num_pages: 424
description: Has any comic been as lauded as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen? Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns but Watchmen remains the critics' favourite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for many other of the genre's finest creations (Saga of the Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, and recently From Hell, with Eddie Campbell) first put out Watchmen in 12 issues for DC in 1986-87. It won a comic award at the time (the 1987 Jack Kirby Comics Industry Awards for Best Writer/Artist combination) and has continued to garner praise since.The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore's characterisation is as sophisticated as any novel's. Importantly the costumes do not get in the way of the storytelling, rather they allow Moore to investigate issues of power and control--indeed it was Watchmen, and to a lesser extent Dark Knight, that propelled the comic genre forward, making "adult" comics a reality. The artwork of Gibbons (best known for 2000AD's Rogue Trooper and DC's Green Lantern) is very fine too, echoing Moore's paranoid mood perfectly throughout. Packed with symbolism, some of the overlying themes (arms control, nuclear threat, vigilantes) have dated but the intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself, its intertextuality (chapters appended with excerpts from other "works" and "studies" on Moore's characters, or with excerpts from another comic book being read by a child within the story), the fine pace of the writing and its humanity mean that Watchmen more than stands up--it retains its crown as the best the genre has yet produced. --Mark Thwaite
language: English
title: Watchmen
titlecomplete: Watchmen
characters: Rorschach, Edward Blake, Sally Jupiter, Adrian Veidt, Daniel Dreiberg, Dr. Manhattan, Laurel Jupiter, Hollis Mason
genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Superheroes, Graphic Novels, Classics, Dystopia, Comics, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Fantasy
ratings_count: 545860
places: New York City, New York
series: I Classici del Fumetto di Repubblica - Serie Oro, Watchmen
awards: awardedAt: 568022400000
name: Hugo Award
category: Other Forms, awardedAt: 568022400000
name: Locus Award
category: Best Non-Fiction/Art, awardedAt: 568022400000
name: Harvey Awards
category: Best Writer (for Alan Moore), Best Artist or Penciller (for Dave Gibbons), Best Continuing or Limited Series, Best Single Issue ("Watchmen #9"), Best Graphic Album, Best Colorist (for John Higgins) & Special Award for Excellence in Production , awardedAt: 599644800000
name: Prix du Festival d'Angoulême
category: Alph-art du meilleur album étranger, awardedAt: 694252800000
name: Urhunden Prize
category: Foreign Album, awardedAt: 568022400000
name: Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards
category: Best Archival Collection/Project–Comic Books (in 2006 awards, for Absolute edition), Best Finite Series, Best Graphic Album, Best Writer (for Alan Moore), Best Writer/Artist (single or team) (for Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons), awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: IGN Award
category: Best Collection
publisher: Titan Books Limited