Issue #48: Comic Books For the Week Of Wednesday, March 11, 2009 & I Watched Watchmen!

Action Comics #875 (DC)
Top 10: Season 2 (America's Best Comics / DC)

I was unable to get to my comic book store, Acme Comics & Collectibles ( http://acme-superstore.com ) because I was covering for a co-worker on vacation. I will have to wait until payday to have another opportunity.

For this issue I will fill this space with y review of the film Wathcmen.

I saw it on Saturday, March 7, 2009, on opening weekend. Unfortunately my local theater did not have a midnight showing on midnight Thursday. I attended the first Saturday show at 11:30 a. m.

The opening credits were a clever way to work in the 1940's heroes into the film. Overall, I found this movie an excellent and faithful adaption of the comic book mini-series. The movie did not flinch from the violence suggested in the comic book. The violence and the sex scene in the Owlship made this a hard R-rated super hero movie, the most adult super hero movie I've seen. The film fleshed out the characters and contained as much of the basic plot as could be squeezed into the time frame. The change in the major climax from the comic book to the movie worked for me. It seemed to tie the climax closer into the main characters.

Having read the collected edition of this mini-series over the years, after seeing the movie, I was impressed for the first time how limited film can be in telling a story. Wathcmen the comic book was able to tell the story with a depth that can be difficult to bring to a movie adaption. This is why it has taken so long to bring a movie adaption to the big screen. Alan Moore, the writer himself, has said that he took the storytelling techniques exclusive to comics to tell his story, techniques that do not easily translate to film. The only downer about the viewing experience was that I was so familiar with the story, the thrill of seeing the story unfold before my eyes for the first time was lost. It wsa replaced for the most part by the joy of seeing panels and pages from the mini-series brought to the screen in minute detail. The devotion to the Watchmen story was apparent. Even though the costumes were changed, some drastically from their comic book originals, each super hero character was instantly recognizable in the photos released months before the film's release. The two characters whose costumes changed the least were Rorschach and the Comedian, the story's two most dark and grim characters.

When I can fit it into my budget I will buy the DVD The Black Freighter / Under The Hood, and when the deluxe, director's cut of Watchmen is released on DVD, that is the edition I will wait for. The movie is not the mini-series, but it is great enough to warrant multiple viewings. I can't wait until I can sit in my recliner with a big bowl of popcorn to watch Watchmen in the comfort of home.

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