Watchmen
Alan Moore, writer; Dave Gibbons, artist ; John Higgins, colorist
Date: 1986
Pages: Varies
Genre: Fiction
I am just wrapping up a five-week intensive graphic novels course for my master’s, and it was a wild ride. Starting out, I was terrified. I had never read a graphic novel before in my life, but all of my classmates were nuts for them. Watchmen was a hell of a place to start for me. Over anything else, it proved to me that comics – yes, comics – really can have intellectual and philosophical value. In fact, I would say that this was one of the most cognitively stimulating works of fiction I have ever pored over.
Follow the lives, relationships and tough choices of a few vigilante outcasts struggling with the most horrific aspects of our arguably “broken” world. Entrench yourself in the intensely disturbed mindset of “the real-life hero” and prepare to have all of your concepts of right and wrong smashed to pieces in the most grotesque and graphic ways possible. Experience this novel, and challenge yourself to reassemble some concept of reality.
Also, I would advise you to keep one of my favorite quotes ever in mind while reading. It’s by Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird:
(Courage) “It’s when you know that you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”
What, and who, is a real hero?
Inga Cullen
Concord Public Library
Visit CPL at concordpubliclibrary.net.
