Nothing is impossible for an engineer - Watchmen

04:02 pm - Watchmen

I went to see Watchmen last night [Hurrah for Orange Wednesdays]. I thought it was great, which was good, seeing as I've been waiting 20 years for that film! As Jonathan Ross noted in his review, it's not often you get to sit in a cinema and feel a warm fuzzy glow as you watch a film made just for you.

Y'see, I'm an old 80s comic fanboy. I dug out my copy of Watchmen for a re-read. Here's my copy:



A 12 issue limited series published 'monthly' by DC in 1986 to 1987. Although 'monthly' got rather stretched towards the end when the whole thing fell behind schedule.

Most were bought from the long defunct Zap Comics, somewhere in a grotty cellar behind the Silver Arcade in Leicester. It was "Non Distributed" in the UK, so all copies were air-freighted in, and you paid a premium price. I have a vague recollection that one issue's distribution was delayed, as the whole DC consignment for that month got stopped by Customs, due to some dodgy imagery in another comic possibly falling foul of UK obscenity laws at that time.

Obviously, I've got many of the other iconic DC comics of that era: Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Sandman, V for Vendetta, etc. The only gaping gap in my collection is that I failed to be on-the-case with The Dark Knight Returns, and I don't have that in its original four issue form. I've also got most of the run of The Question that started in 1987. This was the Charlton character that Alan Moore was originally going to use in Watchmen, who eventually mutated into Rorschach. In issue 17 of The Question the title character actually reads the graphic novel of Watchmen and notes the similarity between himself and Rorscharch.

I never bought Marvel, and to this day I have a curious anti-Marvel affectation. I've not seen the X-Men, Spiderman or Fantastic Four films, as they're from "the rival company".