One of the things on my reading to-do list of the last few years has been to work my way through the comics canon. A HUGE hole in my reading list, and one that is especially embarrassing to admit, is Alan Moore’s classic Watchmen. The book was included in Time Magazine’s All Time 100 Best English Language Novels (1923-Present) and is universally well regarded in the comics world.

At the center of the book is a group of “costumed adventurers.” They’re not superheroes, because the group has no real super powers, with one notable exception.  By and large, the costumed adventurers are vigilantes with varying level of skills and resources that for various reasons they have chosen to use to fight crime. Their costumes look home made, and they also tend to have an emotional problem or two.  They are complex and conflicted characters that have little in common with one another besides their status as freelance crime fighters.  The adventurers are drawn together when someone begins to kill off their membership. 

The problem with reading the book at this late date is that its groundbreaking influence has already occurred.  Watchmen paved the way for sea change in the genre that suddenly featured more complex characters that subverted the idea of “heroes”.   

Moore’s story telling is outstanding, and he is a fantastic social critic.  The art is pretty good, too.  The book takes its name from graffiti that appears on walls throughout the novel that reads “Who watches the Watchmen.”  Even though it was written twenty tears ago, Watchmen remains relevant in our age of increased surveillance and paranoia.  Check it out before the movie arrives in 2009.

The Watchmen movie trailer:

For me, the most exciting part of the movie may be that Rorschach will be played by Moocher from Breaking Away, one of the great movies of all time.