This document provides background information on Alan Moore and his groundbreaking graphic novel Watchmen. It discusses how Watchmen was part of a movement in the 1980s to introduce more adult complexity to comics. It also provides context on the masked superhero comic book genre and how Watchmen subverted conventions of that genre. Finally, it discusses debates around terms like "graphic novels" and "comics" and how Watchmen helped establish comics as a legitimate artistic medium.

1. Quis custodiet ipsos
custodes?
Who watches the watchmen?
--Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347
--Epigraph of Tower Commission Report, 1987
(investigating the Reagan administration involvement in the
Iran-Contra scandal)

2. Alan Moore
• British comic writer, magician,
occultist, notorious recluse!
• Watchmen—first graphic novel to
win a Hugo Award, 1987 in “Other
Forms” category
– Hugo Award: Best Sci Fi or Fantasy
text in a year
– establishes Moore’s reputation as a
groundbreaking, independent,
experimental writer
• Part of 1980s movement: introduce
adult complexity to comics
– Other examples: Frank Miller’s
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Art
Spiegelman’s Maus
• Psychological and historical
complexity: heroes as corruptible,
civilization as questionable!

3. Moore’s comics  films
• V for Vendetta
• From Hell
• The League of Extraordinary Gentleman
• Watchmen
Alan Moore’s protest: issues with DC comics,
comic convention fans, Hollywood, etc.
• Resistance to commodification
• Dislike of Hollywood: Doesn’t mind production of
Watchmen film, but refuses film royalties
See the illustrator, Dave Gibbons’ commentary:
http://www.canmag.com/nw/13518-watchmen-david-gibbons

4. Collaboration
• Alan Moore: writer
• Dave Gibbons: illustrator / letterer
• John Higgins: colorist
Synthesis in production of images, line
drawings, print production and coloration
of comic book

5. Watchmen
• Set in alternative history,
1985
• Published in series,
1986-87
• Published as bound
book, 1987

6. Masked Superhero
Comic Book Genre
• Urban settings under threat
(Gotham City or NYC)
• Superheroes fight crime and save
the city / world!
• Archetypal Masks: hide individual
identity, transform “normal” person
to superhuman dimensions
• Popular as pulp adventure comics,
1930s onward
• History of action-adventure comic
booksconnected to plot of
Watchmen

7. Superman
(April/June 1938:
Action Comics)
• Introduces masked
superhero to comics
• Invented by Jerry Siegel and
Joel Shuster
• Early version (pre-Action
Comics): Superman is a
bald, evil telepath
• Converted by Jerry Siegel
and Joel Shuster into a
force for good, to launch
Action Comics series
• Still running as of 2010!

8. • First page of first
issue (Action
Comics,
April/June 1938)
• See p. 5 of
“Under the Hood”
after Ch. 1 in
Watchmen.

9. “graphic novels”? Or “comics”?
graphic novel:
• Will Eisner credited with first use of “graphic novel,”
cover of A Contract with God and Other Tenement
Stories (1978)
• Book-length narrative or series of related narratives
delivered in comic form, in combination of words and
sequential art
OR
• (Industry usage): Any printed and “squarebound” volume
of comics (as opposed to stapled short comic magazines
• Term tends to distinguish “high novelistic art” from
“pulp,” but how to determine the difference?
• Ambiguous range of usage in comic book industry

10. “graphic novels”? Or “comics”?
comics:
• Will Eisner’s definition: “sequential art”
• Scott McCloud’s expansion:
“juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate
sequence”
– Could go back to very ancient cave paintings or
Egyptian hieroglyphs
– In our time: print publication or online internet
distribution
– Shaped by dimensions of printed pages or computer
monitors
– Text as image? Image as text?

11. Comic Books on the Market
Comics: a publication medium with wide range of genres!
• Examples:
– Realism/Social Critique
– Romance
– Humor
– Mystery/Crime
– Action Adventure: Superhero genre
– Adaptations of Classic Literature (Shakespeare’s plays in comic form)
– Study Guides
– Manga
– Wordless/mute/silent
• Marketing productions: cheap moneymakers? Pulp entertainment?
• Or serious, challenging productions aiming to reach a wide
audience?

12. Alan Moore’s point of view
on “graphic novel” term:
“It's a marketing term. I mean, it was one that I never had any sympathy with.
The term "comic" does just as well for me. The term "graphic novel" was
something that was thought up in the '80s by marketing people and there
was a guy called Bill Spicer who used to do a brilliant fanzine back in the
sixties called Graphic Story Magazine. He came up with the term "graphic
story". That's got something to recommend it, you know, I can see
"graphic story" if you need it to call it something but the thing that
happened in the mid-'80s was that there were a couple of things out there
that you could just about call a novel. You could just about call Maus a
novel, you could probably just about call Watchmen a novel, in terms of
density, structure, size, scale, seriousness of theme, stuff like that. The
problem is that "graphic novel" just came to mean "expensive comic book"
and so what you'd get is people like DC Comics or Marvel comics -
because "graphic novels" were ge tting some attention, they'd stick six
issues of whatever worthless piece of crap they happened to be publishing
lately under a glossy cover and call it The She-Hulk Graphic Novel, you
know?” --From interview with Barry Kavanagh, 17 Oct. 2000
Source: http://www.blather.net/articles/amoore/northampton.html