Watchmen

Watchmen by Alan Moore

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Anyone who doesn’t think comic books can be “art” needs to read Watchmen. This is one of the highest-quality, most well-crafted books I’ve read in a very long time.



The art style is incredibly elaborate and carefully crafted. The style and quality is consistent throughout the very long book, and the amount of detail in each frame is at times overwhelming. I expect I’ll read this at least once more to try to catch the intricacies and nuances hidden in each panel.



The storyline is very elaborate. It’s brought together by a combination of the pictures themselves, dialogue, and snippets from newspaper articles, biographies, and even a comic-within-a-comic. Details of the characters and the story itself are slowly drawn out over the length of the book – a reference made in chapter two might not be explained until chapter five. As a result, the reader is forced to pay very close attention to what is happening, what each character is doing, and how these references are pulled together. As opposed to most comic book storylines which can be drawn out indefinitely, this is a completely self-contained story, written in twelve distinct chapters.



I highly recommend this to anyone who’s been disappointed by poor comics in the past. The art, characters, story, and unexpected ending all come together to create a well-above-average comic experience.




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