Why Watchmen Works
Inspired by recent discussion, particularly over at Dirk's blog. (You know, Journalista!, which you're reading because he delivers the goods in an entertaining fashion on a daily basis.)
Why WATCHMEN works:
1) Story. Really, that's the be-all, end-all of this. Yes, there's issues with the ending. But you didn't care when you were reading it. You didn't care after the year long wait for the final issue. You wanted to see the story concluded, and it did in a way that wasn't particularly more improbable than Dr. Manhattan or Rorschach seeing out of his opaque mask.
2) Storytelling in the medium. Moore and Gibbons didn't hold you by the hand and explain everything away in text boxes. The action on the page unfolded in an almost cinematic way that demanded attention. Moore didn't use text to explain that one side of the Comedian's closet was shorter than the other and therefore Rorshach knew to look for a secret compartment and discover that the murder victim was more than he appeared. Both artists laid it out on the page and let the pictures do the heavy lifting (though to be sure, WATCHMEN is fairly wordy by today's standards, but was sparsely worded by the expectations of 1986, much less 1976.) And that's just the merest example.
3) A mature take on superheroics. Moore's treatment of superheroes was politically mature, moreso than could be accomplished in mainstream superhero books (by and large, given that these books depended on a world where superheroes could run rampant without governmental interference.) It feels like the way that superheroes would have to be treated in today's world (and still compares far better than other, more recent examples of trying to explore the same themes.) It didn't flinch away from adult material, either, and it did so in a non-exploitative fashion (though there's still argument about Moore's treatment of the original Silk Spectre).
4) Artistry, both in the text and in the graphic delivery. Look at any page and you'll see that.
Unfortunately, WATCHMEN was so much a bombshell in the industry that it became an easy mark for pilfering if not wholesale looting. Usually, the wrong things were interpreted as reasons for WATCHMEN's success. Among them:
1) The 9-panel grid. WATCHMEN didn't succeed because of the grid. But still, some folks took that as a designator of quality and ran with it.
2) Dark superheroics. WATCHMEN didn't succeed simply because the superheroes were dark and human and confused. That may have been the main source of appeal in the comics reading marketplace, and it may bet the single most copied trait of WATCHMEN. However, equating bloody decaptiations and limb-ripping with dark superheroics and therefore more mature material is a legacy that's still plaguing mainstream superhero books today.
3) Text pieces. Overbearing text pieces. Text pieces that are there to show how smart the creators are. The text chapters in WATCHMEN filled out some details and illuminated some dark corners. They were not essential to the enjoyment of the story. These can be handled well, usually to give a feel of the period through design/media, but more often than not, they're a distraction or just plain not good.
4) First-person psychotic narratives. Yeah, DARK KNIGHT started it, but WATCHMEN made it seemingly mandatory. Okay, maybe not entirely fair, Wolverine has been doing that since the 70s, but it sure seemed like there were a whole lotta crazy vigilantes speaking in psychobabble through the 90s.
5) Revamping abandoned properties and making them mean. WATCHMEN broke the dam on that one and still it continues. Sure, some are done well. But not a whole lot.
Hmm. The above seems maddeningly incomplete. Perhaps I'll revisit it in a bit. But that's all the time for today, kids.