My piratical colleague Pete lent me his copy of Watchmen, the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons comic, to demonstrate its similarity to the TV show Heroes, or rather vice versa. This similarity is the attempt by some of the characters to capitalise on the destruction of New York to supposedly save the world.
Watchmen is pretty good. Especially that giant blue naked guy! The comic has dated somewhat, if only because the bleak comic book revisionism spawned by Watchmen and other mid-80s comics is now the standard, so it can feel a bit 'yeah, and?'. All the same, the sum of its parts is comfortably brilliant.
So that's all good. As for the Heroes comparison, well, yes... That said, the only things Heroes borrowed from the Watchmen were the concepts 'New York', and 'kill a lot of people to save a lot of people'. Otherwise the two are quite different. Well, as different as you can be within the fairly narrow world of superhero convention.
It's also interesting comparing Watchmen with the Nausicaa manga, the only other 'graphic novel' I've read. The two are completely cheesechalk. Because Watchmen contains fewer fantasy elements (aside from the aforementioned big blue naked guy), it scores points on the 'relevancy and realism' front. Nausicaa's straightforward earnestness (a factor I've noticed in other anime and even Kurosawa's films) comes off feeling more naive and less sophisticated, but its grand theme of humanity's relationship with the environment is probably more enduring than Watchmen's paranoid rantings about the failings of the 20th Century.
As for Heroes, well the first season is complete over in the US (and for illegal downloaders the world over), and overall it held up well. Compared to the Watchmen, however, Heroes is fairly lightweight (although to be fair this is US TV - so it would be more appropriate to compare Heroes with Lois and Clark or Smallville). Heroes is pretty good when it's fun, or when doing the shock/horror thing (eg sawing off the tops of people's heads, and killing off important characters). It doesn't do ultimate confrontations and climaxes so well. Or Profound Moments of Extreme Gravity. The silliness kind of becomes exponential!
I can't imagine the second season will have anything as crazy cool as Watchmen's Rorschach and his groovy mask, but given this horrendous tie worn by actor Zachary Quinto (he plays psycho-killer Sylar) at the Heroes wrap party, who knows?
Posted by stuart at June 2, 2007 7:14 PM
Watchmen was cool and perhaps a highmark in English language comicbooks. I am convinced there is more to say in comicbooks, but these days it is mostly done in Japan and Europe (non-English speaking...). They have remembered the importance of the mass market while still producing comics that are engaging and sometimes quite intelligent.
Coincidentally I just re-read Watchmen for the first time in over 10 years. I thought it was possibly the best graphic novel I've ever read.
Posted by: adrien at June 28, 2007 10:03 AM