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A NEW FRAME FOR COMIC BOOKS: The Genuine Literary Value of the Comic Book Medium
© 1999 - 2000 A. David Lewis
[Part 1 of 2]
1: Introduction 2: THE COMIC MEDIUM AS LITERATURE 4: THE SANDMAN, The Watermelon (Part 2) 5: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility…" (Part 2) 6: Works Cited (Part 2)
comics (as defined by Understanding Comics): juxtaposed pictoral and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer
It saddens me that, by and large, Americans still don't know the literary value of comic books. Much of the world and certain domestic pockets already know that the cultural stereotypes on comic books is long past over and a new generation of exceptional works awaits our discovery. Given, comics consist of words and pictures; Captain America throws his shield as a bunch of upper-case words spill out of his mouth into a word balloon. But this combination is an enhancing synergy, not some sort of bastardization. Comics are not a mish-mash, ramshackle, shorthand, piecemeal, handicap or dumbing-down of the components. Those views are held by the biased and uninitiated, those that know Batman only from Adam West's show, Superman from the last defunct screen adaptation, and Spider-Man from the warblings of their Saturday morning cartoon-induced young nephews. Those that have never read MAUS, those that have never seen Preacher, those that, when you really get down to it, have never actually experienced comic books in the way they should be. Pity them, for such persons might also lump comic books and newspaper comic strips together into one, ugly category, "funny pages," unaware of the separate aesthetic and cultural values that each of the sequential art brethren provide. Alas, some of these persons may actually act on their recessive Werthamian instincts and wrest away from their young wards the moral allegories, fantastic worlds, and Code-approved action. They would deprive the youthful, eager minds of comics' rich stories all in the name of "finding something real to read." Well, not only am I happy in this paper to show the disenfranchised that comics are very real indeed, but that the medium’s capacity for intelligent, aesthetic content can even rival accepted literature’s own influential values! Simply, comics have power, depth, and intelligence – when is our culture going to provide reciprocal appreciation?
Again, comics are the synergy of pictures and words; great comics, though, are the synergy of art and literature. As editor Carl Potts says, "the combining of graphics and written word creates a product that is greater than pure written word or pure graphics could achieve." And while this would (properly?) imply the more incredible comics to be something evolutionarily superior to literature, I won't aim for so lofty a goal at this time – I can only go with what I've got. The case first must at least be made that comics are, at minimum, possibly literature. I contend that comic books – whether graphic novels or monthly serials – are a medium worthy of serious study and literary consideration.
Consideration is the key word to that previous sentence since not all comics are literature. But that's no shock: not every book is literature either. Should we ditch Moby Dick because the same medium that produced Melville's work also fashioned a god-awful adaptation of the latest Kevin Costner movie? Or should we abandon Fahrenheit 451 from all academic consideration because many of its sci-fi brothers and sisters, while amusingly futuristic and all, just don’t cut the mustard as legendary texts? It's the best of a medium – the works that best exemplify the fulfillment of its potential – that should be mulled over and delicately examined; the rest of its varied creations should not nullify all validity. An example from cinema: I really enjoyed Field of Dreams, but it wasn't as brilliant as Citizen Kane. Does that invalidate Citizen Kane as art since both of them are grouped under the header "movie?" As much as I may have despised Cool World, movies' potential for art and deep thought should remain untainted. In fact, it is because I know that movies can be great that Cool World induces even greater nausea for me. So, Cool World's putrescence does not void Citizen Kane nor the movie medium as art. Likewise, neither John Grisham's commercial fluff nor the misery that is Dave Barry diminish writing itself.
A fundamental qualification to establishing a medium as literary, artful, aesthetic, or otherwise is showing at least one example of its potential recognized. Illustrate the break-out, the opus, the one for which it all came together. Show more than one if you like (and if you can), but demonstrate that your particular examples pioneered the enterprise to a place no one has gone before but all are welcome to follow. Comics have an up-hill battle in this regard; their own creators admit to it. Pioneers have set out repeatedly over the years, yet their advances were rarely successfully relayed to the general public or academians. In short, their explorations never make it on to our culture’s preconceived map. Marvel editor Tom Brevoort acknowledges that comics can be viewed as "‘adolescent male power fantasies.’ As such, while successive generations of creators have succeeded in plumbing new depths and crafting works of compelling beauty centered around such characters," comics still can’t break free of their juvenile origins. Writer Joe Kelly elaborates on the paradox of the industry: The bias against comics stems from the belief that it's literature for the illiterate. Some believe that since the words depend on the pictures and vice versa, there can be no room for true drama, intelligence, character, etc. "Funny Books are for kids who haven't yet learned the joys of true literature" seems to be the general apprehension of what we do. Unfortunately, in a lot of the mainstream comics, this is not far from the truth. If there are a hundred comics on the racks...[only] ten of them could be called "Literature". If we're ever going to gain widespread acceptance as a medium, we need to hold up more than five shining examples of comic literature. The business of comic book production could be the art’s worst enemy. They have winnied their audience down to an elite few by embracing a thin demographic: the fanboy. Where once comic books could be found on any sidewalk magazine rack and be affordable to any passing teen, distributors now ship almost exclusively to the local comic outlet while slapping on prices that rival the video store or movie theater. Additionally, the creative teams behind a title are commonly in flux as companies ink contracts with different creators for varied amounts of time, based more on their sales than quality. Kelly also adds that "the rotation of a creative team has a profound affect on how a book is received. Not so much with the writer (unfortunately) but definitely with the artist. Now, throw in editorial interference, and you have the recipe for disaster."
Penciler Dan Panosian, however, notes that "the trade paperback is probably the best thing to happen to comics in along time" by bringing comic books from the exclusionary racks of the specialty shops into the legitimate venues of commercial bookstores. Coherent, successful multi-month plot arcs – written with one meshed vision by one creative team – are repackaged for tradepaperback sale. These TPBs and graphic novels, often, are the most viable entries into the collective consciousness’ reconsideration of comic books. By once again digging for dollars, the industry leaders have inadvertently created their possible salvation as accidentally as they first cornered themselves. Bookstore chains such as Barnes and Noble or Border’s provide an outlet for the quality creations to find new advocates and audiences. As Panosian says, "People will always respect and recognize quality," but only if it gets to them.
Below, I'm going to elaborate on how two tradepaperback examples of comics have taken their medium to the next level; I add my voice in praise of their value and brilliance. I will testify to their genius, their depth, and the possibilities they have created for their industry. Finally, I will lobby for their reception and study by asking you to consider their potential. We have the tools to unlock their secrets and messages; now all American educators need is the vision to recognize these true treasurers lurking inside comic books. I hope for this paper to be a lense that focuses their attention and burns through their long-time prejudice against "the funny pages."
There's a popular
myth on my campus that bears relating. This myth (wholly unproven and
pure hearsay to the best of my knowledge, thus reaffirming itself as
a myth) concerns an unknown student at an unknown college writing, for
an unknown humanities class, a legendary paper. His (her?) topic matter
was palindromes, words or phrases that are the same forwards or backwards
– "step on no pets" or the word "radar." Presumably, the paper
was a no-brainer; after all, how hard is it to write about a grammatical
phenomenon? Would all that effort be put into an essay on synonyms or
allusions? The assignment was seemingly simplistic, as, one could imagine,
the instructor intended. Aside from the fact that the end product was
a rumored twenty-two pages, one factor propelled this report from commonplace
to immortal: in a fit of exuberance and panache, the student wrote the
assignment itself as a palindrome! Apparently, the entire document
dealt with forwards-backwards symmetry, made comprehensible sense, and
read exactly the same in reverse. The writing both addressed
and exemplified the subject at once – incredible synergy.
I'm sure students over the years have played with variations on this
(e.g. a frightening report on Steven King's writing or a case study
on selective agnosia composed without vowels; the first, however, will
most likely never elicit the same fear nor exhibit the same talent as
its subject while the second’s fitting style makes the paper incomprehensible).
Palindromes
are terrifically difficult and I have only appreciation for its writer
if the paper truly exists. To him/her: I say "wow!, ya!, sí!"
But, as grueling as that task may have been, I suspect that something
was missing. Both the gimmick and lucidity of the paper must have become
paramount to all other considerations. Metaphors were abandoned, allusions
were ignored like Echo, and alliteration appeared absent. All of the
tools available to the writer were rendered moot unless they could further
the construction of the palindrome. In constructing what I called an
"incredible synergy," all other pursuits and flourishes needed to be
sacrificed. Still, the palindrome paper remains a kooky exemplar of
synergy, even if fictitious.
Beyond this
fiction, though, there is the reality of the comic book medium, the
one creative field capable of perfect synergy for a storyteller.
