dead dog in alley...

[mustinvestigate]

Chronological Watchmen read, yay!

12 October: Wow, on the first page, Rorschach seems like more of an obvious nutbar than I remember – less fox-crazy than mentally-12 crazy. Then Hollis and Dan telling stories, obviously both lost and sharing surface-cheerful depression. Dan makes fists and fiercely goes to confront what he thinks is a burglar, but momentary manliness impression is blown out of the water by immediate subservience to crazy fella. Detectives can’t be bothered to take on knotty murder case, intimidated by mystery rather than intrigued. Emphasis on total lack of heroes, only husks, empty masks.

13 October: Obvious-nutbar impression somewhat dispelled by Rorschach terrifying entire bar and effortlessly breaking into highly guarded government facility. Leads to the following priceless panels:



"Jesus, Jon, you’re managing to out-space cadet Rorschach. Think about that, sweetie: Rorschach is currently the second-most socially dysfunctional person in the room."



Mr. Horror-of-the-Human-Body seems to be doing just find with the Big Blue Ass. Is it because Jon’s a fellow mask? Did two decades of Big Blue Ass wear him down to nary a twitch? Or have Rorschach’s eyes been squenched firmly shut since he opened the door, which is why he’s never quite facing the right direction?



Awwwww.

It would be way too much fun to parse the social shifts in that scene. I mean, "fun." For a certain type of mind. The kind that knows, if you dissect something, you find out how it works, but it's really really dead...and does it anyway.

Comments

[scarlet-carsons.livejournal.com]

Re: 12th October, yeah, Rorschach's rant at the beginning of the comic always struck me as a bit of a bratty 'I'LL SHOW YOU - ONE DAY, YOU'LL ALL BE SORRY' tantrum thing. It's very Pirate Jenny-ish.

'Mr. Horror-of-the-Human-Body seems to be doing just find with the Big Blue Ass.'

I imagine that the great thing about wearing a full face mask is that no-one can tell if you're staring in disgust at Doctor Manhattan's exposed penis. Does it wobble? Or is he more like an animate statue? Oh god why am I thinking about this, please kill me.

(I think it was Warren Ellis who commented that most superheroes look naked anyway, due to the skin-tight costumes and ridiculous muscle definition. That's probably why I didn't think 'a naked man in a superhero comic! How shocking!' the first time I read Watchmen.)

[mustinvestigate.livejournal.com]

There is nothing wrong with contemplating such things - it's literary analysis, doncha know? :D I first caught a glimpse of it over the husband's shoulder when he was reading and was like, there's male full-frontal rather than female, for once? huh. cool. It's also so approximately drawn it's hard to find it shocking.

The spandexed-heroes thing is just funny - as a kid, that's just what superheroes dressed as, and it's not until someone decontextualises it that it seems as weird and illogical as it is. And then you realise no artist wants to draw endless suits, not when they suffered through all those hours with Grey's Anatomy and hideous nude models to get human muscle structure down pat! Or, you know, whatever Rob Leifeld's excuse is. Love of pouches?

[scarlet-carsons.livejournal.com]

'It's also so approximately drawn it's hard to find it shocking.'

Yeah. It's very unobtrusive. I hardly noticed it in the movie - and I didn't really see Doc Manhattan as a naked person then, either, despite the fact that it was live action.

(While watching this and this (which contain strobe lights and manflesh) I was reminded that, yeah, most superheroes look like they're wearing body paint.)

I think that Rob Liefeld is an enigma that cannot be fathomed by mortal ken.

[brancher.livejournal.com]

I love how Laurie is like "OH GOD NOT THIS BULLSHIT AGAIN" in that first panel. She has to do a lot of heavy exposition lifting in that scene, so it's no wonder she's in such a lousy mood.

Rorschach is not a charmingly eccentric individual.

"squenched firmly shut" made me laugh and laugh. This is canon for me now.

[mustinvestigate.livejournal.com]

Heh, poor Laurie. Sure, they just needed to shoehorn the backstory somehow, but it comes across as Laurie so desperate for human conversation she tries to discuss moral greyness with Rorschach. Which...ouch. Refer to the last panel, there.

[initial-aitch.livejournal.com]

Rorschach's just jealous that he didn't think of it first -- nude crimefighting has to be a powerful intimidation tactic!

[mustinvestigate.livejournal.com]

That needs to be a paintchat challenge 35 minutes ago!

