The Misadventures of José Faxner

In the last couple days, I did something I’ve been meaning to do for years - I finally took the time to read the nigh-legendary graphic novel “Watchmen“.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, I could give you a synopsis, but as it turns out Wikipedia does a much better job than I could:

Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Originally published by DC Comics as a monthly limited series from 1986 to 1987, it was later republished as a trade paperback,^[1] which popularized the “graphic novel” format. To date, Watchmen remains the only graphic novel to win a Hugo Award,^[2] and is also the only graphic novel to appear on Time Magazine’s 2005 list of “the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.”^[3]

Watchmen is set in 1985, in an alternative history United States where costumed adventurers are real and the country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union (the Doomsday Clock is at five minutes to midnight). It tells the story of a group of past and present superheroes and the events surrounding the mysterious murder of one of their own. Watchmen depicts superheroes as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues, who struggle with neurosessuper powers. and failings, and who - with one notable exception - lack anything recognizable as Watchmen’s deconstruction of the conventional superhero archetype, combined with its innovative adaptation of cinematic techniques and heavy use of symbolism, multi-layered dialogue, and metafiction, has influenced both comics and film.

I had made an earlier attempt to read it a few years ago, but for some reason I didn’t really get into it. I don’t know whether it was the fact that it starts off somewhat slow, or that I was reading it on a computer monitor, but I just couldn’t be bothered to read past the first issue.

However, it has definitely stayed among the top of my figurative list of Graphic Novels I Definitely Should Read At Some Point (as was Batman: The Dark Night Returns, which I incidentally read a couple of months ago. It was good), and seeing my brother’s copy sitting in our bookshelf over the past few months or so, it’s felt increasingly enticing until I eventually took the bull by its horns and just decided to start reading it. Coming off a healthy diet of the previously-mentioned DKR, 8 volumes of Hellboy, and recent Marvel comics in between, I was hungry for more comics to read, and Watchmen seemed like a perfect choice.

My enthusiasm was quickly stifled by the fact that my brother, for whatever reason, apparently had a Swedish copy of Watchmen. I really hate reading anything translated if it’s possible for me to read it in its original language, but considering the hype I had already built up for myself, I decided I wasn’t going to let that fact stop me from reading something I should’ve read long ago anyway (my pride took kind of a bump along the way, though). Besides, I figured it’s most likely the kind of book I would like to re-read, so I’ll just make sure to read it in English the next time around.

Indeed, it is most certainly the kind of book I would like to re-read. In fact, I’d love nothing more than to read it again straight away. I don’t want to say anything about the plot really, as I would warmly recommend the book to anyone and would hate to spoil any of it. Suffice it to say though, the book is extremely well-written, and definitely lends itself to deeper thought and analysis (even though I personally have very little interest for that sort of thing, generally speaking). It was very exciting the first time through, but now I’m left incredibly curious how I’ll see things when I know how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

I guess my timing wasn’t exactly impeccable though. Having finally read the book I’m of course a hundred times more excited about the upcoming Watchmen movie than I was before - and it’s not coming out for another year and a half! Unbelievably, I still haven’t seen 300 (thank you very much, Japanese cinemas, for delaying it until I had all but lost interest), but director Zack Snyder also made 2004’s Dawn of the Dead, which I really, really enjoyed; so as unfilmable as Watchmen may be, there’s not a lot of people I’d rather have at the helm than Snyder, and I’m very curious to see how the movie will end up.

Watchmen seems difficult to adapt to a movie format for a number of reasons - not least its length. Hopefully whatever cuts are necessary to keep the story within a 2-3 hour frame won’t mess too badly with the flow of the story. And quite frankly, as much as I hope it will be a great movie, I would probably be quite satisfied just seeing the great characters from the book come to life, even if the movie itself ends up not being very great.

I’m still hopeful, though. Knock on wood or something, I guess.

Go watch the badass trailer for what’s sure to be one of the most awesome movies in 2007. Do it now.