EDITOR’S NOTE: Don’t forget to read the thrilling secret origin of Epic Fail!
Now, I know that you might be reading at home thinking, “Gee Rob, you’re a borderline alcoholic from Boston, and when I say “Borderline” I refer ironically to the Madonna song, which is to say: terrible. You’ve had failed careers in stand-up comedy and radio, so with your dirt clod of a resume documenting a decade and a half as the lowest forms of show business life on the planet, who are you to comment on whether Watchmen will be successful or not?”
That’s an excellent question. Who am I? I’m fuck you, that’s who I am.
These are pictures I snapped around my house just before I sat down to write this. There’s no picture of my first print actual issues of Watchmen because I’m too hung over to be digging through twenty-five longboxes to find them. I’m showing you these to prove something to you, and it’s not just that I found it impossible to get laid in high school.
There are two things in this world that I know backwards and forwards: where to get Internet porn, and Watchmen. And until somebody makes a 100 million dollar movie about the other one (Which would be impossible. It wouldn’t cost one million to make a movie that lasts fifteen seconds where you already know how it ends. Even if you shot it in iMax. Which I do not recommend. I’m digressing again, aren’t I?), you’re gonna have to believe me when I tell you that you’re on my turf here… and that you will not like it.
“But Rob,” you might be saying, “Not only do I think you’re a creepy, obsessed loser, but I think you’re wrong. I liked Spider-Man. I liked X-Men. I even liked X-Men 3. I saw The Dark Knight six times. Why wouldn’t I like Watchmen?” Well, imaginary mental image of the hot girl from high school who told classmates my love of Batman meant I had a sublimated urge to hang out with children wearing green brief underwear, who I imagine having this conversation with whenever I defend my geek credentials, and who I hope now scrapes out a meager living doing humiliation bukkake films, films which I will find on the Internet someday, you awful fucking hosebag…
What was I talking about again?
Oh yeah: movies like The Dark Knight and Spider-Man are comic book superhero stories. Watchmen is a story about comic book superheroes. And when it comes to understanding Watchmen, understanding the subtle difference between the two is as important as the differences in personal ad acronyms. If you understand the lingo, you can have an amazing experience. If you don’t, you could be scarred for life by say, answering an ad reading “Dom seeks Sub” because you like the name Dominique and you happen to own a toy submarine.
Most people see superhero comic books a brightly-colored power fantasies that are as deep as a urine sample… which they kind of are. But what they also are are a form of serial literature with a 70-year history of shared archetypes, conventions, and even logic behind those bright colors. They are written in a shared language, and understanding that language is as important to fully appreciating Watchmen as understanding the language and signals in Las Vegas: if all you know is “Hit me”, you are not going to have a good time. Particularly in a Reno whorehouse.
Now I, and people like me, have been learning this language every New Comic Wednesday since I was five years old. Whereas you haven’t because you don’t read comic books, and as we discussed the other day, you’re probably not going to, even if you want to. Be it good or bad, the comic publishers have made it impossible to find comic books unless you’re really looking for them, and even if you are, they’ve made it impossible to get in on the ground floor. It’s easier to learn Esperanto than it is to pick up a comic book for the first time and understand what the fuck is going on.
Let’s say you really liked the Hulk movie last year and wanted to check out the comic. You would have found: surprise! The Hulk’s red now! And he’s a different guy! And he’s smart, and carrying a gun! And he’s fighting people you’ve never heard of! It would be like seeing The Godfather and then buying the novel, only to find it was about talking chihuahuas. And written in Esperanto.
TO BE CONTINUED…
[tags]Watchmen, comic books, The Hulk, Zack Snyder, dark humor, satire[/tags]
