Kevin's Watch

Arguably, the best thing that the world of comic books has ever produced is a twelve-issue series called Watchmen. In it is a character named Rorschach. We learn his origin in issue #6. He was trying to rescue a little girl who had been kidnapped. When he found the kidnapper’s house, he found out that the girl had been killed, butchered, and fed to the dogs. Rorschach handcuffed the man to a pipe, and set the house on fire. He left a saw with the man, but told him that he’d never be able to cut through the cuffs in time. Implying that, if he wanted to live, he’d have to cut his own hand off. Then he went outside to watch the scene. Here's how he describes that moment:

Stood in firelight, sweltering. Blood stain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night. Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever, and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion, bear children, hellbound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else. Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach.

Is Rorschach the most happenin' guy out there, or what!!!

Rorschach - isn't that the test they give you with the ink blots?

Yep. Same test.

About the handsaw (nyuk nyuk) bit, I have to point out, the very same thing was done in Mad Max.

Watchmen was an excellent comic (I kliked Dr. Manhattan) but my favorite still has to be the Dark Knight Returns by Moore and Miller. That one got my adrenaline really pumping!

I agree that Dark Knight is another that is possibly the best comic ever. But I don't think Moore had anything to do with it. Miller/Varley, iirc.

Yeah Vain, as Sylvanus says, same name as the guy who invented the ink blot tests. That's why the character gave himself that name. "Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose." Exactly what the ink blot tests are.

Also what children are. Somebody looks at your kid and says, "Oh, she looks like X." The next person says, "Oh, she looks liky Y." They interpret the baby the way they want to, based as much on their own wants, needs, etc, as what the baby actually looks like.

I really used to enjoy the Judge Dredd comics way back when. It always amazed me just how much detail could be included in what was essentially a disposable commodity

Dispo...!!!

Blasphemer!!! Infidel!!! (Dare I say it?) Outcast!!!!

(Sorry. I get a little crazy when people talk about throwing away comic books. )

Dead on Fist. Miller and Varley. BTW Akira is another great graphic novel if you haven't had a chance to read it.

two words - Dominatrix Faeries

Fist and Faith wrote:Dispo...!!!

Blasphemer!!! Infidel!!! (Dare I say it?) Outcast!!!!

(Sorry. I get a little crazy when people talk about throwing away comic books. )

*LOL* I knew soon after I typed it that there was something amiss. But to be honest, in the days I bought comics, that's what I ended up doing with them. My brains were on vacation

I began reading comics with Daredevil, between the time Frank Miller started drawing it, and when he took over writing it. His first issue writing (At least the first one he's listed as the writer. His influence is clear before.) was the world's introduction to Elektra. The characters that he created along with her - The Hand and The Chaste (Stick rules! ) - and the stories of his first run on the title are another one of the very highest points of comic history. He didn't create Bullseye or the Kingpin, but he made them what they are in these issues.

With that as my introduction to comics, it should come as no surprise that I did not throw my comics away.

The days when I bought a lot of comics are long gone, for although I may be buying just as much of them now I do not really care that much for most of them any more.

But looking at my bookshelf for some of the things that I have considered worthy of space there and not packed away I see the following:

The Complete Lone Wolf & Cub, arguably the greatest japanese comic ever. (Not that I read a lot of those.)
The collected watchmen!!
The collected Usagi Yojimbo.
The Three Geeks.
A small number of Calvin and Hobbes collections.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the first) also Moore.
Preacher: Almost everything.
The Foxtrot collections.
Hal Fosters Prince Valiant, norwegian translation.
The first Elfquest books.
And Howard Chaykin's Power and Glory, as good a superhero irony as any I have seen.

So, anybody else like any of these? I would recommend them all but they are very different.

Go Kingpin! He's just as good with DD as he was with Spider-Man!!

the only comic book I've read in years is one of the Sandman books, and I really enjoyed it! I might read some of the Preacher books, too, I've heard that they are also very good.

