Fact: if you say ‘I read graphic novels,’ you sound way wankier than if you just say ‘I read comic books.’ Surely, the phrase ‘graphic novel’ is just a desperate attempt to legitimise the art form, to bring comic books into a more literary, intellectually acceptable realm by sluicing away the negative connotations that imply light, pulpy reading.
At least that’s how I felt until I read Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. There is just no other way to describe it than as a novel that is executed primarily in graphic form. A graphic novel, if you will.
Ironically, Moore himself as been quoted as saying: “My book is a comic book. Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book.” But there is just something intangible about the multilayered work that transcends the implications of those words.
Since its first publication as a 12-issue series in 1986, it has remained a strong critics’ favourite, and featured in Time magazine’s list of the top 100 books of all time. Even Stan Lee – the industry’s demi-god creator of classic characters like Spiderman, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk and Iron Man – called Watchmen his “all-time favourite comic book outside of Marvel.” Generally speaking, Watchmen is the comic book you recommend to the jerks who hate comic books.
And it’s the latest in a slew to get the Hollywood treatment, with the movie due to launch in February 2009.
It’s hard to not feel conflicted. Moore himself eschews the movie studios; he’s notoriously protective of the integrity of his work. Following a legal wrangle over Twentieth Century Fox’s adaption of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as well as Warner Brothers’ atrocious excuse for V for Vendetta, the writer has asked that his name be removed from those titles, and receives no royalties. To add insult to injury, Warner Brothers is also behind the Watchmen film. But holy shit, this trailer looks SO FUCKING AWESOME:
Written as the Cold War was winding down, Watchmen is a cautionary political commentary on the global insecurity caused by nuclear arms. Within an alternate history, Moore creates epically detailed characters who seem superhuman, and yet are all too susceptible to human foibles and failures. Through amazingly detailed vignettes, and intricately laced parallel stories, Moore touchingly tells of their personal crises in a time of crisis on a world-scale. Underpinning the tale is Plato’s haunting question, as relevant now as it was thousands of years ago: who will watch the watchmen? Nevertheless, Moore stops short of grandiose posturing. Shit, the dude even quotes Bob Dylan.
I’m by no means a purist; I like popcorn-bustin’, no-brainer comic movies as much as the next slavering tight-arse Tuesday-goer. I even own the X-Men film trilogy on special edition DVD, although I do enjoy smugly pointing out the inaccuracies. But for every exceptional comic-to-film adaption (300, Iron Man, Sin City, The Dark Knight, Ed Norton’s Hulk), there are at least two that make nerds around the world run home from the cinema to urgently register their distaste on internet forums (Wanted, Ghost Rider, Constantine, Batman & Robin, Eric Bana’s Hulk, Wanted, Wanted… Did I mention Wanted?)
And with a work as complex as Watchmen, it would be next to impossible to translate the subtle nuances of the writing, the innovative use of metafiction, and the excruciatingly detailed visual clues into film.
But having seen the trailer, I sure as shit can’t wait to see them try.
