Table Of ContentMinutes to Midnight:
Twelve Essays on Watchmen
edited by
Richard Bensam
Sequart Research & Literacy Organization (Edwardsville, Illinois)
Copyright © 2011 by the respective authors. Watchmen and related characters are trademarks of DC
Comics © 2011.
Kindle edition, January 2012. First edition, October 2010. Revised first edition, November 2011.
All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts used for review or scholarly purposes, no part of this
book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including electronic, without express consent of
the publisher.
Cover by Kevin Colden. Design by Julian Darius. Interior art is © DC Comics; please visit
dccomics.com.
Published by Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. Edited by Richard Bensam.
For more information about other titles in this series, visit Sequart.org/books/.
Contents
Obsolete Models a Specialty: An Introduction
by Richard Bensam
Reassembling the Components in the Correct Sequence: Why You Shouldn’t
Read Watchmen First
by Walter Hudsick
How the Ghost of You Clings: Watchmen and Music
by Mary Borsellino
The Smartest Man in the Morgue: Watchmen and “Twelve Notes on the
Mystery Story”
by Chad Nevett
At Play Amidst the Strangeness and Charm: Watchmen and the Philosophy
of Science
by William Ritchie
Blotting out Reality: Questioning Rorschach
by Gene Phillips
The Last Laugh: Understanding Watchmen’s Big Joke
by John Loyd
Nothing Ever Ends: Structural Symmetries in Watchmen
by Jon Cormier
58 Varieties: Watchmen and Revisionism
by Julian Darius
Bringing Light to the World: Watchmen from Hiroshima to Manhattan
by Peter Sanderson
Somebody Has to Save the World: Captain Metropolis and Role-Playing
Watchmen
by Timothy Callahan
The End is Nigh: The Limits of Watchmen
by Geoff Klock
Some Different Sort of Time: Watchmen as Cinema
by Patrick Meaney
A Fellowship of Legendary Beings: About the Contributors
Obsolete Models a Specialty:
An Introduction
by Richard Bensam
The British comics artist and comics historian Steve Whitaker once
described a conversation he had with Dave Gibbons at a comics convention
in the fall of 1986, sometime not long after the fourth issue of Watchmen was
published. Whitaker had been following the series very closely, of course,
and as a careful reader believed he had discovered the key to the story. So
when he ran into Gibbons at the convention, he asked the Watchmen artist,
“Rorschach is the real center of the story, isn’t he? He’s the character we
should be keeping our eyes on, the one everything else revolves around,
right?”
As Whitaker told it, Gibbons shook his head and replied, “That’s not it.
There isn’t meant to be one central character. The whole point is that
everyone gets to choose the character they want to follow. It could be
Rorschach or the Comedian or Ozymandias. You could be Nite Owl.”
Retelling the story later, Whitaker claimed he was never entirely sure if the
Watchmen artist had compared him to Nite Owl because he saw something of
Dan Dreiberg’s personality traits in Whitaker… or if this was Dave’s tactful
way of hinting that Steve was putting on weight.
That question may never be answered, but I’ve often thought about that
anecdote in the years since then… not least because Nite Owl was always my
guy as well. In fact, I always imagined he was the overlooked central
character in Watchmen.
It’s true that Nite Owl doesn’t narrate his own life story over the course
of an issue, as the other living heroes in Watchmen do. Nor do we see him
extensively in the recollections of others, as we do with the late Comedian.
From his lack of prominence in the stories recounted by the other leads, Dan
Dreiberg’s most distinguishing trait seems to have been that most of the other
costumed heroes didn’t have any strong feelings about him one way or the
other. And yet, he’s the one who makes the resolution possible by deciding
to free Rorschach from prison; he’s the one who does the research that
ultimately discloses their real adversary; and he’s the one who gets the girl
and lives happily ever after. That list of accomplishments certainly befits
“the hero of the story,” wouldn’t you think?
