Reviewing this particular graphic novel is tough.  It’s so famous and acclaimed that a lot of reviews, essays and poorly spelled praises have already been written about it.  There are also the rules that surround it.

1. When reading Watchmen, restrict to one chapter a night.

2. When telling someone who hasn’t read Watchmen about it, you can’t give away any real information.

I overlooked this seminal text because all I’d heard was ‘it’s a superhero novel, but it’s *really* not’ and that didn’t sound very exciting.  When I did get around to it I was blown away.  Alan Moore is one of the genius writers currently working in the world, and this is his masterpiece.  Rorschack is one of the best rounded and defined characters in any graphic novel.  Moore is never afraid to get ugly and Watchmen is doubly powerful because he doesn’t pull the punches or cut the corners.  I could go on.

To say how good this is without giving anything away, let’s look to the film…

Scheduled to release in March 09, the script has been under more scrutiny than the Akira live-action that has been kicked around for a decade but no one dares to actually film.  Akira was the first anime film to break into the western film market.  Watchmen revolutionised a genre and got a solid nod from The Times, whom are rather difficult to please.  The film is going to be roughly 3 hours long, and not due to special-effects-piled-high fight scenes are fight scenes to justify the vertical admission price and the cost of making it, but because it has to be.  Like Lord of the Rings, it really isn’t about the fights.  In fact, there is very little in the way of physical conflict in the film.  It opens with a murder and at the end, well, it’ll be interesting to see it filmed.

The story is interjected with pieces of prose not directly linked but crucially relevant to the main, and allegedly these are to be filmed and released on DVD before the film premiers.  They really are doing this right.

Film adaptations are never as good as the book.  Given how much lavish time and care is being spent on this to get it right, how good do you reckon the book is?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 9:39 am and is filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.