Watchmen

Watchmen written Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.

I honestly don't know what more can be said about this book and yes I use the term book because it isn't just a comic.  This comic transcends comics in ways that boggle the mind.  I've read this book about 6 or 7 times and each time I get something new out of it and am completely amazed by the sheer volume and brilliance of what Moore has written. 

It was written in 1985 and is still as powerful now as it was when it came out then.  I can't even imagine having read it in 1985 and having to wait each month for the next issue to come out.  I find myself wondering how that would have been as an experience?  I don't know but for now all I can do is binge read the whole series in about a week or so.  This time around?  The story is as brilliant and amazing as it was each time I read it before.  There has never been a comic since that has compared to the impact of this comic. 

This comic is on my top 10 list of books of all time.  I consider this the best comic ever written, nothing I've read even compares to it.  On my top 10 list of comics ever created it comes in number 2, The Sandman series is number one but if the list is the best comic ever created not a personal basis, this comic will always be number one. 

Characterization on a level I don't think was ever seen before until this book came out and its even better than most books that come out.  Moore made these superheroes real.  He gave them a past, a present, and a future.  Any twists that abound in this book buck the trend of normal twists and turns in superhero books in that they don't feel cheap, they always feel earned.  His heroes act like they would act if they had the kind of powers they do.  They feel like they live in a real world.  Even his world building of an alternate history feels unlike most Marvel and DC universes.

Gibbons art is simplistic when first looked at but upon further watching his art it is the highly complicated details lurking in every panel, on a microscopic scale, that rises his art to a the height of this medium.  This is the perfect marriage of writing and art.  How Gibbons maneuvers through the panel layouts provided by Moore is a lesson unto itself even if you don't read the comic just to see how the panels are laid out then follow the action with the panel.  Even the lettering of the panels have a rhythm that I don't find in comics now-a-days.

I've read a lot Moore since I first read this comic.  This is by far the best thing he's written but even most of the books he writes for now are some of the best the medium has to offer.  He has truly mastered the medium of comics.