Comics by definition accomplish synergy in every panel. That is, they
manage to mesh together two alternate avenues of communication into
an amalgamated, comprehensible, and complimentary package. In every
frame and with every speech balloon, content and form blend into perfect
synch like harmony and melody. Never, even in the most flawed
and puerile comic, is this interplay totally absent; the structure and
nature of a comic makes this sort of error impossible. An odd frame
have a picture without text or a sentence without illustration, but
only when the two combine – "pictoral and other images,"
namely static letters, "in deliberate sequence" – does a story
by definition become a comic book (McCloud, p.9).
In his work
Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud engages in a catalogue, an
actual naming system, of how words and pictures can interact in a panel.
What can they do for each other? Further, what can they do for a comic
book? In ascending order of complexity/subjectivity, they are: word
specific (the pictures simply illustrate what the captions might say),
picture specific (the words are flourishes and dependant on the picture
– "Pow!"), duo-specific (they both convey the same information
with the same importance), additive (one works solely to augment the
other), parallel (seemingly, two separate channels, each with their
own message/content), montage (words become pictures in their own right),
and – most important – interdependent where only together
do the words and pictures actually convey the true gist, the subtext,
of a scene. Words and pictures have a versatile array of possible interactions
in even the most standard comic book; these are the many tools of the
comic book storyteller, never requiring him as either a writer or artist
to focus on solely one constricted avenue of communication, unlike the
palindrome paper. Additionally, one category is hardly ever maintained
solely for the course of an entire page, much less an entire comic.
The synergistic pallette is diverse with many interchangeable techniques.
Comics are, as Wil Eisner put it, "the cross-breeding of illustration
and prose" (p. 8).
One minor
defense before I tackle the bigger fish: Arguments have been made, particularly
by narrow-minded educators, that reading the Illustrated Moby Dick
comic book actually deprives a child of using his imagination to
the fullest. The pictures draw out the scenes that were to be constructed
in her mind from the prose; the mood is imposed through the inking,
coloring, and lettering, so seemingly no effort is made by the comic
book reader to determine the tone through the exquisitely selective
words. In short, where is the challenge for the reader and where is
her imagination to go? Among other places, I respond, the reader's mind
should go in the gutter.
I'm being
serious; the "gutter" is comic book terminology for the space that comes
between each panel. (Or, in lieu of definite panels, is the implied
transition space and time from one illustration to another. In fact,
WATCHMEN actually puns on this term right at its beginning; "the
gutters are full of blood" (I.1) comments Rorschach in his journal,
even though the blood washing into the street gutter is closed
off by the panel’s fream. If there’s any blood in the comic’s
gutter, the reader’s imagination puts it there.) It's in this gutter
that the reader actually envisions more of the story than the writer
or artist; again, the reader's imagination must be extremely active
to read a comic book, because she fills in what happens from one panel
to the next. First, there is the deeply complex issue of marking time.
Time is the responsibility of the artist to denote, but of the reader
to translate. While he and McCloud go in to much lengthier (and appropriate)
detail on the subject, Eisner gives the best metaphor for the reader's
time-translating complexity by comparing the frames of a comic to Morse
code and musical notation; a casual, understood system of time's progression
from one panel to the next is struck between the creators and the reader.
Like a jump-cutting movie or slow-moving animation, translating time
in a comic sequence is a major activity of the reader.
Also, connecting
the two panels both spatially and logically is essential to reading
a comic sequence. McCloud identifies six different ways panels can "jump"
– that is, six different ways to understand the transition between
two panels – but I see no need to go into them here. (Lucky you!)
Think, instead, of what having these six (maybe more, maybe less) different
translations means: (A) Active interpretation is being performed
by the reader from each panel to the next. (B) As shown by his graphs
and commentary on pages 75-80, not only do different artists employ
varying mixes of these gutter-jumps, but different cultures do as well;
this provides an extensive stylistic subcategorization that one might
equate with the "missing" mood. (C) And, so much more goes on
between the panels requiring the reader's imagination and interpretation!
Like the standard cut-away shot in a movie where the couple is making
love but the camera only focuses on a vase of swaying flowers (or, conversely,
the murderer kills his victim while the audience only sees blood flowing
down the drain), understanding a comic goes cognitively and imaginatively
far beyond just reading the words and looking at the pretty pictures.
Ha, Moby Dick! Take that!
So, comics
are remarkably creative and complex, yes. But, is it literature?
Or, rather, should it be read, scrutinized, analyzed, deconstructed,
and risk manhandling by the entire populace like literature? Simply...no.
Hold on,
that doesn't sink my whole paper (or independent study) just yet! I
say, no, comics should not be read as literature for several reasons.
The first is that not all comics should be read as literature.
Many are written without a great deal of artistic effort employed to
produce them and we as scholars should not artificially inject that
sort of significance into a work aimed at only being entertaining but
not deep or profound. Second, even some works that are provocative
and artistically sound should not be seen as literature for the reasons
best given by Ronald Dworkin – seeing them as literature might
not ultimately help them as a work. The goal of using his aesthetic
hypothesis is to see a work in its most flattering artistic light –
"an interpretation of a piece of literature attempts to show which way
of reading the text reveals it as the best work of art" (p. 531). Therefore,
some works such as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns might
be best left as an exceptionally good yarn (or, conversely, analyzed
with different tools: artistically, sociologically, economically) rather
than hack it to bits on the literary chopping block. (Dworkin makes
the same comparison with the analysis of an Agatha Christie mystery,
if not the same bloody metaphor.) It's a square-peg work that we'd be
trying to shove through a round-peg-hole.
I am going
to take a moment here to showcase two works – Marvel Comics' 1987
tradepaperback books: The Best of Marvel Comics and Wolverine
– that are both fabulous standards for the medium even if they
shouldn’t be dissected as literature. Each of these is a
collection of reproduced stories that had already been presented in
serial, comic-rack format over previous years. The first book runs the
gamut of Marvel's publishing history. The classic work of Stan Lee with
collaborators Jack "The King" Kirby and Steve Ditko is juxtaposed by
work from 70's-80's go-to guys like Roger Stern, John Byrne, and Sal
Buscema. Also included are short, 6-10 back-up pieces and showcases
of more modern creators like John Romita Jr., Paul Smith, and Chris
Claremont. However, The Best of Marvel Comics is most impressive
because of the careful selections included; in its own way, it epitomizes
the best that comics can offer by packaging all of these disparate tales
into one tome. It reads like a Academy Award montage of great movies,
maybe not award-winners in and of themselves, but each contains something
that makes the whole great. The Best of Marvel Comics starts
with a early two-part Fantastic Four story introducing the Black
Panther and his nemesis, Klaw. Not only are Lee and Kirby's revolutionary
story-telling devices present – superheroes were brought into
comic vogue by their pioneering – but there is also a nice ethnic
reversal of the jungle black man being the canny hero and the technological
white man being the villian. Following that is an issue of The Incredible
Hulk, that, in its simplicity, nicely sums up the conflict of Dr.
Bruce Banner and the destructive superhuman creature within him. It
does this, of course, not without a massive fight scene between the
Hulk and the guest-starring Sasquatch. A mature Uncanny X-Men story
lines the back along with a frenzied Wolverine short feature; both utilize
the X-Men's immense readership and popularity to different ends. The
diversity is wonderful and extraordinarily entertaining.
Between the
Hulk feature and another classic Lee-Ditko Spider-Man two-parter is
a little 10 page story called "The Boy Who Collected Spider-Man." In
its brief span, it is able to summarize Spider-Man's origin, display
his uncanny powers, and recap the highlights of his career all through
the loving, young eyes of his biggest fan. Its coup de grace comes
when Peter Parker reveals his guarded identity to the boy – a baffling
action – until, in the final panel, the reader is informed that
the boy is terminally ill and has only weeks to live. The short, violenceless
story may not be literature, but is a jewel for its ability to generate
raw empathy through its sequential art.
The only
component that The Best of Marvel Comics lacks as a solid example
is a through-line plot linking its nine independent stories. No one
vision was at work in its construction. Granted, there was insightfulness
on the part of its editor to select these specific stories in an attempt
to say something about Marvel. In each, the trademark fallibility of
the heroes is apparent; these are superhumans, still weighed
down by the vulnerabilities of a normal person despite great power.
As Marvel Comics Editor-In-Chief Bob Harras explains, it's this element
that drives a majority of their heroes and attracts young fans:
In
any fiction, if you can't look into a character's the angst and
fears as a person then his cosmic adventure will mean that much
less...I think one of the things that Stan [Lee] did is that he
definitely tried to put the angst in there. Every single character
he brought back or created with Jack [Kirby] had some problem that
a fan could identify with...Their 'engine.'
Again, The
Best of Marvel Comics comprises a wonderful overview of the publisher's
maintained strengths over the years. But, there is no plot linking the
vignettes together in a Pulp Fiction manner.