I just went to the comic store, and they have Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon comics!!! Not a movie adaptation, but I guess continuing adventures. There were three volumes, at $15 each. They're the thick, small comics. The art looks pretty fantastic! No idea about the story yet, but the first few pages (I'm not home now. Had to leave) were certainly good enough. Two sneaky guys were stealing the Green Destiny sword, much like the girl at the beginning of the movie, and they were being chased by a guy who studied different disciplines. His speed and strength were ripping up the floors and stairs he was running on.

And here's another comic I think everyone should know about. lol

300 is written and drawn by Frank Miller, who most consider to be among the greatest talents who ever worked in the field. 300 is not remotely a super-hero type of thing. It is Miller's telling of the Battle of Thermopylae. In 480 BC, a huge Persian army was held off by a small Greek army at a pass called Thermopylae. After a traitor told the Persians of an alternate route that would let them attack the Greeks from the rear, 300 Spartans stayed and fought to the death so that the rest of the Greek army could get away.

So here's a couple of my favorite moments from the comic. When the soldiers from various Greek city-states finally meet up with the Spartans, led by their king, Leonidas, they are a bit taken aback that there are so few Spartans. Lots of mutterings of "Damn!" "Can't be more than a few hundred of them!" etc. Then this:

"We expected Sparta's commitment to at least match our own!"

Leonidas: "Doesn't it? You there - Arcadian - what is your profession?"

"I am a potter, sir."

Leonidas: "And you, Arcadian. What is your profession?"

"A sculptor, sir."

Leonidas: "And you?"

"A blacksmith."

Leonidas: "You."

"A baker."

Leonidas: "Spartans! What is your profession?"

(A sea of spears raises into the air.)

Leonidas: "You see, old friend? I brought more soldiers than you did."

And after lots of fighting, with the Persian's not kicking butt as they expected to, the Persian king, Xerxes, meets with Leonidas:

Xerxes: "Leonidas. Let us reason together. It would be a regrettable waste - it would be nothing short of madness - were you and your valiant troops to perish, all because of a simple, avoidable misunderstanding."

Leonidas: "Don't lose sleep worrying over us. We're having the time of our lives."

Xerxes: "Brave words. Spartan words. Yours is a fascinating tribe. There is much our cultures could share."

Leonidas: "We've been sharing our culture with you all morning."

LOVE that last line!!!

O.K., you guys are talking about possibily one of my favorite subjects in the WHOLE WORLD!!!! Second only to the immortal Chronicles,of course!

And i think you all have great taste!

Allow me to recomend the trully awesome Transmetropolitan series to you all - very original, very unique, very very disturbing

And Miller rocks! The SinCity series is brilliant! (When i grow up, i want to be an unstppable jugernaught just like Marv... )
If you like scenes of graphic revenge, F&F, try the first SinCity novella; heres a quote from it:

I don't know why you died, Goldie.
I don't know why and i don't know how and hell i never even met you before tonight but you were a friend and more when i needed one and when i find out who did it it won't be quick and quiet like it was with you. No, it'll be loud and nasty, my kind of kill. I’ll stare the bastard in the face and laugh as he screams to God and I’ll laugh harder when he whimpers like a baby. And when his eyes go dead the hell I send him to will seem like heaven after what I’ve done to him.
I love you Goldie.

Yet Leonidas and the Spartans were defeated by the Persians. Herodotus is a very untrustworthy source. I'd take his words with a grain of salt.

Yes, the Spartans did lose, in history as well as in the comic.

Earthfriend! Another comic lover! Oddly enough, I missed Sin City entirely. I didn't know about it until it had been going on for quite some time. Great quote there!! But I have all of Miller's Batman, Daredevil and/or Elektra, Ronin, 300... What else?

Alan Moore is huge on my list too. Watchmen, V For Vendetta, Swamp Thing. Didn't try his Supreme though. Maybe I'll get back to that one day.

Ostrander is awesome too. Suicide Squad, Firestorm, Hawkman.

Nobody does cosmic like Starlin! Captain Marvel, Dreadstar, and a lot of the Infinity Gauntlet stuff before he took it too far. But The Thanos Quest is among my favorite things.

I'm an absolute encyclopedia on Iron Fist, and I love martial arts comics in general. Shang Chi rocks! And Lady Shiva is always good for a laugh.