![]() Watchmen is considered “ the moment comics books grew up,” routinely makes lists like “ the comic books you need to read before you die,” and has been called the “ Citizen Kane of comics books.” There is no Western comic book or graphic novel more revered or more discussed than Watchmen. ![]() Thirty-three years after the first issue of Watchmen arrived in 1986, it remains clear that the bet is one that Moore, Gibbons, and DC made good on. Both were huge numbers for the publisher and showed the interest that the series continued to command decades after its debut. In 2008, ahead of a 2009 Watchmen film adaptation, DC printed 900,000 additional paperback copies of the novel, up from the 100,000 sold the year before, the New York Times reported. The series continues to be regularly reprinted in a collected edition, and it sells in large numbers. Although sales figures for the period are warped by comic books sold at both newsstands and stores versus comic book stores alone ( Watchmen was the latter), and some distributors at the time did not record their sales figures, Watchmen’s first issue was among the top five bestselling comic books upon its initial release, according to ComicChron the following 11 issues also placed within the top 20 of the comic book sales charts.Īnd in 1988, when the comics’ run had wrapped, Watchmen won a Hugo Award, a major accolade for science fiction and fantasy fiction, one of only nine graphic novels to ever win the award. Watchmen turned out to be a commercial and critical success. The book was still an ambitious bet for what it was: a superhero story that went against the grain of superhero stories that people loved. Even if you’re not familiar with those specific works, most of Moore’s creations (and others he would go on to write, like The Killing Joke) would transcend comics and be adapted into television, movies, or inspire other comics and pieces of pop culture.īut Moore’s bonafides and DC Comics’ publishing power (as the home of Batman and Superman, among others) did not ensure Watchmen’s success. ![]() There, he was tasked with revitalizing Swamp Thing and creating the character comics fans have come to know as John Constantine. After a start in underground comics, writer Alan Moore created the acclaimed series Marvelman and V for Vendetta (both in 1982) before moving onto DC Comics. We’ve heard over and over from other beloved comic book heroes that “with great power comes great responsibility.” Instead, Watchmen presents an uncomfortable scenario, a too-real reflection of how personal responsibility tends to evaporate in the presence of that great power.ĭespite how much Watchmen bucked comic book trends at the time, it had the weight of one of the medium’s biggest names behind it. Writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons begin with what seems like an everyday superhero story: a murder mystery, a band of heroes coming together, an all-powerful blue-skinned being, and humanity’s existence hanging in the balance.īut slowly, Watchmen unfurls into something much darker and keener: a story that, while rife with ostentatious characters like mad genius Ozymandias and all-powerful Doctor Manhattan, is much more grounded in showing us what it’s like to be powerless. Watchmen hinted that it wouldn’t be anything like the superhero comics status quo before a reader even started leafing through an issue. ![]() No characters appear on the covers, nor are there any fight scenes or scintillating imagery to lure the reader in, a break in ranks for superhero comic books. The title, written in all caps, traces up vertically on the left, near the spine. The covers for all 12 issues of Watchmen - released just over 30 years ago, from 1986 to 1987 - balk at this. But superhero comic book covers tend to be superheroes striking poses fighting evil or supervillains striking poses fighting good, with a certain strategy to their art: According to the 2017 annotated version of Watchmen, because of the way comic books are displayed in an overlapping pattern in comic book stores, the trick is to push titles toward the center and keep the imagery to the center and right of the cover page. Watchmen was never meant to be a regular superhero comic book, and it made its intentions clear right from the jump.Īverage readers might not notice what makes Watchmen so different.
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