The four-part
Wolverine is its own tangent-story from his team membership in
The Uncanny X-Men comic and had just such a cohesion. The Wolverine
limited-series is an entire plot that was originally divided into
four monthly, serial issues. Each issue could be viewed as act of a
play, with its own rise and fall of action contributing to the overall
pace. The sole vision of writer Chris Claremont (who largely developed
Wolverine) and artist Frank Miller, the book captures all the necessary
components of a superhero-story and imbeds them in not-too-challenging-but-fun-to-read,
page-turner plot: it has Wolverine's origin, his superhuman abilities,
fight scenes galore, conflict, subplot, a bad guy, personal struggle,
and, of course, a show-down followed by a denouement. The formula gets
a few additions – exotic locale, an injection of ninja-like nobility,
some stunning art – but it's mostly all surface work with little
philosophical meat to its bones. Overall, it's a good moderately-intelligent
story, with attitude and adrenaline. But, as sure as Bruce Springsteen
is not a classical composer, it is not literature.
Before we
get to the long-awaited examples of comics-as-literature, I’ll
remind you of the one last reason in opting not to look at a
graphic novel or comic book as literature: sometimes they're better
than simple literature. Might they occupy a realm that actually
encompasses, actually envelops, literature? I've already said that they
can over-synergize written text (even remarkably synergistic poetry
like ee cumming's) in their most basic forms. Instead of analyzing them
as literature, we may want to reserve them for something greater…Well,
to at least partially support that exceptionally haughty comment, I
quote Frank McConnell in his introduction to Neil Gaiman's "The Kindly
Ones":
The
Furies...chase down his life throughout this book because he killed
his son, Orpheus; at Orpheus' request, to be sure, but nevertheless,
he has killed him...After he has left the sanctuary of the Dreaming,
the fairy Nuala, who has summoned him, asks his the question that
may be the central secret of the tale. "You...you wan them to punish
you, don't you? You want to be punished for Orpheus' death." And
the next frame, Dream's response, is simple a wordless, tight close-up
of his tortured face. (That's an effect, by the way, that neither
novel nor a film could achieve with the same force, since a novel
would have to describe his face, and a film could only give us an
actor trying to imitate that bleak mask of regret. The comic...gives
us the thing itself...)
It is the final
categories of McCloud's text/picture interaction that allow sequential
art this special knack. Additive, parallel, montage, and interdependent
interactions between the two channels actually open up possibilities
that provide new access to the reader. Greater power, wider interpretation,
deeper meaning, and heightened subtleties are just a few of the many,
major advantages that can be teased out by these tools in the right
hands. In fact, in looking ahead to the future of the graphic novel,
Eisner also implies a possible super-literary position for comics-to-come:
The
future of this form awaits participants who truly believe that the
application of sequential art, with its interweaving of words and
pictures, could provide a dimension that contributes – hopefully
on a level never before attained – to the body of literature
that concerns itself with the examination of the human experience.
(141-142)
However,
with the exception of certain masterful panel-sequences, this superliterary
breed of comic has yet to be discovered. In the meantime, I think that
being considered literature or literary is a lofty enough (though attainable!)
goal for comics to attain. So, rather than snootily demand that they
be recognize as something more, something greater, let's start
with providing some sound examples of those that best qualify as literature
and are best seen as literature.
In doing
so, we have the both the blessing and direction of Mr. Frank Miller
in his epilogue notes to, ironically, Wolverine. His work on
Daredevil's "Born Again" storyline is praised by critics and even analyzed
by academians as a variation on the Oedipus myth; his landmark Elseworlds
story Batman: The Dark Knight Returns can be seen as one of the
catalysts to the rebirth of the comic book medium. So, it's no coincidence
that he's happy to preach the gospel and speak against comics as only
"funny books." To the readers of Wolverine, he beautifully summarizes
just about everything I said above in about 1/10th the space:
I
hope that this is the first comic book you've read in a while. I
hope you found it on a shelf in a real bookstore somewhere, and
took a chance. I hope a lot of people are picking up comic books
for the first time...You see, a lot of people think comic books
are just for kids, like Saturday morning cartoons. And many of them
are, though they're usually better drawn and written. That's great
but it's hardly the whole story. Maybe you've seen a story in your
local newspaper or a spot on TV that told you about the new kinds
of comics that are coming up, all kinds, many of which have the
kind of intense character involvement and sophistication of plot
you'd expect from a novel. Maybe you've heard of Marvel's Moonshadow
or DC's Watchmen. Comics are growing up, expanding the borders
to include the kind of stories that people of any age might enjoy.
When Miller
said "any age," I assume he meant "any age group." Yet with the influx
of greater sophistication, the best graphic novels could become timeless
if their market and academic reception expands. Comics have become something
more and to provide an example, I need go no further than Miller's comments
and examine Alan Moore's WATCHMEN. (Something, phonetically,
more? Is that a pun?)
WATCHMEN
begs to be analyzed. To see it as anything other than literature is
insulting to the thought and brilliance that went into it...Okay, maybe
that's slightly overstated; I will not condemn the fifteen year-old
who only wishes to read it as a really incredible comic book story.
In fact, that's what it is first and foremost. Therefore, the first
praise I must give to this Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons work is that
they allow it to be simply a comic; unlike The Sandman,
you can read it as only a comic since its deeper levels and higher-order
components have been so neatly tucked away or subtly woven into the
fabric of the story. In short, you aren't hit over the head by things
you don't understand as you might with Neil Gaiman's work; you can read
WATCHMEN once and only once, taking away a sense of both closure
and entertainment, or you can submit to that tugging voice in the back
of your head and read it again (and again and again and again) to see
if something you thought you might have seen/read was actually, intentionally
there...Didn't that radar screen look like the Comedian's trademark
smiley-face? Are the obscured letters on that fall-out shelter actually
meant to be read as "all hel?"
Moore knows
what he's doing; he's writing a comic book that, in its own way, is
a "seduction of the innocent" (with no apologies to Fredric Wertham).
First, he sneakily imbeds all sorts of metaphor, allusion, theme, foil,
and other literary devices all about WATCHMEN without the Flash
fan being aware; it's like subliminal depth. Then he takes standard,
traditional spandex-wearing, group-membering, bad guy-busting superheroic
clunks and shreds away all clichés. He leaves the reader with
actual three-dimensional characters in a four-dimensional world on a
two-dimensional page. And it's all masterfully deliberate, as one can
glean from Moore's own words prefacing Frank Miller's similarly deviant
super-hero work, The Dark Knight Returns:
The
field of comic books, seen since its inception as a juvenile medium
in which any interjection of adult themes and subject matter are
likely to be met with howls of outrage and the threat or actuality
of censorship, has not been so fortunate [as cinema and literature.]…comic
books have largely had to plod along with the same old muscle-bound
oafs spouting the same old muscle-bound platitudes while attempting
to dismember each other…how are comic books to reinterpret
their traditional icons so as to interest an audience growing progressively
further away from them? Obviously, the problem becomes one that
can only be solves by people who understand the dilemma and, further
to that, have an equal understanding of heroes and what makes them
tick.
Or maybe
Elliot S! Maggin says it more succinctly in Kingdom Come's introduction
by echoing Miller's words: "Even super-heroes need to grow. We know
that now."
Or, at least,
we should know that by now. For those who don't, read on.
And welcome
to – and be prepared for – the next addition to literature.
Moore begins
the background mind-games straight from the jump with the title WATCHMEN.
It is not named Captain America Adventure Comics, directly referring
to its protagonist and its genre in the title. Nor, coming into the story,
do we know who the "Watchmen" are. Speaking from a commercial point
of view, Moore's prestige and the work's mystique are all that will lure
readers to pick this first issue off the shelf. And the bloodwashed smiley-face
button on the cover, an image that might taunt and confound the consumer
just enough to accept the challenge that WATCHMEN embodies.
WATCHMEN
has its origin, appropriately enough, entangled in two languages, Latin
and English. Both cases are cited by Moore in the epigraph. The term
comes from two reports on the government. It first comes from Juvenal's
Satires in the line "quis custodiet ipsos custodes." Its
translation – Who watches the watchmen? – can also be found
in the Tower Commission Report of 1987 on the Iran-Contra Affair. Both
cases question political power, i.e. who ensures that power is not misused,
especially the abuse of power ensuring its fair use. The title, therefore,
begins to hint at the interplay bewteen the past and present that will
run through the course of the story. Most notably, two of the main characters,
Ozymandias and Doctor Manhattan, will come to embody this meshed, timeless
power; the former will draw from ancient wisdom to lead in the present
day while Doctor Manhattan (once a maker of watches, a "watchman") will
transcend all time with his superhuman abilities. The use of old Charlton
superheroes as modern day characters, pirate comics as contemporary
merchandise, and Nixon-Ford as the 1980s executive branch are just a
few of the other examples of the past-present hybrids. In fact, Time
itself will be a huge theme (in both the art, story, an plot-chronology).
But, hold on. I’ll get to that soon.
