Watchmen

In the graphic novel watchmen, it is interesting to learn about it as a metaphor for the turmoil that was happening at the time around Alan Moore.  After hearing his words and opinions on the novel and his life, it completely changed my mind on this story.  I started relating it back to Orson Well’s 1984.  They were both dystopian stories set in the 1980’s.   I think my first encounter with watchmen was watching the movie back in high school.  It was really the first graphic novel to movie adaptation that left me feeling not happy.  I don’t mean it was not a great story line.  I thought the movie was well done, but the idea of the hero was completely changed in my mind. 

With this comic, it is important to do some research about Alan Moore and the surrounding situations in the political arena in real life.  It was a graphically intriguing comic.  The illustrations were well executed, just like the story line.  It was different.  The outcast superhero is such a backwards concept, especially because the traditional thought on superheroes is that they uphold the law.  Compositionally, I thought Alan Moore is very successful because if you look at the images individually they are photographically composed.  The rule of thirds was employed often and there was a kind of symmetry that I can appreciate.  The lighting employed is very much like a dramatic lighting style that I use often in my work, so it felt very natural and well executed.