Watchmen, the graphic novel

I just finished reading "The Watchmen", a graphic novel. I had previously watched the movie, which got me curious about the book, so I ordered it off of Amazon.

First, let me say this: I love comic book movies. I love novels that are based on comic book characters. I even like some cartoons that are based on comic book characters.

That being said, I never really liked comic books. Why? I think it has to do with how I read a book. Back in the 4th grade, I got a chance to pick up a book about speed reading. I forget the name of the book, but I wish I still had it. The concepts I learned from that book really changed the mechanics of how I go about reading. Of course while I definitely read somewhat faster today because of that book, I never really got the whole 'speed reading' thing down. I still like to take my time and enjoy a novel. What I did get out of the book though was a fundamental change in my reading habits. Instead of reading each word individually, I got into the habit of reading groups of words.

This simple, but fundamental change actually improved my ability to read effectively and comprehend things more capably. Unfortunately, this method did have a couple side effects however. For example, I can sometimes have a hard time reading things aloud. My brain wants to read a group of words, while my mouth has a hard time pronouncing more than one word at a time. I have to literally focus and force myself to read each individual word. This problem was especially pronounced when my kids were little and I was trying to read to them. I muddled through it, but sometimes got some crazy looks from the wife.

Anyway, I said all that to say that reading a graphic novel is very difficult for me. The way that words are presented on the page does not make a smooth reading experience for me, with how I'm trained to read a book. My brain just doesn't want to read dialogue in the short bursts inside of chat bubbles.

Despite the challenges I had in reading the medium, the comic itself was absolutely amazing. The story was fluid, the characters were each pronounced and had depth. I loved Rorshack...he is officially one of my favorite comic book characters of all time. The art was incredible, and really served to bring the story to life.

Each of the characters had flaws. There was no 'hero' to be found within this universe. Sure, there were 'masked vigilantes' that were dispensing 'justice', but they were not your Superman 'the most powerful boy scout on earth' kind of heroes.

What the author got across in the staggeringly well crafted story was the concept that these were just 'people' that put on masks. There was nothing fundamentally different about them than any normal human being. They all had their reasons for doing what they did (justice, vengeance, pursuit of celebrity, being pushed into it by their parent, etc), and each character's backstory was interesting and entertaining.

The ending was...believable. I understood why Rorschak wouldn't compromise, and I understood why Dr. Manhattan stopped him. I understood why Adrian did what he did, as well as Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, and everybody else. Because the authors went so in depth with each character, the outcome at the end was unsurprising. I knew what the characters were going to do in the situation, because I intimately knew the characters.

This is exceptionally difficult to accomplish, and the author should be commended. If ever I wind up finishing the novel I want to write (and have been working on for years now...), I can only hope that I can do half as good a job at character exploration as was done in this novel.

10/10...I wish I had a higher number to give to this review.