The trailer for Watchmen — adapted from the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons — was released last month. On the surface level, it's a whodunit murder mystery. On a deeper level, it's a statement that superheroes couldn't work in the real world. Some of those insights were told in a humorous fashion in The Incredibles.

The trailer was positively-received at this year's San Diego ComicCon. Some of the love was from Zack Snyder's faithful adaptation of 300; most came from fan appreciation of the source material. For instance, if you're old enough to remember the actual Muhammad Ali, the Michael Mann film "Ali" was nothing more than Will Smith pretending to be Muhammad Ali (at 10 years old, I did the same thing for a lot less money.)

The film won't be in theatres until next year. This trailer has what appears to be an error (Nite Owl II looks too buff), questionable casting decisions (see Age of Characters chart) and costumes (Ozymandias learned nothing from Joel Schumacher). At the risk of sounding like Rorschach, it makes one wonder what other subtleties got missed.

To be fair, the characters age at least 20 years, so it was probably cheaper to make young actors look old than making older actors look young.

Readers under 30 years old might not understand the graphic novel's effect on the industry and fans, and probably wonder what all the fuss is about. I feel the same way about The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

It's easy to say "people were dumber back then" or "guess you just had to be there". While there's an element of truth in both statements, it's more constructive to define context by understanding the era as best as possible. Much like backing away from the Water Lillies, the picture becomes much clearer. This is the same methodology high school students use to understand Shakespeare.

All in Color for a Dime

During the industry's infancy (1939 - 1962), comics were thought of as a commercial, disposable extension of Children's Fiction. The editorial voice was "adults telling stories to children". There were lots of genres to choose from. Publishers survived by (a) paying talent as little as possible and (b) following market trends. Can you imagine running a business based on the whims of teenagers? If you can't, here's pretty much what happened back then:

• January: Company A publishes a western comic that turns out to be a hit
• February: Company A publishes 5 imitations of that same western comic
• March: Companies B-Z flood the market with imitations of the popular western comic
• April: Everyone is sick of western comics. Company B publishes a crime comic that turns out to be a hit ...

The Fantastic Four were introduced in 1961. While proving innovative superhero fiction had short-and long-term profitability, this effectively killed off all other genres. The Big Two still published a few western and romance comics. However, they used second- and third-string talent, dooming the mission before it started. To this day, it's impossible to tell if other genres would've survived. Mainstream non-superhero books were as credible as the dreaded 49ers running game.

By the early 1970s, the talent pool began to change. In my opinion, this is when mainstream comics lost their roots. Kids were expected to outgrow comics by high school. With Marvel's popularity — like Apple Computer's aura of "coolness", kept a market base longer than originally intended. The previous era's professionals were getting replaced by young adult fans. The new editorial voice became "arrested adolescents telling stories to other arrested adolescents".

As an actual adolescent and Marvel Comics enthusiast at the time, I thought this was a brilliant approach. I said so in my high school book report on "Origins of Marvel Comics". Citing the book as my only source, my report didn't grade very highly.

Notes from The Underground

Running parallel to this was the underground comics movement. Rebel cartoonists made uncensored personal stories, with emphasis on drugs, Jimi Hendrix, sex, violence, contempt for social conformity and distrust of the government. There weren't a lot of Nixon/Agnew supporters buying Zap Comix.

Like rebels of other mediums, the underground stretched boundaries of the possible into the probable. Some mainstream creators got so interested in boundary-pushing they lost sight of the superhero genre's larger goals.

By 1980, mainstream superhero comics were formulaic, script-heavy and predictable, but still profitable. Editors treated researching anything but other comics as a waste of time. Adolescent emotions were presented as adult thought. With some notable exceptions, the underground market and influence was reduced to Golden Gate Park.

Art School Confidential

1980 was also my first year of art school Being in an environment dedicated to Art was an important developmental step for me. History, literature and painting slowly became more interesting than whatever Chris Claremont was babbling on about. I still loved the art form, but began to hate seeing it used badly. When compared to older works (Windsor McCay, Milton Caniff, Alex Toth, Noel Sickles, lots more), the 1980s mainstream comics were soul-less, hacked-out reminders of better work.

As my 1986 graduation approached, I almost exclusively bought works by my favorite artists and writers. Consistent with the dynamic of reading two children's books per day for six years, the good ones stand out. In other words, Watchmen came out at the perfect time.

Burn Hollywood, Burn

Alan Moore: Blending in

Like lots of creative souls, Alan Moore's always had a complicated relationship with management. Creative and management need each other to survive, but sometimes it's like neither one's learned a thing from "The Defiant Ones". At times, it seems his public actions were solely crafted to irritate publishers. In the manner of "just 'cause someone's crazy doesn't mean they're wrong", he has a strong point when it comes to Hollywood adaptations of his works. "V for Vendetta", "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and "From Hell" were distorted beyond recognition. If Alan were more of a personable guy, could he have worked with the producers to make better movies? We'll never know. Based on current history, the odds don't look good. Frank Miller was as pro-active as possible on RoboCop 2, and it still sucked. (Can you imagine Irvin Kershner's misery of listening to Miller yap about character development?)

At first, I thought Mr. Moore's stance on movie adaptions of his work was refreshingly hands-off. If I were lucky enough to be in the position of adapting a popular work from a living author, I'd need complete autonomy in order to succeed or fail.

Then it hit me: Alan Moore is a public isolationist. A true isolationist is never in the public eye. When's the last time anyone heard from Salinger? On the other hand, Alan Moore will talk about his isolationism to anyone with a working microphone. It's worth noting that Entertainment Weekly, The Onion and MTV mention how "rare" his interviews are.

Does this mean the graphic novel is perfect? No. The portrayal of professional psychoanalysis is embarrassing. Moore himself said his segue technique became a burden; using unnatural dialog to make the transitions work.

Despite of zealous fan complaints, it is possible to make a decent movie from comic books without being 100% literal. Spider-Man, Iron Man and Batman immediately come to mind.

Inna Final Analysis

So, What Did We Learn Today?

• Watchmen is a terrific graphic novel (especially for those who hate superhero comic books)
• I was a terrible high school student
• Superheroes have lived way past their 15 minutes
• I was a brilliant art student
• Alan Moore is a chatty isolationist
• Filmmakers need complete automony in order to produce
• Statistically spaeaking, most filmmakers use that automony to make terrible movies

Oh yeah, there are worse things in life than sitting through a terrible movie.

Labels: Essay

Posted by Dave M! on Sunday, September 14, 2008 at 1:08 AM
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