed in the Time Magazines list of the top 100 books since 1923 till 2005.

And "Watchmen" lives up to that kind of hype. The story is very literate, complex and layered with hidden meanings. The art work is breath-taking always, and sometimes just plain mind-blowing. The artist is Dave Gibbons, and must be credited for some of the most intricate and impelling art work I have ever seen. The title is taken from the latin "quis custodiet ipsos custodes" which literally translates as "Who watches the watchmen". The implications of this become clearer as the story begins.

The story is set in an alternate reality New York in the year 1985. A death has taken place. A man has fallen through the window of his high-rise apartment. Detectives investigating his death conclude that he must have been thrown and his death is a murder. However, the cops are not the only one investigating this death. The other person investigating the death of Edward Blake is a masked adventurer who goes by the name Rorschach. Masked adventurer - as opposed to a superhero. Superheroes have super-powers. Masked adventurers are costumed do-gooders who rely on their ingenuity and athletic prowess and are basically human in all other respects.

This bit of information takes us deeper into the world Moore and Gibbons have created. We hear about the one-time popularity of costumed adventurers who were feted by the media, the people and the government. But once they had eradicated most big-time criminals, they ended up being considered as nothing more than vigilantes. Finally a law was passed which required that these heroes proclaim their true identities and agree to work for the government or to give up their "vigilantism". Only two of this group still function and both of them work for the government.

Rorschach though has just discovered that one of those two has just died. Edward Blake, better known as The Comedian, has been murdered. Rorschach is also a wanted criminal, since he was the only one of the costumed adventurers who never compromised and continued his vigilante career. He is wanted by the police not just for his status as a still-functioning vigilante, but also for the sheer violence with which he deals with criminals. There is a sense of the psychotic about Rorschach. And his character is perhaps the best among a group of pretty brilliant characterisations done by Moore and Gibbons.

Without detailing much more about the plot, I would like to focus on the structure of the comic (I am trying to avoid the term "graphic novel" as Alan Moore himself does not prefer the term). The comic consists of 12 chapters, at the end of each of them is a non-comic section. These sections are used to fill in the back stories and also to provide more depth to the characters. Besides this, each chapter also contains layered, parallel threads of the complex plot - sometimes chronologically separate as seen in the final chapters. And as if there was not enough going on, there is a comic within the comic which is so compellingly gripping and intriguing that it blows the mind. A single reading of the book will probably not allow the reader to grasp all the information that Moore and Gibbons cram into each frame of the comic.

And that brings me around to the frames. Each and every frame of the comic has a meaning to it. If it shows a man walking down a street, it also shows the newspaper blowing past him with a telling headline, it also shows the reflection of something on the dirty wet street which is important. And notice the smiley face on the cover, with an odd shaped blood stain... the shape of that stain will be reproduced in ways which will be completely unexpected and unforeseeable. There is a fantastic amount of payback to the reader for the time he spends reading this comic. And there are other ways in which symbology is used. Rorschach's mask is made of material on which the dark stain behaves like a fluid, changing its shape with his emotions and Gibbons makes wonderful use of this. And the comic book medium when used intelligently as it has here, has the advantage of merging the book-form and the visual-form. So its a treat for the mind like reading Kurt Vonnegut or Thomas Pynchon, and a treat for the eyes like an Akira Kurusawa or Tim Burton movie.

I guess I have gushed enough. But Messrs Moore and Gibbon have probably opened my eyes to comic books and the force they can have. Already picked up Moore's "V for Vendetta" (made into a so-so movie I haven't seen). Also picking up two other comics which are known as the best in the genre - "Dark Knight Returns" and "300" both by Frank Miller, another great comic book writer. Will also be getting "From Hell" by Alan Moore soon. So keep watching this space for more comic book reviews. And go get a copy of this brilliant work of art. Beg, borrow or steal!!