taking sides: watchment vs. dark knight returns

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so, here we are. the never ending battle of THEE comics of 1986. two books which grew beyond their creators probably meager intentions and inspirations to spawn a legion of copycat imitators of lesser and lesser quality, like photocopies of photocopies, until all that remained were the trace elements of "grim and gritty" superheroics to be appliqued on a given issue of spider-man, and which probably helped to capsize the mainstream comic book industry (and therefore the whole boat, since marvel and dc were always propping up the dilapidated, mismanaged enterprise anyway.)

― jess, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i can't believe i fucking spelled watchmen wrong in the thread title.

― jess, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the progrock of comiXoR, except bad instead of good: yes i bought and read em both (watchmen[t] issue by issue, in fact), yes i quickly grew out of their "adult" take on the originals. dark knight has better artwork, in a crappy kind of a way

i'm a love and rockets gal, leave me alone

― mark s, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Grim + Gritty paved way for Image = potential saviour of entire comics industry except entire comics industry then decided its response to a fivefold-increased purchaser-ship would be to milk them financially while aesthetically telling them and anyone who would hear that these new readers were cultural illiterates because they didn't care who Chris Claremont and Peter David were.

Anyway. Watchmen. For a million artistic reasons but also very simply the extremely good idea DC had in not letting Moore tell his story using existing characters. DKR's good-comicsness rests partly on you knowing quite a lot about Batman. Whereas you do not have to know anything to pick up and enjoy Watchmen, almost uniquely among acclaimed superhero comics.

― Tom, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

dark knight returns had an entertaining premise and solid art and lots os really nice non-batman bits like the comissioner gordon stuff and great characterization for everyone except the joker and superman and maybe possibly a little bit batman. watchmint wasn't very refreshing. neither are the best of anything.

― ethan, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

and tom is totally wrong about not using established characters being a good thing, i'd like watchmen a lot more if rorshach was batman and so on (but not those awful charlton heroes i've never heard of except in reference to who watchmen characters werre supposed to be, they're terrible).

― ethan, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I say Ah-Kee-Rah lays waste to both. But I'd take Watchmen over DKR for the very reason Tom says. Non-established characters = much less cartoonish.

― bnw, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

akira also costs about ten times as much as either of them.

― ethan, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i think mark and i are on the same page here. (although mr sinker, you can't possibly say that late-era l & r is any less...labrynthine, than watchmen.) and the raw artists camp was just as much prog rock as anything, except more henry cow than elp. :)

anyway, i dislike dark knight intensely...the fascistic regan/thatcher-era hero slant to the whole thing...of course basically just amping the might-makes-right fascism which underpins all superheroics. but done without even the barest trace of HUMOR, excepting of course the plodding "dark" sort...watchmen's reputation has been tarnished by what it wrought, but still gets the points for the sheer wow-lookit-that density of the whole thing (although when i go back to it, which is rare, i find myself skipping to the subplots i like best anyway. sorta defeating the purpose.)

when it comes to comics epics i tend to want to read something a bit more...pure...like nausicaa, anyway.

― jess, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

late l&r = MUCH more labyrinthine, prolly, but MUCH more good, also

(watchmen artwork = dinky shit)

― mark s, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Both were also marred by their duff endings. DKR - Look Batman is OK! And the spectacular silliness of baddie's scheme in Watchmen - world will unite and heal all problems when faced with tangibly catastrophic yet curiously vague threat that comes out of nowhere (now being tested in a real world near you).

― Tom, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i thought i was the only person who made the terrorism-in-america-is-like-the- aliens-in-watchmen connection.

― ethan, Sunday, 14 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Watchmen was the bomb when it first came out. I remember finding the entire story completely blase and uninvolving the first time I read it right up until I got to what I think was the sixth issue, at which point I flipped back to the beginning and read the whole thing through non-stop. Fucking awesome. I only ever read the second Dark Knight issue, but that was awesome as well. (It was the one where female Robin first popped up, where they took on the mutant gang.) I wasn't intrigued enough to look for the rest of them, though.

― Dan Perry, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

One thing that's being missed here is Mark Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme miniseries, which mined some of the same territory as Watchmen only from a different angle and is, of course, FUCKING BRILLIANT.

