About

Watchmen is a comic book series published by DC Comics and written by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins, which follows the lives of costumed vigilantes living in an alternate reality version of the United States during the 1980s.

Plot

After the murder of Edward Blake, a costumed superhero known as "The Comedian," the vigilante Rorschach begins an investigation of the murder and contacts former superheroes Dan Dreiberg ("Nite Owl"), Jon Osterman ("Doctor Manhattan"), Laurie Juspeczyk ("Silk Spectre") and Adrian Veidt ("Ozymandias").

History

In September 1986, Watchmen was first published by DC Comics as part of a 12-issue miniseries, released monthly until October 1987. That year, DC Comics released a trade paperback graphic novel collecting all 12 issues.

Film Adaptation

On February 23rd, 2009, a feature-length film adaptation of the series directed by Zack Snyder was released, which starred Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II, Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorscach, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian and Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl.

Online Presence

On July 24th, 2008, the Watcmen Wiki^[7] was launched, which gathered upwards of 300 pages over the next seven years. On November 15th, the /r/Watchmen^[6] subreddit was launched for discussions about the comic series. On March 4th, 2009, YouTuber Oren Kaplan uploaded a Watchmen parody mimicking the television sitcom Two and a Half Men (shown below, left). On the following day, YouTuber Harry Partridge uploaded a Saturday morning cartoon parody of Watchmen (shown below, right). In the first six years, the videos gathered upwards of 2.3 million and 6.4 million views respectively.

On June 24th, 2011, the Tumblr blog Watchmen Manips^[5] was created, which highlights digitally edited panels from the comic series (shown below).

Reception

The comic series received critical acclaim and was included in Time's List of the 100 Best Novels of works published between 1923 and 2005. The 2009 film received mixed reviews, holding a score of 65% on Rotten Tomatoes^[9] and a score of 56 on Metacritic.^[8]

Related Memes

Rorschach Jumping Out The Window

Rorschach Jumping Out The Window refers to a memorable panel from the comic featuring Rorschach jumping from a window while shouting "RRAAAARRL," which has been used as an exploitable.

Rorschach's Journal

In the book the character Rorshach has a distinct way of writing and speaking, using pidgin English consistenting of brief sentences and excluding unnecessary words. The style of writing found in his journals are often parodied in photoshopped images online.

Comic Sans

The type used in the comic series later inspired the creation of Comic Sans font, created by Vincent Connare in October of 1994.

Search Interest

External References