Kevin's Watch

Zarathustra wrote: I think that fantasy fans and comic book fans have always felt like they need to justify their fanaticism, because they can see the epic nature of their favored genre, but this genre is still scorned by "serious" literature elites.

Rigel wrote: I think many fans feel the need to justify their fanaticism because the object of their affection is legitimately immature, superficial, and absurd.

Rigel wrote:Not all comic books are like this, of course, but the vast majority seem to be.

Murrin wrote:Watchmen, however, is not an attempt to justify the superhero genre by making it "gritty" and "realistic". It's a criticism and deconstruction of the genre for the very flaws you point out.

Murrin wrote:I'm not sure how that's a valid response to what I said, Malik. I was pointing out that Watchmen isn't a failed attempt to defend or justify the genre, it's a deliberate criticism of the genre. You respond by repeating that attempts to defend or justify the genre fail. Said response takes as its starting point the assumption that Watchmen is an attempt to defend the genre... and that's where we would start arguing in circles if I continued.

Moore used the story as a means to reflect contemporary anxieties and to critique the superhero concept.
....With Watchmen, Alan Moore's intention was to create four or five "radically opposing ways" to perceive the world and to give readers of the story the privilege of determining which one was most morally comprehensible. Moore did not believe in the notion of "[cramming] regurgitated morals" down the readers' throats and instead sought to show heroes in an ambivalent light. Moore said, "What we wanted to do was show all of these people, warts and all. Show that even the worst of them had something going for them, and even the best of them had their flaws."
...The initial premise for the series was to examine what superheroes would be like "in a credible, real world". As the story became more complex, Moore said Watchmen became about "power and about the idea of the superman manifest within society."[35] The title of the series refers to the question "Who watches the watchmen?", although Moore said in a 1986 interview with Amazing Heroes he did not know where that sentence originated.[36] After reading the interview, author Harlan Ellison informed Moore that the sentence is a translation of the question "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", posed by the Roman satirist Juvenal. Moore commented in 1987, "In the context of Watchmen, that fits. 'They're watching out for us, who's watching out for them?'"[3] The writer stated in the introduction to the Graphitti hardcover of Watchmen that while writing the series he was able to purge himself of his nostalgia for superheroes, and instead he found an interest in real human beings.[1]
Bradford Wright described Watchmen as "Moore's obituary for the concept of heroes in general and superheroes in particular."[17] Putting the story in a contemporary sociological context, Wright wrote that the characters of Watchmen were Moore's "admonition to those who trusted in 'heroes' and leaders to guard the world's fate." He added that to place faith in such icons was to give up personal responsibility to "the Reagans, Thatchers, and other 'Watchmen' of the world who supposed to 'rescue' us and perhaps lay waste to the planet in the process".[37] Moore specifically stated in 1986 that he was writing Watchmen to be "not anti-Americanism, [but] anti-Reaganism," specifically believing that "at the moment a certain part of Reagan's America isn't scared. They think they're invulnerable."[3] While Moore wanted to write about "power politics" and the "worrying" times he lived in, he stated the reason that the story was set in an alternate reality was because he was worried that readers would "switch off" if he attacked a leader they admired.[4] Moore stated in 1986 that he "was consciously trying to do something that would make people feel uneasy."