― Dan Perry, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

do you have the one with pieces of mark in it?

― ethan, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Watchmen (of course ;). Epic stuff and Ozymandias even loves dub. I thought the ending was not duff at all and indeed also made the connection in re. of recent events. Dark Knight is pretty good, although I hate it when Superman enters.

slightly off-topic, anyone read '300'? If so is it any good? Looks like the ultimate Tom-comic ;) "oh for the glory of Sparta" that sort of thing.

― Omar, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Watchmen. I hold DKR responsible for Spawn and its ilk

― Alan Trewartha, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Watchmen artwork = 'dinky shit'? Have Boots been putting crack in Mark's lemsip? Dave Gibbons isn't exactly the most exciting artist, but he sure crams a lot of info into his pages, and the storytelling is v. clear and helpful (he has good flow haha.) I think a more flamboyant artist would've actually harmed the comic

― Andrew L, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They're both great, and anyone who thinks different is for a kicking.

According to an annotated Watchmen site I found on the web once all the Watchmen characters are modelled on some superheroes published by some obscure sub-company of DC. Not that this really matters, or anything.

― DV, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

DV - warning: boring pedantic reply ahead.

'Watchmen' started out as a proposal for a mini-series involving the superheroes first published by Charlton Comics Group, a long-running 3rd division company that finally went belly-up in the mid-80s. DC big-shot Dick Giordano was the former Charlton editor most responsible for their superhero line, and the characters were bought up by DC as a sort of birthday present for DG. Moore's Charlton proposal soon mutated into the Watchmen, but traces of the characters are still present in the finished strip - ie Rorshach is a clever variant on Steve Ditko's hero 'The Question', a character in turn inspired by the 'works' of barmy libertarian Ayn Rand. It's funny that while Frank Miller is a pretty clueless devotee of Rand (Art Spiegelman famously described 'Dark Knight' as fascist), anarcho-lefty Moore gets closer to the spirit of Ditko's 'philosophy' in 'The Watchmen' .

― Andrew L, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Spawn is the fault of one Todd McFarlane. ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES.

And thank God someone spoke out re: Mark's odd distate for Dave Gibbons' work. Of course, I'm biased towards cleaner work like Gibbons' (or the stuff of Brian Bolland & anything inked by Joe Sinnott) than the sketchier, "kinetic" stuff by Frank Miller & Klaus Janson (or early Bill Sienkiewicz - sorry for any misspellings).

Watchmen characters - based on Charlton Comics characters (Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, others that haven't been in my kitchen).

― David Raposa, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

charlton. nite owl = blue beetle. rorschach = the question. dr. manhattan = the stom. (all these characters ended up being incorporated into the "proper" d.c. universe after crisis anyways.) i have to disagree with ethan that it would have been a strenuously bad idea to have used them. (aparently, once seeing the proposed outline, d.c.'s then president [joe orlando?] was kinda aghast at the idea of his characters basically going insane.)

who else thinks alan moore's proposed "twighlight of the super heros" woulda trumped the hell outta "kingdom come"?

― jess, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

goddammit. what are the odds?

― jess, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

who else thinks alan moore's proposed "twighlight of the super heros" woulda trumped the hell outta "kingdom come"?

Twilight would still have been wink-wink hey-fanboy rubbish, though, if the proposal is anything to go by. Thank goodness for Moore's reputation that they rejected it. But yeah you are right since KC is the all-time nadir of American comics.

― Tom, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

gibbons in watchmen = ok if you have a thing for brown (yes yes it adds to the mood cf equiv wea argt re boringness of production on dar side on thre moon on ilm) and like yr linework to be utterly prissy and lifeless (buy the fella an italic felt-pen someone!!)

alan moore as grate political brane in comix = cliche w/o substance: yes yes he can see through ayn rand golly golly, but basically that's it insightwise; note also in his jack the ripper stuff he picks up on the LAMEST species of conspiracy theory attached to it eg William Gull physician to royalty covering up for Princely dalliance with a catholic gal...

― mark s, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, Gibbons didn't colour 'Watchmen' (John Higgins did) but he is a very 'brown' artist in a way ('meat and potatoes' someone called him once.) Prissy and lifeless linework vs. well-composed and structured DRAWING (seeing as the comic is a monument to obsessive patterning/structuring.)

