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Holistic Guidance - Watchmen
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List Price: $19.99
Our Price: $13.59
Your Save: $ 6.40 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: DC Comics
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780930289232
ISBN: 0930289234
Label: DC Comics
Manufacturer: DC Comics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: 1995-04-01
Publisher: DC Comics
Release Date: 1995-04-01
Studio: DC Comics
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Editorial Reviews:
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Has any comic been as acclaimed as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen? Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, but Watchmen remains the critics' favorite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for many other of the genre's finest creations (Saga of the Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, and From Hell, with Eddie Campbell) first put out Watchmen in 12 issues for DC in 1986-87. It won a comic award at the time (the 1987 Jack Kirby Comics Industry Awards for Best Writer/Artist combination) and has continued to gather praise since. The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore's characterization is as sophisticated as any novel's. Importantly the costumes do not get in the way of the storytelling; rather they allow Moore to investigate issues of power and control--indeed it was Watchmen, and to a lesser extent Dark Knight, that propelled the comic genre forward, making "adult" comics a reality. The artwork of Gibbons (best known for 2000AD's Rogue Trooper and DC's Green Lantern) is very fine too, echoing Moore's paranoid mood perfectly throughout. Packed with symbolism, some of the overlying themes (arms control, nuclear threat, vigilantes) have dated but the intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself, its intertextuality (chapters appended with excerpts from other "works" and "studies" on Moore's characters, or with excerpts from another comic book being read by a child within the story), the finepace of the writing and its humanity mean that Watchmen more than stands up--it keeps its crown as the best the genre has yet produced. --Mark Thwaite
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: superstars revisited
Comment: This comic was recommended to me, but I would never have picked it up myself - it looks like and has the feel of the old superhero comics which I do not like at all (except for The Spirit). But this one is deeper than you might think - it's a serious looking parody on these very supermancomics, which makes it nice. I still don't really go for the looks of this comic, but the story is really good.
Customer Rating:
Summary: What Can Be Said?
Comment: What can I say that hasn't already been said about "Watchmen"? I first read this graphic novel when it first was published. I was newbie at collecting comic books and a good friend said "Hey man, you've got to check this out." And I did and was floored, never had we (comic book readers) seen anything of this depth and caliber. I mean, "The Dark Knight Returns" was ground breaking, but "Watchmen" was something totally different. It was a novel, a incredibly detailed journey to an alternate superhero reality and it worked. I absolutely love this book and I am looking forward to Zack Snyder's interpretation. If you haven't read this book and you love comic books, then what are you waiting for?
Customer Rating:
Summary: A classic
Comment: This makes about the 10th time I've been through this series. It really was an amazing turning point for comics. I caught it a few years late, but the impact was no less effective. The shifts between current and flashback, the relationship of the side stories to events in the characters lives - and particularly the dark, adult subject matter explaining the motivations of the various flawed characters made it so real - a little too real at my first exposure.
Although it's not the most clever story in the whole, my favorite character to analyze has always been Dr. Manhattan. As kids we played superheroes and the inevitable escalation of powers always led to the taunt "well, Superguy (or whatever) can do anything". As an adult, Watchmen explored the idea of exactly what could happen to a person that can basically do anything - how it affects his mental shift, values and relationships. It remains the most intriguing mindplay from the series, at least for me.
I don't have to extol the values of the series; they're well documented. This series and the Dark Knight Returns series was what brought my attention back to comic books from my grade school days with Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Much ado about not much
Comment: Brace yourself. This is the contrarian review. I've had this recommended to me since the 1980s, and finally decided to put my nickel on the counter to see what it's about. I'm underwhelmed.
It's got some nice things going on. There are a few reversals of loyalty, some of them more grounded in making it through the day than in high ideals. That works for me. Sanity as a negotiable quantity works for me, too, I'm sorry to say. Moral and social issues, in combination, dominate the last one or two of the original comic series. Those matter, at least to any thinking reader. Open-ended (mistakable for weak) choices left Adrian where he wanted to be - I hoped for better. Even so, I follow along with all of that. But.
I come for the art, too. Gibbons's drawing and Higgins's coloring narrate, effectively, even if they don't innovate. I want my eyes to learn, to be brought to a higher level of seeing a story told. Didn't happen. Nice, but only nice. And, I have to admit, the story didn't snag me until the last two or three of these dozen-ish comic book reprints.
I like comics. I like good ones a lot. I like this one. I just don't like it all that much. I'm not sure I'll keep it. Maybe back then it advanced the frontiers of comics - but today is today, and it doesn't.
-- wiredweird
Customer Rating:
Summary: Simply amazing
Comment: One of the best novels I've read, period. Add in fantastic drawings and a gritty, realistic world and you have a fantastic must-read for everyone.
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