The Watchmen Watch
About the Project
The Watchman Watch is an-online project dedicated to Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbon’s graphic novel Watchmen, and in particular to the book’s subsequent permutations, in prequel and sequel comics denounced by Moore, in comics that enter into a dialogue with Watchmen without actually appropriating the characters and setting, in Zach Snyder’s film adaptation, and in Damon Lindelof’s television “remix” on HBO starting in 2019.
Intended for scholars, fans, and anyone in between, The Watchman Watch provides a broader context to viewers encountering Watchmen for the first time through the HBO series, while also engaging longtime Watchmen readers in a dialogue about adaptation, transmedia, and the ethics of intellectual property. Jargon is to be kept at a minimum.
The first dozen posts are about the book and its various afterlives through October 2019, that is, just before the premiere of the HBO show. Once the show begins its regular schedule, this blog will feature weekly essays about the episodes as they are released.
Watchmen Episode 9: I Leave It Entirely in Your Feet
In the system called “Dr. Manhattan,” passivity is a feature, not a bug.
We Are All Dr. Manhattan Now (Watchmen, Episode 8)
Dr. Manhattan was always a memetic infection. Now he is airborne.
Watchmen, Episode 6: Black Like Hooded Justice
The original Watchmen: “The superman exists and he’s American.” HBO’s Watchmen: the American hero exists, and he’s black.
Watchmen, Episode 5: Seven Years of Bad Luck
If Lost is the thesis and The Leftovers is the antithesis, perhaps Watchmen will be the synthesis.
Watchmen Episode 4: Who Hatches the Eggmen?
“I don’t kid about things falling out of the sky.”—Laurie Blake
Watchmen, Episode 1, Part 2: Welcome to the Bizarro World
If this show is puzzling as a sequel to the comic, it’s all the more confounding as a TV series made after Ferguson.
Watchmen Episode 1, Part 1: The Morality of My Activities Escapes Me
If New York is Watchmen’s Hamlet, then Tulsa is its Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Form's Fallow Function: Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt
Gillen’s formalism initially looks like a mere device, but is actually the gateway to the particular kinds of enlightenment afforded by good fiction
Super-Frenemies: Grant Morrison vs. Watchmen
To cope with Watchmen, Morrison must swallow it whole.
Before Watchmen: Corporate Fan Fiction
DC wasn’t just supplementing Watchmen; they were drowning it.
Unwatchable Watchmen
Does anyone really want to be thinking about “Shrek” during a sex scene?
After Watchmen: Originality and Moral Rights
Watchmen was not built to sell Underoos, and not just because of Doctor Manhattan’s habit of going commando
What Makes the Superhero Tick?
Nothing about Moore’s prior success indicated he was about to make the leap outside of the comics ghetto