Every art form has one work
that is so monumental and profound
that it forever defines and changes the medium.
For comics, a medium with a surprisingly long history,
that work is none other than "Watchmen."
First released in 1986 as a 12-issue limited series,
it forever changed the public perception of the medium
and what comics can really achieve.
But what makes "Watchmen"
the greatest comic book ever written
isn't what's on the page,
but the people behind it.
From its inception, "Watchmen" had one objective:
to create a work that can only be achieved
by the comic medium.
And no one played a more integral part
than the artist Dave Gibbons,
who was given complete control over its visual look
and focused on making a unique and distinctive aesthetic
unlike anything the readers had seen.
Even in the weight of lines,
where he used a hard, stiff pen to create bolded edges
that were significantly different
from the more fluid lines in other comic books of the era.
And colorist John Higgins took the same approach with color,
choosing to use secondary colors
that were more common in European comics
to achieve a moodier look
and accentuate the use of primary colors,
like the massive, overflowing blood from a massacre.
At times, Higgins even freely experimented with color,
like in issue No. 6, "The Abyss Gazes Also,"
which begins with a brighter palette
that eventually turns darker and darker
along with the character's descent into his dark past,
finally ending in black.
The genius of "Watchmen" also lies in its structure,
more specifically its nine-panel grid,
a simple yet brilliant way of framing a story
for multiple reasons.
First, it allowed the writers
to fit more scenes into a page,
allowing for a faster-paced story.
It also made it clear for readers to follow
because they simply had to read from left to right
and top to bottom without trying to figure out the order.
Having nine panels also gave the advantage
of having a central panel that naturally draws the eye,
which both Gibbons and Higgins expertly used
to include some of the most important and shocking images.
And the nine-panel grid is shockingly versatile,
with more than 300 different possible combinations
the panels can be laid out on,
a lot of which the book uses to show a passage of time
or a gruesome aftermath of a disaster.
The issue that exemplifies
the genius of the nine-panel structure
and perhaps the series' greatest
is its fifth issue, "Fearful Symmetry,"
where the entire issue, like its title,
is juxtaposed in a perfect symmetry
that begins here, in the centerfold image
in the middle of the book.
The rest of the pages reflect one another in layout,
color,
composition,
imagery,
and sometimes the exact image.
If Gibbons and Higgins showed the possibility of comics
as a respectable art form,
it was "Watchmen" writer Alan Moore
who elevated them to literature.
The genius mind behind some of the most
influential works in comics,
like "V for Vendetta" and "The Killing Joke,"
Moore played a major role in creating a comic book
that feels and reads like literature.
"Watchmen" began with a simple question of:
What would superheroes be like in a credible, real world?
He took the superheroes
inspired by the campy heroes of Charlton Comics
that DC had acquired
and wrote them into an alternate history
where America won the Vietnam War
and the Watergate scandal never happened.
This political backdrop created a world
dripping with end-of-the-world anxieties
and paranoia of the Cold War
and provided a grittier look
at the superheroes who live in it
and that would influence the genre for decades to come.
The same goes for the characters.
Originally titled "Who Killed the Peacemaker?"
from the Charlton Comics character
that inspired The Comedian,
"Watchmen" is constructed as a murder mystery.
Yet the plot is merely a vehicle
to show the personal and moral struggles
of the flawed superheroes living in the real world.
And to accentuate this conflict,
Moore intentionally wrote characters
with radically opposing views of the world.
From a morally absolute vigilante
who sees the world in black and white
to an omnipotent yet apathetic God figure
who questions what it means to be human,
"Watchmen" possessed a political and philosophical depth
that readers weren't familiar with in comic-book form.
Moore created the idea of "Watchmen,"
and Gibbons and Higgins built the world to contain it.
And it's their collaboration
that ultimately made "Watchmen"
the masterpiece it is today,
shown most obviously
by the book's use of symbols and imagery.
Moore wanted recurring symbols and images
loaded with meaning,
and Gibbons paid extra attention
in designing and inserting them throughout the book.
Some are obvious, like the bloodstained smiley face,
which bookends the story and has become an iconic symbol
that represents the series.
The smiley face was designed to both geometrically
and symbolically represent a doomsday clock,
which acts as an important thematic device.
And others are more subtle,
like the phrase, "Who watches the watchmen?" -
a quote that encompasses the theme of "Watchmen"
and is graffitied onto the walls of various panels,
never appearing in its entirety,
yet still discernible to those who pay close attention.
In fact, "Watchmen" is full of minute background details
painstakingly drawn by Gibbons
that add depth and philosophy to its world
that are easy to miss on first reading,
an intentional editorial choice resulting in a book
that requires multiple readings to fully appreciate.
It's these small details and nuances
that make it so hard to adapt "Watchmen" for the screen.
Once deemed "unfilmable,"
"Watchmen" eventually received the silver-screen treatment
by Zack Snyder in 2009.
It's an adaptation that follows the original
beat by beat, panel by panel,
resulting in a work that distinctively looks like "Watchmen"
but doesn't feel like it.
"Watchmen" is a work that was envisioned, written,
and drawn to be a comic book and nothing else,
the work of two uncompromising artists
who wanted to test the limits of the medium that they loved.
And it's for this reason that,
although we will see many great works in the future,
there won't be another work
quite like "Watchmen" ever again.