[scarlet-carsons.livejournal.com]

The full body catsuit thing from his concept drawings intimidated the hell out of me.

[mustinvestigate.livejournal.com]

There's...catsuit...um. Huh.

Can I see said vision of...catsuit...or is the internet too afraid to host it?

[scarlet-carsons.livejournal.com]

Behold.

[initial-aitch.livejournal.com]

That's what I was thinking of; it was a bit too much for me! Plus, with the trench coat thrown open, he has the element of flasher-surpise :)

[ladyk-d-azrael.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what version of Watchmen the 'this country needs more people like Rorschach' crowd are reading. Is it even possible to read Watchmen without a sense of irony? It would appear so...

My favourite line of Miller-pastiche Rorschach nutbariness is and always will be 'the city screams like an abattoir full of retarded children'. LOLOLOLOL. (Although '... with all their drugs and their child pornography!' is also a classic).

I think there was probably a time when Dan challenged the excesses of Rorschach's paranoia and propensity for tin-foil hat proselytizing, but at some point he just started ignoring it. I always imagine him as a little chibi owl, flapping his wings uselessly against the winds of crazy.

Ha, you know it never even occurred to me that Rorschach would be freaked out by Manhattan's nudity. I mean, if Manhattan was a woman, sure, he wouldn't come within a country mile, but I imagine R think's there's probably nothing wrong with muscly godlike reassuringly non-sexually threatening men.

In fact, he probably has posters in his room like a teenage girl.

[scarlet-carsons.livejournal.com]

Y'know, it never occured to me that Rorschach might have been a bit of a Miller-pastiche, which seems kind of... Obvious, now. Durrr.

Alan Moore has certainly taken the piss out of the guy before.

[ladyk-d-azrael.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! Specifically, Rorschach's diary entries are a parody (heh, pastiche implies affection!) of Batman's in Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, published a few years before Watchmen. Which is why Jackie Earle Haley doing a piss-take of the Christian Bale Batman voice when playing R is funny on more than one level...

Mind you, I always thought Moore making fun of Miller's excesses was a bit 'people in glass houses...' y'know. ;p

[scarlet-carsons.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I had it stuck in my head that Dark Knight was published after Watchmen, but you're right, it wasn't.

Which is why Jackie Earle Haley doing a piss-take of the Christian Bale Batman voice when playing R is funny on more than one level...

Now I feel like a derp for never noticing that! I used to be one of those people who complained that his voice wasn't creepy monotone enough.

(And, yeah, Moore is far too easy to parody.)

[ladyk-d-azrael.livejournal.com]

That comic is genius.

Yeah, my initial reaction on hearing the Earle Haley voice was 'but... Rorschach talks in a creepy monotone!' but then once I realised the nuances of Miller-Moore-Nolan it became funny and apt.

[mustinvestigate.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I hadn't twigged on that Rorschach's more tinfoil-hat moments would be a direct Miller parody, because they didn't reference whores enough.

True story.

[ladyk-d-azrael.livejournal.com]

LMAO!

That is all.

Seriously tho, one of my best friends is a total Miller fanboy, Most of the time when he opens his mouth to talk about comics I say 'What? Is it dark and rainy and are there whores?'

[mustinvestigate.livejournal.com]

I think there was probably a time when Dan challenged the excesses of Rorschach's paranoia and propensity for tin-foil hat proselytizing, but at some point he just started ignoring it. I always imagine him as a little chibi owl, flapping his wings uselessly against the winds of crazy.

I'm still in the camp that Rorschach used to chatter like a magpie at Nite Owl, and that the crazier moments were mostly outweighed by his 'see how well read I am!' trivia dumps. So it was several years before Dan stopped thinking, Wait, what? No, that has to be a joke. The guy just spent 20 minutes analyzing Ozy's name in terms of the Shelley poem, there's no way he could honestly believe Communists are brainwashing the fetuses of unwed teenage mothers in the womb using pop music...

[ladyk-d-azrael.livejournal.com]

Ha, one of the things I love about R is the juxtaposition between him being intelligent and well-read and well... the kind of right-wing crazy one generally associates with the semi-literate who only watch Fox News. Yes, he gets the delicate nuances of Shelley but OMG commie child pornography conspiracy!

IDK, honestly, except I spent the night talking to someone (post uni postgrad papers) about interesting literary stuff only for it to turn out they were an evangelical crazy who believed in such a concept as 'the literal Truth'. Help me, Derrida!