But there’s another reason for Nite Owl to hold our attention, and it takes
us back to the above anecdote and leads us directly to the point of this whole
book. Consider:
The first thing we learn about Nite Owl in the first issue of Watchmen is
that he idolizes the masked heroes of a previous era. He has a home full of
costumes, accessories, memorabilia, and collectibles. The very thing that
gives his life meaning is something he often feels embarrassed about. He
needs to keep it secret and hidden or risk harassment and humiliation. Being
able to admit his feelings at last to other people who share his interests comes
as a profound relief. When he becomes friends with the man whose exploits
inspired him and is briefly able to follow in his footsteps, he’s over the
moon. Let’s face it – if they held conventions of costumed hero enthusiasts
in the world of Watchmen, Daniel Dreiberg would happily attend. If some
toy company had issued action figures of the Minutemen, Daniel would have
the complete set on display in a glass case somewhere in his Manhattan
townhouse.
In other words, Dan Dreiberg is the perfect analog of a comics fan. His
friendship with Hollis Mason is much like that of a fan who corresponds with
and befriends his or her favorite creators. Hollis can certainly be considered
the “creator” of his Golden Age costumed identity as the original Nite Owl.
Extending that analogy slightly further, we might even say Dreiberg’s
fandom takes the form of wishing to create his own exploits – also very much
the case in comics fandom, where many fans aspire to become pros.
Archetypal fan Daniel Dreiberg shows Laurie Juspeczyk his collectibles and souvenirs. From
Watchmen #7 (March 1987). Copyright © DC Comics.
Taking all of this into account, Nite Owl would inevitably seem to be the
natural viewpoint character for a comics reader – the ideal audience
surrogate, our perfect window into the events of Watchmen. He’s the
devoted fan who loved costumed heroes and wanted to live in that world and
finally did, only to find himself unfulfilled and let down. Doesn’t this
dilemma cut right to the goal of Watchmen bringing a more mature and
sophisticated outlook to bear on the nostalgia-drenched trappings of super-
hero comics?
That’s how it’s always seemed to me. So imagine my consternation if a
student of the history and philosophy of science were to say that the real goal
of Watchmen is the illustration of post-Einsteinian physics as literary
metaphor, and therefore Doctor Manhattan is obviously the central figure and
most important character in the story.
We’re both right, of course. But you’d also be right if you said
Watchmen was really all about using the super-hero genre to satirize the
arrogance of American foreign policy and that the Comedian was the pivotal
character. Or if you argued Silk Spectre was the real viewpoint character –
the sole relatively balanced and normal person among damaged personalities,
bent and twisted in various ways by the super-hero concept; the one who
shows us how disturbing and neurotic it all looks when you take a step back
and see the bigger picture. Or if you said Ozymandias represents us when he
sits in front of his wall of television screens – seeking hidden meanings in
brightly colored images while his eyes dart constantly from rectangular frame
to rectangular frame, feeling himself above everyone else as he tries to
discern the end of the story. Remind you of anything?
These answers (and many others besides) are all equally correct. One can
even imagine these answers forming the basis of some sort of personality test,
something along the lines of asking someone to name his or her favorite
Beatle and using that selection to discern something fundamental about that
person’s outlook. But in Watchmen, these different viewpoints mean
something more than a Rorschach blot, if you will, or a chance to play
“Choose Your Own Adventure.” The fact that there are so many different
possible interpretations is the whole point; it’s not which one you choose that
matters, it’s that you have the choice. As Jon Osterman would tell you, there
is no privileged frame of reference, no one “right” way to look at the
universe. Everything is only relative to everything else. This is precisely
what Dave Gibbons was saying back in 1986. And in an interview with
George Khoury for the career-spanning overview The Extraordinary Works
of Alan Moore in 2002, Watchmen writer Alan Moore answered the same
question in much the same way:
Is Rorschach the protagonist of the book?
