Who Watches The Watchmen?
I am not your classic comic-book fan.
I used to buy comics as mere picture and text… visual nourishment in an era of boredom, when I would stay with friends or family while my mother finished her college education. But that hobby was soon abandoned. More often than not, I had no idea what I was reading, so it was easy to leave it by the wayside.
Years later, still young, I was taken to a book sale. I drifted out from under my parents’ wing, and went perusing on my own. I loved to read, but I really didn’t intend to get anything. But then I saw it.
A curious comic with a even more curious character. Scud: The Disposable Assassin. I must’ve been 12, or so… my parents bought it for me, when perhaps they shouldn’t have, but it happened— I was changed. Thrust wildly into a world of the surreal, the obscene, and the incredible. I took it to school and subjected others’ to my vice, like some sort of smuggled treasure.
I never got into the comic versions of the great superheroes. Batman, X-Men, Spiderman… too much to take in. So many books, a massive universe, a billion different retractions and parallel storylines. But Scud… Scud stuck with me. Over the years, I collected all the issues, several printings, and spin-off comics. It was much easier for me than to try and dive into the middle of an ocean of another name.
That is something I really enjoyed.
My personality is one that is absorptive. When something grips me, I want to know everything about it. I want to immerse myself in it’s universe and become Laplace’s Demon— I want to know where every last atom rests. A small run book makes that much easier, and in the end, more enjoyable for me.
That never left me.
As such, I have become a great fan of small-run comic books. One-shots and miniseries and the like. I’ve been taught of some incredible gems in this manner— We3, Gravity, Perhapanauts. But that also meant I missed out on a great deal of the larger things in the comic world.
Being told great things of Watchmen growing up, I put it on my “list”, which meant I was interested, but not enough to go and get it. What a mistake. My friends who are similarly comic-entertained informed me of the great transgression I had made. That, and the impending movie adaptation of Watchmen finally coaxed me to go out and buy the thing.
I’m so glad I did, and I’m honestly kicking myself for not having gone out back in the mid-80s and bought it when it was first release. YES, I would have only been about 2 years old at the time… but it’s really not an excuse.
I’m not even finished, but I can’t help but to sing it’s praises. It’s timeless in a particular way. Like… Jaws is timeless; but when I saw it, I’d already seen everything that was inspired by it, and it’d been much too long… and much of it’s thunder was robbed. But Watchmen is a different beast.
Although I’ve seen so very much of what Watchmen has wrought on this world since it’s creation; even though it’s been about 20 years since it’s release… I find it incredibly engaging, and curiously still relevant. It’s amazing to me.
My favorite character in the book is Rorschach, which isn’t hard to believe, as he’s quite the fan favorite. He’s like a super-detective, with an incredible backstory and psychological profile (much like most of the characters in the book) and he’s incredibly gripping.
I just recently bought a laptop with the understanding that I’d use it to do graphic design work when I went back to Atlanta or on other trips. Being so enrapt in the universe of the Watchmen, and loving Rorschach so, I decided to make something on my laptop… for my new laptop.
Yellow is an iconic color for Watchmen, so I made that the beginnings of my canvas. I took one of the various ink blot patterns off Rorschach’s mask and made that my center, then replicated it several times and distorted it to make layers in the background— to make it a bit more dynamic. The colors of those shapes are the colors that make up Rorschach’s “costume”… brown trenchcoat and fedora, purple pinstripe pants and hat trim, white scarf and mask and of course, red blood- often not his.
The odd script beneath the inkblot is Rorschach’s signature, something he often leaves his friends or foes on his notes. The red blood drip is also iconic for Watchmen, adorning the cover and the start point for the comic’s plotline.
I’ve read a few books, some comics… plenty of movies I’ve watched and tales I’ve been told. But Rorschach, like Scud, has made my leisure time that much more of a pleasure when I’m able to drift away into their worlds.
~LX will always be a kid at heart. A near-psychotic, near-psychotropic, near-psychadelic kid… but a kid nonetheless.