I will also
only briefly note here the title's relation to the concept of a Watchman-God,
i.e. a God who constructed the Universe as one would a massive watch
and, once complete, let it run as He sat back to view it. This idea
of a laisse-faire, passive Watchman-God also opens up the possibilities
of Paganism and alternate mythologies to the reader such (e.g. Egyptian
beliefs of Ozymandias, the wealth of Egyptian imagery in the story,
and the largely absent role of Judeo-Christian religion in the story).
Of course, I only mention those here to whet your appetite.
One other
insight that the title provides is a name for our core group of exceptional
characters. Unlike their predecessors (and most traditional modern-day
superhero comics), WATCHMEN's band of adventurers are never given
a proper group name. The costumed vigilantes of the 1950s in their world
went by the name of the Minutemen, reminiscent of the Revolutionary
War citizen-soldiers, and their post-war spin-off group was entitled
Crimebusters. Yet the team brought together by the circumstances of
Edward Blake's murder will bear no official title. This can be seen
to both reflect the state of disorder in which they band together as
well as their metaphorical lack of identity. While it is never stated
outright in the book, I think it is safe to say that Moore intended
for these superheroes (at least in this one plot-arc) to be known as
the Watchmen in much the same way that Quentin Tarantino's characters
are referred to as the titular Reservoir Dogs.
(And all
that from the title. Who'd have thunk it?)
So, I shall
refer to the following characters throughout this paper as The Watchmen
unless otherwise specified:
Edward Blake
(The Comedian), Daniel Dreiberg (Nite Owl II), Sally Jupiter (Silk
Spectre I), Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II), Hollis Mason (Nite
Owl I), Jon Osterman (Doctor Manhattan), Rorschach (Walter Kovacs),
and Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias).
While all
of the characters are the fictional creations of writer Alan Moore,
each is based on a defunct hero. In its original pitch to the DC editorial
staff, Moore’s concept was a revisiting of the untainted Golden
Age Charlton Comics characters with a gruesome real-world bent. Though
DC had purchased all of the defunct company’s rights and assets,
they foresaw introducing the Charlton stable of characters into the
main DC continuity (as they had done in the past with Captain Marvel
from Whiz Comics). Moore was asked to alter the identities of his heroes
for WATCHMEN. While still early in the scripting with collaborator
Dave Gibbons, Moore metamorphosed the Charlton Comics heroes into the
following Watchmen characters:
Moore's retooled
team still had the personal attributes and overall element he was looking
for; none had any modern comics usage, leaving their circumstances both
malleable and status uncertain. Whether they were directly Charlton
superheroes or thinly, if you'll forgive the term, masked derivatives
was irrelevant. They had been innocent crusaders for justice and the
American way decades ago. How would these Golden Age-based once-heroes
function in the tense present and the present tense?
Naming this
book and these characters is where the ease of reporting on Watchmen
stops. Like the metaphorical onion, the story is a series of unending
layers, allowing for a host of different readings, including character
motives, hyperbole, social commentary, etc. I detailed the specifics
of our team so heavily above because that is where the cut-and-dry certainties
end; the top layer that everyone can see has now been peeled. From here
on in, you join me on a trek of speculation, analyzation, and interpretation,
all of which will pay off immeasurably. Already, it should be apparent
that these are not your presupposed super-heroes. These are true characters,
people, with all the failings of humanity. One of our heroes
is a certified psychotic, fighting for the common man that hates him.
Another is America’s authorized agent, responsible for freeing
the Iran hostages, while also a rapist and cold-blooded murderer. The
most powerful man on Earth has not only affected the play of history,
but also begun to lose touch with his own humanity; similarly, the smartest
man on Earth has largely isolated his true, cunning self in plain view
as the head of a business empire that will kill New York for the world’s
own good. Not your typical stock characters, either in comics
or in any tale.
(One interesting
note: While superheroes are rarely ever killed (for good), it is the
death of the Comedian that acts as the catalyst for WATCHMEN. Years
later, a second Eisner Award-winning series focused on the autumn years
of DC Superheroes entitled Kingdom Come. In addition to obvious
homage given to Moore and Gibbons (e.g. a brick wall with the graffiti
"Who Watches the Watchmen?" on it), collaborators Mark Waid and Alex
Ross make the death of another Charlton hero the kick-off event. This
time it is Captain Atom (Doctor Manhattan) who is murdered, leading
to the nuclear destruction of Kansas as well as fellow golden age heroes
Peter Cannon (Ozymandias), Peacemaker (The Comedian) and Nightshade
(Silk Spectre). Death, in both of these cases, will act as a prelude
to the further destruction of assumptions – and lives– to
come.)
Even in format
alone, WATCHMEN is not your normal comic. Moore and particularly
Gibbons quietly break several comic book conventions, sometimes to provide
greater reality to work and other time to provide great esotericism.
Using the comic book format (later TPB) is bold and innovative in itself
for tackling adult and profound subject matter. Yet, they do it with
pride; with no resentment towards either the medium nor its audience-shortcomings
ever hinted, Moore and Gibbons surgically select the pieces of the comic
book format they wish to utilize and amputate some of its other, less
applicable elements. Spread out as a 12-issue maxi-series, WATCHMEN
was distributed in the typical comic book serial manner. However, it
had these following deviations from normal comic book storytelling:
So, obviously,
WATCHMEN is not your normal series, but what ekes it from the
"atypical comic" category to "literary example?" Well, since the peoples
of Earth have not come to a consensus on the definite List of elements
that unerringly makes a work literary, other steps had to be taken.
I was challenged by my mentor to brainstorm and whip up a list of things,
no matter how cliché or obvious, that on average every work of
recognized literature contained. He instructed me to compare this list,
my list and by no means the end-all checklist, to WATCHMEN
and look at how many fingers of this textual glove it fit. For clarity,
I mentally split my list into categories. There were the blatantly obvious
components necessary for any story, literature or not. Then there
were those readily available but varyingly employed writing devices
that one would come to expect. The more optional of these, in my mind,
constituted a third category. Finally, the meta-elements, those that
hold the book together but rarely poke their heads above the surface
completed the fourth. Certainly, my designations are debatable, but
I still present them such as they are: (I) Title, Characters, Setting,
Plot Arc, (ii) Interesting/Appealing Use of Language, Writing Style,
Innovative Story Approach, Contrasting Figures/Foils, Archetypes, Character
Development, Metaphor/Simile, Irony, Symbolism, Foreshadowing, Imagery,
Subdivisions, (iii) Sensory Imagery, Sexual Imagery, Romantic/Sexual
Overtones, Historical Allusion, Literary Allusion, Manipulation of Time,
(iv) Timeless Nature, Theme, Political Statement, Motifs, Social Commentary,
and Comment on the Human Condition.
For those
of you keeping score at home, I have already cannily snuck several of
the above into the discussion to date, specifically Title and Characters.
So, I think it's prudent that before I laude any further the final core
categories of Setting and Plot Arc be addressed (especially for those
poor uninitiated souls, sadly in the dark on WATCHMEN's plot).
WATCHMEN
does have a realistic setting (even if greatly altered) as well
as a beginning, middle, and end (even if the book itself denies it).
You see, the WATCHMEN Universe was exactly the same as our own
until the arrival of the costumed adventurer shortly before World War
II. During that time and into the 50s, there consisted a group of American
masked heroes known under the moniker of the Minutemen. This group,
while largely just a crime-fighting unit of normal humans, altered the
WATCHMEN' s Universe from our own. For, by the story's opening
in 1985, crucial elements of their world differ from here. Richard Nixon
is serving his fourth term in the White House, largely due to the fact
that the Vietnam War was won with the superhuman intervention of Jon
"Doctor Manhattan" Osterman. Cold War tensions run extraordinarily high,
but, with the only actual hyper-empowered being on the U.S. side, a
stalemate is maintained. With few exceptions, masked vigilantes have
become legally prohibited in the last thirty years and that sentiment
has led to other small changes, such as the popularity of pirate –
and not superhero – comics. Doctor Manhattan has made everyday
life in New York City slightly more futuristic than in our own, with
flying dirigibles and electric cars being commonplace. Not all is perfect,
though, and with the Keene Act allowing only official officers to fight
crime, the police must still deal with things like drugs, social unrest,
and murder.
