The Onion’s A.V. Club provides a primer to the works of Alan Moore, touching upon everything from Watchmen and Top 10 to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and A Small Killing:
… while Watchmen’s characters and plot have become less radical over time—either because they’ve been copied so much, or because they were thin and derivative to begin with—the structure and sophistication of the book’s storytelling remain every bit as thrilling now as they were 20 years ago. Dave Gibbons’ insanely detailed art finds visual rhymes and thematic connections that even Moore didn’t know he’d implied, and Moore’s method of stopping the action in order to look deeper into what a character is reading, as well as his devoting whole chapters to some heroes’ convoluted backstories (complete with frenetic time-jumps, in the case of the omni-powerful Dr. Manhattan) has influenced a generation of geek art, right up to the current ABC hit Lost. The immediate impact of Watchmen was a wave of violent, ugly, and stupid superhero comics. The long-term impact has been much more resounding.
The feature ends with a rundown of essential Moore stories, as well as a “Demerits” section, looking at some of the writer’s “wrong turns.”
March 7th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I must admit that I often neglect to mention Dave Gibbons’ invaluable contribution to Watchmen when talking about it. I’m glad the article makes a point to offer Gibbons his due credit.