''Watchmen''

*Watchmen* is an American comic-book limited series published by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987, and collected in 1987. The series was created by a British collaboration consisting of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins. Watchmen originated from a story proposal Moore submitted to DC featuring superhero characters that the company had acquired from Charlton Comics. As Moore's proposed story would have left many of the characters unusable for future stories, managing editor Dick Giordano convinced Moore to create original characters instead.

Moore used the story as a means to reflect contemporary anxieties and to deconstruct and parody the superhero concept. *Watchmen* depicts an alternate history where superheroes emerged in the 1940s and 1960s, helping the United States to win the Vietnam War. In 1985, the country is edging toward nuclear war with the Soviet Union, freelance costumed vigilantes have been outlawed and most former superheroes are in retirement or working for the government. The story focuses on the personal development and moral struggles of the protagonists as an investigation into the murder of a government sponsored superhero pulls them out of retirement.

Creatively, the focus of *Watchmen* is on its structure. Gibbons used a nine-panel grid layout throughout the series and added recurring symbols such as a blood-stained smiley face. All but the last issue feature supplemental fictional documents that add to the series' backstory, and the narrative is intertwined with that of another story, an in-story pirate comic titled *Tales of the Black Freighter*, which one of the characters reads. Structured, at times, as a nonlinear narrative, the story skips through space, time and plot. In the same manner, entire scenes and dialogue have parallels with others through synchronicity, coincidence and repeated imagery.

A commercial success, *Watchmen* has received critical acclaim both in the comics and mainstream press, and is considered by several critics and reviewers as one of the most significant works of 20th century literature. *Watchmen* was recognized in *Time‍ '​s* List of the 100 Best Novels as one of the best English language novels published since 1923, and placed #91 on *The Comics Journal‍*​s list of the top 100 comics of the 20th century.

After a number of attempts to adapt the series into a feature film, director Zack Snyder's film *Watchmen* was released in 2009. A video game series, *Watchmen: The End Is Nigh*, was released in the same year to coincide with the film's release. In 2012, DC Comics began publishing *Before Watchmen*, a comic-book series acting as a prequel to the original comic book series, without Moore and Gibbons' involvement.

## Publication history

*Watchmen*, created by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, was first published as a 12-issue miniseries from DC Comics, cover-dated September 1986 to October 1987. It was subsequently collected in 1987 as a DC Comics trade paperback graphic novel that has had at least 22 printings as of September 2008; as well, a trade paperback was published by Warner Books, a DC sister company, in 1987.

In February 1988, DC published a limited-edition, slipcased hardcover volume, produced by Graphitti Design, that contained 48 pages of bonus material, including the original proposal and concept art. In 2005, DC released *Absolute Watchmen*, an oversized slipcased hardcover edition of the series in DC's Absolute Edition format. Assembled under the supervision of Dave Gibbons, *Absolute Watchmen* included the Graphitti materials, as well as restored and recolored art by John Higgins. That December DC published a new printing of *Watchmen* issue #1 at the original 1986 cover price of $1.50 as part of its "Millennium Edition" line.

In 2012, DC launched a prequel line, with various creative teams producing the characters' early adventures before the events of the graphic novel.

## Background and creation

"I suppose I was just thinking, 'That'd be a good way to start a comic book: have a famous super-hero found dead.' As the mystery unraveled, we would be led deeper and deeper into the real heart of this super-hero's world, and show a reality that was very different to the general public image of the super-hero."

Alan Moore on the basis for *Watchmen*

In 1985, DC Comics acquired a line of characters from Charlton Comics. During that period, writer Alan Moore contemplated writing a story that featured an unused line of superheroes that he could revamp, as he had done in his *Miracleman* series in the early 1980s. Moore reasoned that MLJ Comics' Mighty Crusaders might be available for such a project, so he devised a murder mystery plot which would begin with the discovery of the body of the Shield in a harbour. The writer felt it did not matter which set of characters he ultimately used, as long as readers recognized them "so it would have the shock and surprise value when you saw what the reality of these characters was". Moore used this premise and crafted a proposal featuring the Charlton characters titled *Who Killed the Peacemaker*, and submitted the unsolicited proposal to DC managing editor Dick Giordano. Giordano was receptive to the proposal, but opposed the idea of using the Charlton characters for the story. Moore said, "DC realized their expensive characters would end up either dead or dysfunctional." Instead, Giordano persuaded Moore to continue with new characters. Moore had initially believed that original characters would not provide emotional resonance for the readers, but later changed his mind. He said, "Eventually, I realized that if I wrote the substitute characters well enough, so that they seemed familiar in certain ways, certain aspects of them brought back a kind of generic super-hero resonance or familiarity to the reader, then it might work."

Artist Dave Gibbons, who had collaborated with Moore on previous projects, recalled he "must have heard on the grapevine that he was doing a treatment for a new miniseries. I rang Alan up, saying I’d like to be involved with what he was doing," and Moore sent him the story outline. Gibbons told Giordano he wanted to draw the series Moore proposed and Moore approved. Gibbons brought colorist John Higgins onto the project because he liked his "unusual" style; Higgins lived near the artist, which allowed the two to "discuss [the art] and have some kind of human contact rather than just sending it across the ocean". Len Wein joined the project as its editor, while Giordano stayed on to oversee it. Both Wein and Giordano stood back and "got out of their way"; Giordano remarked later, "Who copy-edits Alan Moore, for God's sake?"

After receiving the go-ahead to work on the project, Moore and Gibbons spent a day at the latter's house creating characters, crafting details for the story's milieu and discussing influences. The pair was particularly influenced by a Mad parody of Superman named "Superduperman"; Moore said, "We wanted to take Superduperman 180 degrees—dramatic, instead of comedic". Moore and Gibbons conceived of a story that would take "familiar old-fashioned superheroes into a completely new realm"; the writer said his intention was to create "a superhero Moby Dick; something that had that sort of weight, that sort of density". The writer came up with the character names and descriptions, but left the specifics of how they looked to Gibbons. Gibbons did not sit down and design the characters deliberately, but rather "did it at odd times ... spend[ing] maybe two or three weeks just doing sketches." Gibbons designed his characters to make them easy to draw; Rorschach was his favorite to draw because "you just have to draw a hat. If you can draw a hat, then you've drawn Rorschach, you just draw kind of a shape for his face and put some black blobs on it and you're done."