As mentioned
before, a murder is exactly where WATCHMEN begins: the murder
of diplomat Edward Blake, AKA The Comedian. Still stubbornly operating
despite the ban, Rorschach investigates the death, discovers Blake's
alter identity, and warns the retired "superhero" community of a possible
serial murderer aimed at masked adventurers. In addition, he uncovers
information concerning a neurotic Blake just before his demise, prattling
on about a mysterious island of writers, artists, and scientists involved
in something terrible. The story's middle section involves Rorschach's
neurosis infecting Dan Dreiberg and rekindling his desire to be Nite
Owl, especially as Jon Osterman – under suspicion for causing cancer
by his mere presence – abandons Earth. Political tensions escalate
putting the world on the bring of World War III even while and further
attempts are made on the lives of the original Nite Owl, Veidt, and
the villainous Moloch. Rorschach is ambushed and finally captured by
the authorities, the catalyst that inadvertently puts Nite Owl and Silk
Spectre back into action to free him. These Watchmen split up: On Mars,
Laurie pleads with Jon to return, while Rorschach and Dan confront Veidt
as the mask killer. Nuclear Armageddon looms nigh, setting up Veidt’s
masterstroke. He unleashes a devastating, faux alien invasion
on New York and bring Earth together in xenophobia. Before their Veidt-ordered
deaths, the rumored island of creators fashioned the self-destructing,
unhuman monster to teleport into the concert-filled center of NYC at
the stroke of midnight, November 2nd. In this morality play's final
Act, Laurie returns with Jon too late, except to punish Ozymandias.
But the five Watchmen are left with the question of whether to expose
Veidt's successful plan; global destruction has been avoided at only
the price of three million lives and one large lie. All of them consent
to uphold the illusion, except for Rorschach who opts to be killed rather
than be false. The remaining members pledge to maintain the secret of
the hoodwink (pun intended) and go their separate ways. Whether it will
remain their private knowledge is uncertain; Rorschach's tell-all journal
still waits to be uncovered by the public domain and, as Doctor Manhattan
warns before leaving for points unknown, "Nothing ever ends" (XII.27).
That synopsis
is about as thorough as saying that Moby Dick is a book about
a whale, but it will suffice in order to show both WATCHMEN's structure
and discuss its levels. As for subplots, a Osterman-Laurie-Dan love
triangle results, as do conflicts of several commonplace periphery characters
that brush against the fringes of the main heroes' lives. Additionally,
there is a brilliant story-within-a-story entitled "Marooned." Taken
from the fictitious Tales of the Black Freighter series popular
in the WATCHMEN Universe, it tells the tale of a young sailor,
the only survivor of the evil Black Freighter. Not only is he surrounded
by dead companions on a deserted isle, but he also believes that the
hellish Freighter is en route towards his home to wreak havoc,
destruction, and all that really nasty pirate stuff. In order to forewarn
his home, the desperate man commits unspeakable deeds (okay, not true,
I'll speak some of them: using dead shipmates as raft, eating animals
raw, murdering an innocent couple of horseback riders, and likely more!),
but in the end finds himself to be the only evil brought upon his town.
This inner-story, while serving as more of a distraction the first eight
or nine times I read WATCHMEN rather than skeleton key, has a
host of purposes. As Carl Potts notes, "it reminded me a bit of Melville's
Billy Budd where the author keeps cutting in with a seemingly
unconnected episode that points out the thematic statement of the piece."
The EC Comics world of Black Freighter is just one of the exotic
locales this seemingly linear tale sneaks us off to; the reader actually
bounces all about time and space. Vietnam, Jon Osterman's pre-Doctor
Manhattan life, the Alexandrine journeys young of Adrian Veidt, Antarctica,
the meeting of the Minutemen, the abusive creation of Rorschach, and
– yes, you read it correctly above – Mars.
To continue,
the case for some of my more obvious categories (e.g. Metaphor, Irony,
etc.) will be made clear in the discussion of other areas, such as Foils.
Foils, to me, are far more interesting than Archetypes, which both appeal
more to academians but further condemn comics, theorizes Joe Kelly:
Personally,
as a fan, I prefer my comics to be character heavy...I want my villains
to be complicated, and my heroes to make mistakes from time to time
so that there can be a true redemption...In terms of the academics,
if a character seems archetypal or iconographic enough in a comic,
or if it is a retelling of a classic character, then it seems to
bear discussion. [But] if the character seems too narrow or specific
to a limited audience, it's ignored.
So, while it
might interest some, I find it too easy too see Nite Owl II as a Batman
substitute, even though both are rich bachelor-inventors employing night-flyer
imagery and high technology. The Minutemen, yes, are the classic Golden
Age set of heroes, but they're only set up that way to be knocked down.
On greater scale, isn't the Golden Age comic book hero much like The
Untouchables or the Revolutionary War Minutemen themselves? All are
a team of ready-to-go, normal-human fighters, but seemingly immune to
harm, corruption, or cynicism. Citizen-soldiers. Eager patriots, firmly
rooted in the American principle of democracy and the power of a single
voice. Push further and you have the Three Musketeers. Or the Knights
of the Round Table. So, if we need Archetypes, they're here,
like it or lump it.
But only
one Archetype-example really interests me as much as the numerous Foils.
That would be looking at Jon Osterman as (say it with me now, English
majors) a Christ Figure. Now maybe I'm looking at this too soon after
reading Kingdom Come with Superman as a long-haired farmer/carpenter
holding three nails and two planks in one panel, but look at
the facts. Osterman is the only superhuman on the planet; that is, unlike
Superman and his Justice League of America, he's a singularity. Second,
he deeply wants to help mankind, yet finds himself further and further
distanced from them. With a grin on my face, I'd like to mention that
the press does absolutely crucify the guy over the cancer issue.
Third – and most important – is the origin of his power; his
physicality was absolutely destroyed, leaving only his disembodied mind
(soul?) to resurrect a form for himself. He becomes a creature that
cannot only turn water into wine, but make water itself...on Mars! His
father was a watchmaker, he can walk on water and – get this –
Osterman, in German, means "the Easter Man." In this case, I'm willing
to enjoy the thought of Osterman as an intentional Christ figure if
for no other reason than to fill what I feel is a quantitative lack
of Judeo-Christian imagery elsewhere in the book.
But, Foils,
wow!, that's where the really compelling character stuff is.
I think it’s because the reader’s view – or rather, my
view, our view – of the cast flip-flops so many times. That
is, each of these characters are the audience’s touchstones in
the story and, as such, the audience is compelled to side with one or
another of them. WATCHMEN is a book about good versus evil, bad
guys versus good guys, and right versus wrong – Morality. And,
largely, we need identification with the characters to achieve our own
position, our moral anchor, on the story. The great trick that Moore
plays is that by latching on to any one of the characters completely,
they truly do become an "anchor" when their full personae is
revealed. It makes our spirits sink right to the bottom of the vile
sea.
Simply said,
no one is completely moral in WATCHMEN, no one is completely innocent.
As I said, none of the characters should be read as archetypal absolutes,
since their beautiful complexity lies in the way each of them is flawed.
Comparing them to each other best illustrates their juxtaposed strengths
and weaknesses, and considering those comparisons best reveals the reader’s
own moral sensibilities. Moore has provided us with his own tricky Rorschach
Ink-Blot Test just like the one used in "The Abyss Also Gazes" that
forces us to assign our own values and interpretations to the ink pictures
and character sketches.
The partnership
of Rorschach and Dan Dreiberg is an awkward but complimentary one with
their many polar opposites despite similar goal of thwarting crime.
The broad pairing may be one of the few chances the reader has to solidly
root for a team; there has to be something about the literally dynamic
duo that appeals to the reader, since Rorschach and Dan seem to cover
the whole spectrum of both strengths and failings. To itemize: One is
sane, the other is not (I’ll let you guess which is which). In
addition, Kovacs had been abused and forced to live in poverty while
Dan seems to have been raised in a world of relative comfort. It’s
no wonder that Kovacs adopted the Rorschach identity and forced himself
to live by wit and body alone even as Nite Owl depends on gadgetry and
surrogate mechanical strength. Likewise, Rorschach seems to live hand-to-mouth
even as Dan has become fat. Yet, both fight crime, both uphold the law
(even if selectively), and both are initially without the capacity for
love or intimacy. Rorschach longs for the abstract "American love,"
which he says is now absent in the world (II.25); Dan literally cannot
love due to impotency. The final difference between this odd couple
is their respective views on the sanctity of life: Rorschach kills,
Dan apparently does not. Should we, for this last reason, condemn Rorschach
and his methods? Or is killing the guilty, thinning their herd, understandable?
Those questions
should give you pause, since they are key issues to WATCHMEN
and other characters like Ozymandias, The Comedian, the "Marooned" sailor,
and even Bernie, the man-on-the-street vendor. Each of these men either
preach or practice the principle that murder can be a justifiable act.
In fact, even Laurie could be thrown into that mix, considering her
attempt to shoot Veidt in retaliation for killing Jon in Chapter 12.
