Graphic novel survives test of own success

Photo by Courtesy Warner Bros., Courtesy Warner Bros.

''Watchmen" was the only graphic work in Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 on.

Published by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987 as a 12-issue "limited series" comic book before being re-released in graphic novel form, "Watchmen," written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, is to superhero comics what the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is to rock and roll: a genre-redefining masterpiece-by-acclamation that may have done as much harm to its medium as good.

Photo by Courtesy Warner Bros.

''Watchmen" was the only graphic work in Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 on.

Just as the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" inaugurated an era of pretentious and self-indulgent -- if occasionally wonderful -- rock "concept" albums, "Watchmen" encouraged comic book creators to abandon the snappy storytelling, pop grandeur and truth-and-justice optimism of previous superhero cycles for a dense, self-consciously literary narrative style and a dark, dystopian world view.

In this world, masked adventurers and costumed vigilantes were depicted as the neurotics, fetishists and fascists they likely would be in real life. Increasingly, comic books became aimed at adults, with kids -- the audience that had kept the industry alive for decades -- an afterthought: the innocents caught in the bloody, revisionist crossfire. These were comics for fans of William S., not Edgar Rice Burroughs.

But just as bad "Pepper" imitations couldn't diminish the Beatles' achievement, gritty "Watchmen" wannabes didn't injure the graphic novel's reputation, especially in the mainstream press, which is always eager to establish its hip bona fides. In 2006, "Watchmen" became the only graphic novel included on Time magazine's list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present"; last year, Entertainment Weekly named "Watchmen" one of the best 50 novels of the past 25 years.

Clocking in at an epic 162 minutes (that's only 13 minutes shorter than "The Godfather"), "Watchmen" the movie seeks to be worthy of such acclaim while also pleasing the increasingly influential and vocal comic book fanboy fan base and a vast movie-going public that loved Spider-Man, Iron Man and Batman but doesn't know "Watchmen" from the Wonder Twins.

For the most part, the film is slavishly faithful to the comic book; long chunks of dialogue -- including interior monologues -- are lifted verbatim from Moore, and Gibbons' comic panels essentially served as storyboards for some scenes. On one level, the filmmakers' achievement is monumental; yet even with a $150 million budget, the visuals aren't as inspiring as Gibbons' pencil-and-ink graphics. For example, the scenes on Mars in the comic book are stunning; onscreen, the Martian landscapes are dull -- washed-out and unreal, as if the digital-effects artists couldn't meet the movie's release-date deadline.

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