I personally never said that Alan Moore was a great political brain or that he 'saw through' Ayn Rand - simply that he was enough of a writer to present a sympathetic portrait of a worldview he obv. didn't share. Rorshach is far from being yr standard crypto-fascist bogeyman.

And isn't 'From Hell' as much 'magickal' mumbo-jumbo as it is mundance conspiracy theory - eg all that stuff abt the great curve of evil rising through history (see also the Star Trek episode 'Wolf in the Fold' haha.)

― Andrew L, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tom's insistence on whinging about Kingdom Come at every possible waking moment (when discussing comix) is quite upsetting. And WRONG.

Bitching about superhero books is like bitching about teeny pop, isn't it? I'd say more, but I'm afraid to sound stoopid.

― David Raposa, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah but bitching about "Kingdom Come" is like bitching about "You Rock My World".

― Tom, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Clearly better than both is Moore's "V is for Vendetta" which is gothick and dark without being fascistic, sort of nihilistic and of course refs. Pynchon. There's no epic, just one v. v. angry man.

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Damn it, Tom...

― David Raposa, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

artwork for v for vendetta = even worse than watchmen, tho

― mark s, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

v for vendetta artwork is fine. watchmen artwork is wonderful -- I would describe it as perfect for the story. if you say you don't like these, what sort of artwork would you think would work with these stories?

― Alan Trewartha, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

V for Vendetta has far better art than Watchmen - all that grainy Ealing comedy from hell stuff RoXoR (ha!). The story trails off embarrassingly towards the end, though.

― dV, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ok, can perhaps be persuaded on vendetta, as i think i only ever saw one issue: i must dig it out and have another look

― mark s, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

there's a good historical reason for the story trailing off though. i personally think the ending is a complete let down. some people say that about watchmen too.

― , Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

MARKSInKERSEZ:

yes yes he can see through ayn rand golly golly, but basically that's it insightwise

'e couldn't see far beyong tom pynchon tho, could 'e? hur hur hur. I like watchmen better, but don't read either much. I have the fancy leatherbound edition ov "Watchmen", if anyone wants to give me large amounts of ca$h for it, 'cuz I R jonesing for more Wiard synthesiser. I thinx0r "Elektra- -Assassin" was better still. Looking back, aftre all that stuff, the mainstream comics ind. had it all on a plate, didn't they? Wider/smarter readership, and all that. Man, did they EVER blow it....my new comix question coming up....

xoxo

― Norman Phay, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Prob w/ V for Vendetta artwork - most of it drawn for black and white repro. DC comics at the time unable to get their head round the idea that they could publish something that wasn't in colour - so my gd friend Steve W got the job of colouring it, and did the very best he could - all muted and sepia - under less than ideal circumstances.

― Andrew L, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Your friend did a good job... the thing managed to look B&W despite being coloured in. This is a good thing.

― DV, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

V for Vendetta artwork was BLOODY GRATE! OK, it did look a bit stinky in the reprints, but in the original Warrior issues it looked FANTASTIC.

Dark Knight is EXCITING from a Fanboy perspective, but REALLY does need that to work (and i am pointlessly excited about the sequel for the same reasons). Watchmen is just BRILLIANT if you know anything about comics or not (i have TESTED this on Suspicious Friends), and i think it gets too much hassle for being "Gritty" or whatever but then i think Alan Moore gets this for everything. The JOY of his stuff is that, while being full of IDEAS and that, it's also deeply human and riddled with a) affection and b) humour. The Nite Owl/Silk Sceptre romance for instance, that's lovely that is.

Also there's the visual tricks, the verbal links between panels, that whole symmetrical issue, EVERYTHING. The artwork's no small part of that - yeah, it looks simple when you read it, but look what Dave Gibbons DOES with the images, the visual jokes (read the backgrounds!), the layouts etc etc. It's GRATE!

And when it came out... Alan Moore came to my local store just when Issue Eleven was coming out. He was SCARY, but was very polite when i kept asking him if he was going to write Captain Britain again.

― MJ Hibbett, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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