Cheesy cliched comic book dialogue aside, it was pretty good until the last few issues.
In the last few, it threw away amazing story/character development on piss-poor plotting.
>inb4 "well actually there was a grander theme, the seeds of which were present all along"
Yeah no I got that 10th-grade-tier emo view of humanity. Unlike most things though, it actually kind of worked for the series until he let the villain recognize it and let it be the driving influence on the villains overall scheme.
>inb4 "is he really the villain? Can we really make such bold claims in this mixed-up world?"
Anyway I don't care what came first, the theme or the plot, even if the plot came second, once he had a plot that good, he should have disregarded that ending and came up with something better, even if it didn't serve the theme/message as well.
This seems to be a cliche now that I'm wondering if watchmen started. Having conflict go on and demonstrate this recurring theme that arises maybe as a byproduct of the conflict for several different characters, and then when the story culminates, you find out the guy pulling all the strings is driven by this same theme (even if he's not necessarily intending to cause others to reflect on it and only causes people to do so indirectly).
I mean that payoff was horrible, but I know a bunch of people will excuse it cause it "goes deep".
Nah, story over message, faggot. Ideally I guess you could serve both but Alan Moore clearly couldn't and he served the message (who could really be satisfied by that ending? Who knows, maybe he cornered himself story wise and was trying to distract people from the fact that he couldn't live up to the ((maybe impossible)) task of coming up with an ending that matched the quality of the previous issues by "providing morbid commentary on humanity".)
>guys, I may be going against the grain here, but I wasn't satisfied by Watchmen's ending
You must be new
>>81648211
Didn't say I was going against the grain. I know from the back cover that some critics liked it but who cares about them? I really know nothing beyond that, I'm just guessing that some people will give that ending a pass based on other lame-ass endings I've seen that get a pass because of their "message".
>>81648343
Whatever m8. This isn't your blog.
Watchmen's old and just cause you just finished reading it and didn't like the ending doesn't mean we all have to hear your autistic rant about a 30 year old comic book.
>>81648438
>discussing things means I'm using 4chan as a blog meme
This meme needs to die. That's what this board is for. To discuss all aspects of comics/cartoons, including quality, or lack thereof. I didn't go on some tangent about how I got into it with a black guy and then loosely tied it back to comic
>30 year old
>implying the age of the comic matters
Nigga, this board isn't called /newCo/.
Frankly, I think the comic goes downhill afterRorschach's identity is exposed.
But those first few chapters...
>>81649143
I get what you're saying,he was my favorite character (and I assume Rorschach is probably most people's favorite character), and I'm not sure Moore ever shoulda done that. But there were other interesting parts going on besides Rorschach,and Rorschach's story bounced back when Nite Owl and Rorschach team back up again (but then he got that lame-ass ending, so....
>what happened
Alan Moore.
>>81649424
>he was my favorite characte
Go be underaged somewhere else.
>>81649536
Kek
>>81649540
>complaining about a character being too childish
>in a /co/thread
It is possible for the cool characters to be good, too. I mean who was better?
Certainly not Laurie or Jon. Daniel was ok, comedian too. Ozymandias sucked, ultimately, though liked the very little I saw of him before the twist.
Newspaper guy might be a close second, but nobody was as compelling as Rorschach. Fuck off with your underage insult.
>>81648667
4chan was made to talk about anime, until the creator realized how fun a board about nothing in particular could be.
I JUST realized that "Nothing ever ends" is talking about superhero comics and i'm gonna go jump off a cliff
>>81652755
You're not actually supposed to like any of them, Alan Moore has said this.
They were parodies of existing characters with the negative aspects of them turned up or some real life personality trait applied. A deconstruction, before the comics themselves started trying to be deconstructions in an ouroboros of piss-taking.
To say you like or dislike any of them because of said trait is like saying you really enjoyed Spider-Ham, but don't like the fact he's a pig or enjoy it specifically because you really enjoy reading about pigs. That's literally the entire point, and you're missing it by a mile.
>>81653221
>implying the authors intentions should have any bearing on my interpretation
>implying he did a good job getting that point across anyway
>implying there was one single point to the comic
Saying I missed the point because I liked the characters of a comic book where the author tried to make me dislike them is like saying I missed the point of twilight because I disliked the characters and the author was trying to make me like them (never read twilight just making the lazy teenage boy meme example)
I'll concede this might be a little bit different, sure, because I may have missed out on some parody value, but there was still something else there, even if accidentally.
And frankly, I think you are misinterpreting what he said. His process at the beginning doesn't necessarily reflect his own interpretation of the outcome or even later parts of the process.
>>81648667
Sure looks like a blog post to me, tldr; out of this contrarian thread
>>81653221
Dumbass he didn't mean you shouldn't think the characters aren't compelling. Frankly the people we like the most in fiction are often the ones we'd like the least in real life. Yes The Comedian might repulse us a little morally but the character is still fascinating. And we like the character as a result of that, cause it's a comic book.
>>81655443
You argued this dumbass so poorly. Fuck you too. You didn't miss out on parody value, this book wasn't parody as much as just a twist in your usual black and white super hero comic books (the kind the original note owl looked up to). If you're the OP then I know you got that point but you didn't realize that's what this dumbass was referring to.
It'd be hard to miss the point frankly as it was pretty heavy handed throughout the book.
>is humanity worth saving?
>who will police the police?