(And Jon does the same to silence Rorschach.) But let's first focus
on the "villains" of our piece – Veidt and Blake – especially
in the context of murder-as-defense. What links these men and what separates
them? Well, they're both supporters of capitalism, Blake having fought
for America and Veidt having profited off of it. They also fight crime,
even if they enact atrocities on their own. Third, they both see "the
big picture;" at the first (and only) meeting of Crimebusters, Blake
opens Veidt's eyes wide to the truth that humanity's self-destruction
is imminent. And, surprisingly, both express some unRorschachian uncertainty
towards their actions – its the actions, however, that allow
us to separate the men and individually judge them. Blake – the
most "deliberately amoral" person Osterman reported to have ever met
(including himself?) – has been an assassin, a soldier, a diplomat,
a torturer, and a rapist (IV.19). He killed one Vietnamese lover pregnant
with his son and raped Sally Jupiter – Silk Spectre I and another
carrier of his seed. Horrible as it sounds, though, Blake's actions
are human. That is, it's conceivable for a human to do such sickening
things. Individual murders, individual assaults, individual atrocities.
By his own admission, he says, "I done some bad things. I did bad things
to women. I shot kids in 'Nam. I shot kids...But I never did anything
like, like" (II.23)…
...Like Veidt.
Blake may disgust himself, but Veidt disgusts him even more. For, Veidt
commits inhumanities on a far higher level, both in scope, quantity,
and motivation. In order to save humanity, Veidt will actively give
people cancer. He will frame fellow crime fighters and jeopardize
the lives of those close to him. He will blow up and poison his own
employees. He will manipulate the laws of science and deliberately doom
people to a lifetime of nightmares. He will kill three million New
Yorkers all for "humanity's salvation" (XI.25). His acts
are far more massive than Blake's, Rorschach's, Osterman's, and Laurie’s
all put together, yet the reason for his genocide has a chance to balance
it all out. Like the sailor in Tales of the Black Freighter's
"Marooned," he commits his acts of murder and uses the bodies of the
dead in order to save the living. Rorschach condemns him, Osterman seems
to support him, and Laurie and Dan abstain, remaining silent. But even
Veidt has moral uncertainty over his acts. In words that echo the final
panels of "Marooned," Veidt tells Osterman:
Jon...I
know people think me callous. But I've made myself feel every death.
By day I imagine endless faces. By night...Well, I dream about swimming
towards a hideous...No, never mind, it isn't significant...What's
significant is that I know. I know I've struggled across the backs
of murdered innocents to save humanity...But someone had to take
the weight of that awful, necessary crime. I'd hoped you understand,
unlike Rorschach...
...I
did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end. (XII.27)
To this de
facto admission of uncertainty, Osterman simply replies "'In the
end'? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends." He seems to neither
affirm nor condemn Veidt's act.
Before I
abandon Foils, let's do one last round-up on the morality-meter, but
include Osterman this time. Dan: Doesn't kill, but has been largely
ineffective and pathetic. Rorschach: Does kill, has made some progress
on crime, but does not fit in Veidt's world of manipulated peace. Blake
has done even worse and cannot be part of Veidt's prank, mostly because
he understands it. Veidt is the worst killer of all, but is arguably
pardoned by his motivation to save modern civilization. Then, there's
Osterman who, over the last thirty years, largely shaped this rampant
society and had the power to avert any war and stop any crime if he
truly wanted. In short, society is about to rip itself apart, yet Osterman
remained as passive as Dan even though he has the power to make Veidt's
plan obsolete and unnecessary. Without Veidt's redeeming rationale,
is Osterman, in the end, WATCHMEN' s greatest villain? Probably
not, but he is the closest to a true alien that appears in the book.
His removal from humanity is even greater than Veidt's, his only tie
being the physical sex with Laurie anchoring him to his lost manhood.
Speaking of lost manhoods, Osterman's body was destroyed and
he was, in effect, killed. Doctor Manhattan came into being when his
empowered consciousness managed to piece a body back together (blue
and without pupils, of course!). He has gone beyond Veidt's status of
human perfection – he's superhuman. And, as such, has lost his
connection to the norms. In the series final Chapter "Stronger, Loving
World," Doctor Manhattan speaks as if Osterman was another person and
confirms his disconnection as he scolds Veidt for trying to kill him:
I
am disappointed, Veidt. Very disappointed. Reconstructing myself
after the subtraction of my intrinsic field was the first trick
I learned. If it didn't kill Osterman...did you think it would kill
me? I've walked across the sun. I've seen events so tiny and so
fast that they hardly can be said to have occurred at all, but you...You
are a man. ...And this world's smartest man means no more to me
than does its smartest termite. (XII.18)
Even though
Doctor Manhattan (for Osterman now seems the wrong name for him) seemingly
embarks to create new life at the story's end, he has become more of
a curious god than a caring, empowered human; this nicely reflects the
entire myth mentioned above of the Watchman-God. Doctor Manhattan leaves
to make life, not for life itself – only to watch it tick.
It would
seem that gods in WATCHMEN are less concerned with helping humanity
through life than towards death. In addition to Doctor Manhattan and
the Watchman-God, there's the pervasive Egyptian theology to which Veidt
subscribes. He "rewards" his manservants by giving them death. In fact,
his whole plan derives from the fact that he sees the world aimed for
death and destruction; Rorschach's analysis of Veidt's Egyptian decorum
says it nicely:
Egyptian
decor coloring logic...Recognize dog-headed bust. Anubis,
watcher over dead. Whole culture death-fixated, obsessively securing
their tombs against intruders...Didn't like thought of corpses being
interfered with.
...Funny...Ancient
pharaohs looked forward to end of world: Believed cadavers would
rise, reclaim hearts from golden jars. Must currently be holding
breath with anticipation. Understand now why always mistrusted fascination
with relics and dead kings...In final analysis, it's them or us.
(X.20)
Rorschach's sentiment
nicely echoes layman Bernie's own pessimistic, strike-first "final analysis."
Yet, Veidt finds the Egyptian sentiment comforting, saying that "death
wasn't morbid to the ancient Egyptians. They saw it as launching on
a voyage of spiritual discovery" (V.13). Of course, he's saying this
to the secretary he's arranged to have shot. And voyages have go so
well in this book: the "Marooned" sailor, the explosion aboard the
artists/scientists boat, Archimedes crash-landing in Antarctica...Veidt's
gods seem no better than Doctor Manhattan or the Watchman-God. And where's
the Judeo-Christian God except for in a copy of Watchtower? Shortly
after becoming Doctor Manhattan, Osterman says that "I don't think there
is a God, Janey. If there is, I'm not him" (IV.11). WATCHMEN's
answers do not lies with the gods, any of them.
Foils, it
would seem, offered up a lot more than expected at first glance –
already we have the first of our Themes, some Historical Allusion, a
pretty massive, pessimistic Social Commentary linked with a chunk of
Commentary on the Human Condition, and, in a sense, Character Development.
Doctor Manhattan goes from superpowered human to new god, Hollis Mason
dies, the periphery human cast (Bernie, Detectives Fine and Borquin,
Joey, etc.) dies, Rorschach...geez...dies, Blake dies (but that's nothing
new), and Laurie and Dan find each other and return to crime fighting.
Really, is this character development? Maybe society changes,
but the surviving Watchmen seem to adapt, not grow or change. True,
Laurie's final words hint at a change in her future when she
mentions a redesign of her Silk Spectre costume to resemble her unmasked,
biological father, The Comedian. But, I argue that WATCHMEN generally
frustrates the literary tradition of the dynamic character for this
reason: Comic books, traditionally, could not afford to have its characters
change dramatically without an extensive run and gradual shift. Thus,
by using the comic medium instead of the pure textual medium, Moore
may have had to concede to the episodic nature of comic books and slow
much of his characters' change. Like a good soap opera and unlike a
bad sitcom, the characters cannot be altered faster than the flow of
time. In a book, where years or centuries can pass in the span of a
chapter, this option is more readily employable. Not for comics, though.
Not without seriously taxing the suspension of disbelief and compromising
their reality.
Specific
to WATCHMEN, though, is a great bias not just against growth
but against creation. Look, Veidt does what he does to preserve
humanity, sure, but it's a destructive act, not a constructive one.
He destroys the beautiful Antarctic hothouse that took years to cultivate.
The massive Mars fortress of Doctor Manhattan is reduced to rubble.
All of the teams fall apart and rarely ever in the story, to paraphrase
Mr. Yeats, does a center ever hold. Even the commercial products of
their culture are based on things having past or things being destroyed
– on the transient: Mmeltdowns candy, Nostalgia cologne, Pale Horse
and Krystalnacht rock groups. Only things that are rickety and ridiculed
– such as the Promethean Cab Company, Mason's Auto Repairs, or
The New Frontiersman – give any sign of progressiveness
or enduring hope.
Even sex,
the act of procreation, is linked to destruction and/or violence in
the WATCHMEN Universe. In the footnotes, I've already theorized
that Rorschach's twisted mind is due to the abuse dealt to him by his
openly whoring mother. Sex, violence. Missing writer Max Shea dies while
fucking in the steerage of a cruiseliner. Sex, destruction. Blake rapes
Sally Jupiter, Laurie's Mom, and is then beaten for it by a possibly
sado-masochistic Hooded Justice. Sex, violence. After a flaccidly failed
attempt to make love to Laurie, Dan dreams of them coming together nude
only to be destroyed in a bomb blast. Sex, destruction. Rorschach finally
flips while investigating the abduction, rape, and killing of a young
child. Sex, violence. Laurie and Dan each demonstrate gender-stereotyped
post-coitus acts after finishing off a pack of street thugs; exhausted,
he rolls over while she lights up a smoke. Violence, sex.