>are people good
>who makes the hard decisions
I mean this book is so fucking man child pseudo intellectual
>>81648091
Why do you think story should take over message? I think themes are what makes storytelling powerful; the greek dramatist were no plot masters yet proficient in exploring a theme or doling out a moral, as well as other things like technique, style, etc. Regardless, the story is only 50% of what makes Watchmen a classic.
>>81655443
>>81655665
What do you mean by "like"? As in do you think they're good characters, or are they good people, or do you mean you are sympathetic towards them? And author's intention do count here, since you're not interpreting but evaluating.
>>81655758
What's your problem here? Fiction is not supposed to philosophically complex.
>>81655665
I didn't do a horrible job arguing. Get fucked faggot.
>>81656846
When the message is already clear, you shouldn't write a shitty ending just to spoon feed your message even more, especially when the trade off is a satisfying ending to a good comic book.
>>81648091
It's good, very, very good. In my opinion everything is pretty justified and this is what a fucking deconstruction looks like, not the shit that's just edgy for the sake of being edgy like The Boys (don't get me wrong, I love the series, but everyone being a psychotic degenerate gets tiresome after a while, yeah, there are plenty of sick fucks in Watchmen too, but their fuckedupness doesn't feel forced). My only real problem with it is that Moore's ideas on superheroes and superhumanity in general are much better told both visually and in a mcuh less rambling way in Miracleman. Also pirates becoming the dominant comic genre makes no fucking sense, if anything it should have been sci-fi funnybooks.
>>81656944
What makes the ending shitty? I also don't think messages can become "clear" unless the work is viewed as a whole, including the ending. An ending can completely change a work's meaning, (forgive the out of medium reference) like Portrait of the Artist as the Young Man, where the book compkletely disavows the message of indepedence that had driven the story at the very last page. The Watchmen ending is satisfying in that it gives a definitie vision of the message.
>>81656944
>I didn't do a horrible job arguing. Get fucked faggot.
Well you're sure doing a horrible job arguing now.
Specifically, why did you dislike the ending?
>>81657076
>Also pirates becoming the dominant comic genre makes no fucking sense, if anything it should have been sci-fi funnybooks.
I get why he chose it, EC Comics decided to do pirate comics sometime before the CCA was put in place. And I think it said somewhere in the text pages that the CCA never came to be.
And now that I think it I'm not too sure that superhero comics would fall out of style when the real-life superheroes were around. War comics didn't go out of style with WWII and the Korean War (EC only ended theirs because Harvey Kurtzman couldn't keep up with the research and do multiple books at the same time).
>>81657282
>And now that I think it I'm not too sure that superhero comics would fall out of style when the real-life superheroes were around
This, fucking this. Maybe the guys out there weren't exactly exemplar but there was plenty of material for writers to work with, I could even see "clean" versions of the Comedian and Doctor Manhattan selling quite well. Also old Bernard mentions at some point that characters like "Super-Man" and "Flash-Man" just went out of style rather fast when superheroes were pretty big all trough WW2, I can only imagine how having the Minutemen in real life would have boosted their sales.
>>81648091
>>inb4 "well actually there was a grander theme, the seeds of which were present all along"
>
>Yeah no I got that 10th-grade-tier emo view of humanity.
not really the 'grander theme' though is it you retard. not even a theme at all because the comic is actually very positive about a lot of the people who aren't wearing fetish outfits and punching each other.
>>81657404
e m o t i e r v i e w o f h u m a n i t y
ABSOLUTELY
EMO
TIER
>>81648091
I disagree with you, OP, but I see where you're coming from. I Felt somewhat similar about the ending of No Country for Old Men. But why did you find the ending of Watchmen dissatisfying?
>>81657563
My nigga.
Watchmen's endin is the like complete opposite of unsatisfying. It ties up all loose threads while still leaving a lot of questions up to the viewer. They did a good job with that. Also wasnt a fan of No Country's ending either.
>>81649424
I think Alan Moore doesn't believe a person can devote his whole life to justice. To him a person like that is clearly insane.
>>81657404
>>81657433
>>81657456
This. This scene is the answer to all those tough questions Watchmen asks about humanity. It comes to the conclusion that, yes, we are worth saving, yes, there is good in average everyday people.
I think a lot of people miss that because they're more excited to see superheroes fighting each other.
>>81656846
>fiction is not supposed to be X
who appointed you Fiction Czar
>>81649424
Moore is on the record as being appalled at how many people consider Rorschach to be their favorite character.
>>81658550
it's his fault for making a compelling and well written character. Is it that he can't understand how people can like rorschach, cause I mean seriously Comedian is A LOT more detestable of a character than rorschach or is it that he's appalled at how many people think like him and idolize. Big difference
>>81655758
Yes, they're simple questions, but they really are simple questions the average person never really thinks about.
For a comic book, that's a pretty good level of 'making the reader think'.
>>81658574
he doesn't like people who think Rorschach is right
i.e. a large majority of people who say he's their favorite character
>>81658574
Bit of column A, mostly column B.
>>81648091
Watchmen isn't great because of the story
>>81658574
You don't feel sorry for Comedian?
>>81648091
Since Watchmen has been out for a very long time, in other words you aren't just past your thread's sell by date but past its use by date as well, I can only presume you are participating in what is known as a 'triggering', OP.
The graphic novel was ok. The movie ending sucked. I prefer the comic over the movie.