Moore seems
to speak through Veidt as he comments on the television commercials:
"You're ignoring the subtext: Increased sexual imagery, even in the
candy ads. It implies an erotic undercurrent not uncommon in times of
war" (X.8). The Freudian drives are apparently cross-connected in the
WATCHMEN Universe; Stuart Moulthrop, author of Watching the
Detectives, argues that even Veidt's destructive teleporting monster
is fashioned after female genitalia (not too far-fetched considering
the many the mentions of motherhood and the womb that surround its sketching
in the short span of six panels).
With the possible
exception of Osterman and cancer-inflicted ex-girlfriend Janey Slater,
only one sexual coupling is free of violence and/or destruction: Laurie
and Dan's eventual coming together as Silk Spectre and Nite Owl. They
take part in some other nice Sexual Imagery such as the passing of the
cup (an act that echoes Slater and Osterman) and the television's de
facto play-by-play of their making-out. But, only in their costumed
identities can Dan actually function (another nice piece of imagery:
Dan's Owlship, Archimedes, ejaculates fire as the couple makes love).
Dan himself admits a strange comfort of sharing his odd costume-lust
with another person, "to come out of the closet" being his exact words.
This is not the first time that the costumes or masked adventuring is
vaguely linked to homosexuality. I mentioned Rorschach's sexual disorientation
and his personal suspicion of Veidt in my footnotes already. I think
it is also important to note that while another masked hero, the Minuteman
Silhouette, was revealed to be a lesbian, there seems to be a relatively
tolerant atmosphere of homosexuals in the WATCHMEN Universe (two
men hold hands affectionately and publically in a panel in Chapter 1,
page 25). In fact, the prejudicial bias against homosexuality seems
to have been passed to the costumed adventurers; many call them
freaks, sexual deviants, "faggots," and "superfags." This only seems
to enforce the notion that heterosexual intercourse is not safe in Moore's
reality, especially for its hatred-tainted heroes.
Even as I
hunt for a segue into a discussion of Symbolism, I find that the "Hiroshima
Lovers" are the perfect symbol of the pervasive Death-Sex Theme. A silhouette
image of a man and woman conjoined face-to-face has been spraypainted
on to the New York city walls, named "The Hiroshima Lovers" in honor
of the permanent shadows left on the brick walls of bombed Hiroshima.
The forever-clutching couple is, in fact, a neat symbol of Love and
Death in one; their closeness and the nuke's power are simultaneously
displayed. Variations on the Hiroshima Lovers can be found in young
Kovacs recollection of a dream he had – a beast consisting of his
mother interlocked with another man – and in the patterns of the
Rorschach blot-mask. Love and Death are everywhere.
The Smiley-Face
is also everywhere, and it symbolizes another key amalgamation of WATCHMEN:
Elation and Despair. Like the two Greek masks of theater, the traditional
interpretation of the Smiley-Face – an optimistic "Have a Nice
Day" – is grossly corrupted by the streak that runs across its
left eye. Often, the streak is blood (Blake's, a shark's, a child's),
but other times it is simply smoke, ketchup, or a sweeping radar hand.
In any case, the effect is the same: the happy emblem is scarred, a
concise and fitting symbol for the WATCHMEN world. It's scarred,
I should mention, just like The Comedian's face...if that means anything...?
In short, the Smiley-Face is deeply Ironic, like a perverse little joke.
It's the perfect sign for the brutal, late Comedian – the last
laugh was on him.
Following
a close second to the Smiley-Face in symbolic pervasiveness is something
I also mentioned above, the Triangle. I know, triangles aren't all that
distinct and they are a pretty common geometric shape. That's a fair
argument. Gibbons, however, puts them everywhere and calls a
good deal of attention to them. The Veidt logo and its two cologne products,
Nostalgia and Millennium, both have triangular icons. Pyramid Deliveries,
the front-company for Veidt's work, also sports a triangle as its logo.
And Ozymandias' fortress is loaded with triangles, like Gibbons
was going for some sort of record. Or was he, pun intended, trying to
make a point? The triangle, especially the equilateral triangle which
many of these appear to be, is one of the most stable simple formations
in existence. It can withstand all sorts of pressure, making it the
most logical shape from which to construct things. Also, like the aptly-named
pyramid scheme, its wide base eventually thins down to a singular point
on which everything hinges. For these two reasons, isn't the Triangle
the perfect symbol for Adrian Veidt (AV)? Does his representative Triangle
fight for dominance over The Comedian's representative Smiley-Face?
If so, it's important to note that the Smiley-Face still begins
and ends WATCHMEN, not the Triangle. Again, nice Irony.
Each and
every business sign and displayed advertisement in WATCHMEN is
deliberate and often they are just as symbolic. The best lump example
of this are the signs that litter the opening pages of "A Stronger Loving
World" just after the destructive creature has been unleashed. Remember
the scene: Three million New Yorkers are dead due to Veidt's creature
all in the name of ensuring peace. Bodies, all resting in peace and
pieces, lay motionless on the New York City streets, some spilling out
of the Utopia theater. Playing at the theater tonight? "The Day
the Earth Stood Still." Posters, magazines, and newspapers also lay
strewn in the debris. Both the Promethean Light cab company and Gordian
Knot lock company have been destroyed by Ozymandias; like his role models
Alexander and Ramsees II, he has ravaged a representative of Greek culture
and smashed the historically named entanglement of Gordium. The back
cover to Tales of the Black Freighter has an ad for one of Veidt's
work-out regimens, saying "I will give you bodies beyond your wildest
imaginings" (XII.6). The street that fills the scene is, of course,
one way; Doctor Manhattan's the only one going any reincarnating after
death in this book, folks. And, just to nail home the Death Imagery,
I'll mention that the corpses bursting through the glass windows of
Madison Square Garden were there to see the rock bands Pale Horse
and Krystalnacht. The German evening of destruction, the WWII
krystalnacht, could not have been more horrific.
But, as intended,
the reference to the krystal nacht does put an added emphasis
on the issue of Glass in WATCHMEN. I really cannot say if Glass
acts exactly as a Symbol, a set of Imagery, or even a Theme in WATCHMEN,
but it's definitely something. I was convinced of this fact by a fascinating
online discussion group posting by Bill Svitavsky, which I reproduce
in part below:
Each
major character has a relationship with glass which is indicative
of their approach to life. The Comedian is associated with smashed
glass. He is thrown out the window, has his head smashed against
a mirror, has his face gashed by a broken bottle, has a drink thrown
in his face (not a broken glass, but a violent use of one which
parallels the broken bottle), etc. His approach to life is to violently
smash through barriers in perception, giving him a strong sense
of the world, but ultimately a harmful one. Rorschach's glass motif
is the reverse of the Comedian's. In his first scene, we see him
climb in through Edward Blake's smashed window...In a parallel sequence
after he escapes from prison, Rorschach climbs in his own...Rorschach’s
cynicism breaches the same sort of barriers as the Comedian's does,
but Rorschach then finds a mask to put on things - he knows there
is no order in the world, so he *imposes* order. Night Owl is any
easy one - he looks at the world through rose colored glasses, literally
and figuratively...It's significant that the accident which turned
John Osterman into Dr. Manhattan was an experiment carried out by
Professor Glass. We see Osterman looking out the glass window of
the containment chamber, and later we see Dr. Manhattan's glass
clockwork construction on Mars. Dr. Manhattan's perception of reality
is a cold, scientific one in which individual human lives do not
matter. Which brings us to Silk Spectre. She is the Comedian's daughter,
and like him she is a glass smasher. She shatters a snow globe,
she throws the drink in the Comedian's face, and ultimately she
causes Dr. Manhattan to smash his glass clockwork. Her glass-smashing
is not destructive, but creative, a breaching of barriers to create
personal relationships. Finally..Ozymandias. Adrian Veidt is constantly
shown looking through glass of one sort or another. He looks out
his office windows, he watches everything via monitors, and even
his action figures look out through the cellophane windows of their
packaging. Eventually we see he's placed a forest under glass in
his Antarctic sanctuary. Ozymandias thinks he can put the world
under glass, observing it and controlling it from the outside. But
we also see that Veidt is constantly *reflected* - in his windows,
on his marble desktop, and in that pool of water as he commits an
act of violence. Ozymandias fails to realize that the new order
he seeks to create will reflect the ruthlessness and violence he
has employed in creating it.
Svitavsky 's
character analysis may not be perfect (that is, in perfect synch with
my own imperfect analysis), but his examples give compelling evidence
towards the symbolic importance of Glass.
The one reason
I thought Glass might be Imagery is that, unlike in a novel where everything
must be described textually, in a comic book you have actual images!
Doesn't this somewhat affect the nature of Imagery when considering
what the writer scripted to be read, scripted to be shown, and left
for the artist to compose himself? Imagery is largely a literary tool
used to help paint a scene, establish a mood, or convey sensory information.
However, in a comic book where art and text are combined, a great deal
of that responsibility is carried by the penciler after reading the
script and conferring with the writer. Therefore, objective analysis
of Imagery, like Character Development, is a little more difficult with
comics. But, in addition to the Sexual Imagery, I can offer a few
more goodies that had to be deliberate on the part of Moore and
Gibbons. Below are examples that I have not yet mentioned which may
in fact be largely reflected by the art, but had to be the brainchildren
of Moore in this fashioning of his world:
Number 3
above is no surprise, because Time itself is a subject with which Moore,
Gibbons, and their entire work seem preoccupied. Yeah, it's really
easy to say that a novel or a story deals with Time as an abstract concept;
everything deals with Time! Saying that, without some really
solid examples is a cop-out, because, since we are human and still without
Marty McFly time travel technology, everything we do needs to be done
linearly. But, for WATCHMEN, I think I have those solid examples
that will establish Time as its final Theme.
(And, lucky
for me, it involves many of the Literary Elements with which I have
not yet dealt. Woo-hoo!)
WATCHMEN
may have futuristic elements to it, but a great deal of it deals with
the present focusing on the past. Examples are numerous: Flashbacks
of Eddie Blake by the attendants to his funeral, Doctor Manhattan's
jumping hyperspace perceptions of time, Rorschach recounting his childhood,
Sally Jupiter's memories of the Minutemen, and Veidt not only telling
his origin but taking inspiration from Alexander and ancient Pharaohs.
This constant stream of recollection is a symptom of beginning en
media res, but as the book goes on, Moore once again speaks through
the characters to emphasize its intentionality. In a conversation between
the aged, retired masked heroes, Sally Jupiter says to Hollis Mason,
"Don't get too misty eyed about old times. It ain't healthy" (VIII.2).
That Chapter "Old Ghosts" ends with Mason being bludgeoned to death
with his own Nite Owl statuette. Gibbons inserts shots of a virile Nite
Owl from yesteryear besting the Screaming Skull and Captain Axis even
as his true, modern self falls at the hands of a pack of drugged-up
kids. For Mason and the victims of Veidt's Egyptian inspiration, focusing
on the past truly isn't healthy at all.
So then,
why do Moore and Gibbons do it so much? They have Laurie confront her
past and the fact that Blake is her biological father. They quote a
whole variety of literary sources (e.g. Blake, Shelley, Genesis, the
Book of Job, Bob Dylan) and they drop in all sorts of Historical Allusions
(e.g. the Minutemen, Vietnam, Alexander the Great, EC Comics, Ramsees
II, Krystalnacht). They even opted to write a story based on
old Charlton Comics superheroes. The world they create seems
to have no future; all of the Imagery foreshadows some mass destruction,
all of the serial issues denote a countdown, the entire tone implies
an imminent doom. And, in many ways, that doom either comes (e.g. the
New Yorkers, Mason, Rorschach, Blake) or continues to loom (e.g. Rorschach's
journal, Doctor Manhattan's cautionary final words). Is the past the
only safe place to hide?
Well, at
present and during WATCHMEN's run, the past certainly looked
the only safe place for comic books to reside. Then as now, the industry
was in a slump and Moore & Gibbons couldn't have known that their
book and The Dark Knight Returns would reinvigorate it for at
least the next decade. The Golden Age of comics had been exactly that,
its heyday, before the limited market and the anti-comic protesters
and the cliched storylines. Moralities were very black and white for
the color comics and their audience was large. WATCHMEN, I suppose,
can be seen as the Golden Age's introduction to the grim, commercial,
and nuclear-fearing world of the 1980s. Thrust the do-gooders of the
WWII era into the modern context of both the comic industry and America
and you are most likely left with the shattered glass and dreams that
Moore, Gibbons, and The Dark Knight Returns writer Frank Miller
envisioned.
Unfortunately,
their radical take and hard-nosed brilliance ultimately had a detrimental
effect on their works that was entirely beyond their control; the market
was soon drowned in a wash of Dark Knight and WATCHMEN wannabes.
As Dan Jurgens says:
WATCHMEN
marked a turning point in the industry, along with THE DARK KNIGHT...WATCHMEN
and some of Moore's other work was the big bang that stated it off...The
effects of WATCHMEN were many; some good, some bad. Too many
writers tried to evoke the same style in their own works, often
where it was inappropriate, and the result was a darkening of too
many super-hero characters. "Grim and gritty" were ushered in about
that time and tend to think we've paid a price ever since, as our
product has become geared more and more for the disenfranchised
rather than mainstream consumer.
In short, Moore,
Gibbons, and Miller may have overinspired, overstimulated
the starving 80s comic industry. Vicious heroes first like Wolverine
and Guy Gardner, and later like Cable and Spawn began to dominate the
racks with stories of varying depth. Most often, though, the tale was
shallow and hollow, hurting the genre and the advances made. Like Veidt,
they created a monster that fixed the short-term problem but left the
long-term results up for grabs.
Whether a
result of outside influence or not, WATCHMEN has become largely
dated. Some of this has to do with the above mentioned "swamping;" the
80s were all about the "grim and gritty" heroes and the industry has
since, it seems, tried to pull away. That also pulls sentiment away
from WATCHMEN, however, ditching it with the 1980s. However,
its underpinning threat – nuclear Armageddon – has since been
filled with other popular global calamities. Biological warfare has
come into vogue as both a national fear and plot-point in comics just
as natural disasters, volcanoes, and falling asteroids was a trend for
movies over the last half-decade. In essence, the threat of nuclear
weapons is somewhat dated, just like the Russians as the Evil Empire
and other fads. Considering how often the book comments on the costumed
adventurer fad, it's disappointing how easily compromised its own Timeless
Nature has been. But, perhaps in time, the series will read as fresher
when the nuclear bomb trend is less associated with the failed plots
of recent yesteryear.
Speaking
of Neil Gaiman's work, Peter Straub said that "if this isn’t literature,
nothing is." McConnell echoed that by praising The Sandman series
as "the stuff of which literature is made: Learned, complex, straightforward,
funny, melancholy, and irresistibly humanizing" (Kindly Ones).
True, they said this about The Sandman and not WATCHMEN,
but, in my opinion, it largely applies to both as a criterion that has
been well-met and achieved. It's also the perfect set of criteria by
which to judge these volumes as literature: Are they all learned, complex,
straightforward, funny, melancholy, and irresistibly humanizing? I will
say, for WATCHMEN, that the answer is a resounding yes. Learned,
complex, and melancholy are apparent. As for funny? The humor in WATCHMEN
is very dark, almost pitch black, but let's also consider the Comedian
telling the joke. Moore was never trying to amuse us, per se. He was
trying to shock us and perhaps make us produce a startled laugh. The
joke – the fact that brutal humanity can only be saved by a sacrifice
and by false fear – is a blunt one that pulls no punches. It does
make one feel more human, but, to paraphrase Mr. Spock, perhaps that's
not exactly a compliment. Would you want to be part of Veidt's
"stronger, loving world" knowing the cost it took to get there?
Anyhow, in short,
for WATCHMEN my answer is "yes," it is literature. Now, to explain
why the answer is also "yes" for The Sandman for markedly different
reasons.
To explain
why the McConnell quote appears here, now, after my analysis
of WATCHMEN, I can only say that – at first – I thought
it might be a mistake to make a run at analyzing The Sandman as
literature. At least, for my purposes and my headset, I thought that
perhaps it should be left alone by me and untouched for someone
with the same breadth and panache and sheer weirdness of Gaiman. Wait
until someone can surgically pull it apart far better and praise it
for all its worth. It's definitely literature (it even begins to poke
at Eisner's idea of comic evolution), but… – I don't know;
going at it dry made me wary. Instead, I opted to build momentum with
a book and set of criteria that fit my quicksilver, peel-the-onion-layers
analyzation style like WATCHMEN before charging in. The levels
to The Sandman do not form the metaphorical onion nor would they
fit my point-by-point list of Literary Elements nearly so neatly; its
levels weave and feedback upon each other so marvelously that it would
be better to liken them to a watermelon with little seeds acting as
checkpoints to the complex whole. Neither book is necessarily better
than the other; as I implied above the industry needs a variety, not
just a pile of onions or a slew of watermelons. But neither are a kid's
empty-calorie candy bar.
As my metaphor
begins to fail, I now offer as a further example of comics' credibility
as literature The Sandman series. Let's try smashing into this
melon.
Continue to part 2.
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