No, I don’t think there is a center of the book. I mean, part of what Watchmen was about is
that all of the characters have got very, very distinctive views of the world. They’ve all got
very distinctive views of the world, but they’re all completely different… Ultimately[,] it’s
the reader who has to make the choice. It’s the reader’s decision, it’s the reader’s world,
ultimately, as I say in the last panel, I leave it entirely in your hands. That it’s up to the
reader to formulate their own response to the world – sort of – and not to be told what to do
by a super-hero or a political leader or a comic-book writer, for that matter. I think that was
the thinking behind Watchmen.
So then: the book you now hold is a collection of possible viewpoints on
Watchmen. Different ways to read Watchmen, if you will. Watchmen as a
carefully constructed murder mystery. Watchmen as a formalist experiment
in symmetry. Watchmen as postmodern revisionism. Watchmen as satire and
homage to prior comics art. Watchmen as an inspiration for other media. As
both Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore have said, Watchmen is about viewing
the world through more than one filter. This book is about viewing
Watchmen through more than one filter. No one perspective is meant to be
authoritative or the last word on the subject, but each one offers an angle you
might never have thought of before.
These perspectives come from a group of immensely talented writers –
some of them veterans with other books and many published essays to their
credit, others at the start of their careers and just on the verge of getting the
attention they deserve.
One common trait among our contributors is that most of them are
prolific online writers, whether on their own personal blogs, or as columnists
for one or another of the news and opinion websites devoted to comics. Even
though the World Wide Web was still five years in the future when
Watchmen appeared, there were already comics discussion groups emerging
on electronic bulletin boards, mailing lists, and Usenet newsgroups… and
yet, after all this time, we’re still in the process of figuring out how the online
world will change the role of writers. I don’t have many answers there, but
one thing I can say is that online writing takes place under the most
unrelenting form of competitive pressure possible – the constant competition
for attention. If you’re not entertaining or interesting or informative, the
audience goes away. There’s just too much else waiting to distract them.
Scheherazade couldn’t have had it any worse; in The Thousand and One
Nights, she only had to entertain one Persian king. In some respects, online
writing is as demanding a training ground as a writer could want; it might not
help a writer develop a lot of polish, but it demands that writers learn to be
lively and engaging.
To my regret as editor, we couldn’t fit in even a fraction of the writers
who deserve to be here. If Sequart published a twelve volume collection of
essays on Watchmen, each volume the same length as this book, we couldn’t
include more than a sample of the interesting commentary on Watchmen to
be found online.
Dedication
Finally, this collection is dedicated to the memory of Dick Giordano, who
died on 27 March 2010 at the age of 77.
As the Editor in Chief at Charlton Comics in 1965, Giordano guided the
creation of the “Action Hero” line of comics, including updated versions of
earlier Charlton characters Captain Atom and Blue Beetle as well as new
costumed heroes such as the Question, the Peacemaker, Judomaster, Son of
Vulcan, and Nightshade. (You’ll read more about several of those characters
in the pages that follow.) Featuring stories and artwork by outstanding
creators including Steve Ditko, Jim Aparo, Frank McLaughlin, Denny
O’Neil, Pete Morisi, Pat Boyette, Joe Gill, and many others, the “Action
Hero” titles earned fan acclaim and a devoted cult following but were never a
commercial success. All were cancelled before Giordano left the company in
1968.
After becoming Vice President / Executive Editor at DC Comics in 1980,
Dick Giordano helped recruit promising British newcomer Alan Moore for
his first work in American comics. Giordano was also responsible for DC
acquiring the Charlton Action Hero characters after his former employer went
out of business. When Moore submitted a proposal for a series using those
same Action Heroes in a thoroughly modern story that would push beyond
the boundaries of anything seen before in a super-hero comic, Giordano
suggested that Moore instead create a new set of characters who would better
serve his story. When Giordano approved a request from artist Dave Gibbons
to collaborate with Moore on the new project, all these threads converged.
Put simply, there would never have been any such thing as Watchmen
without Dick Giordano.
All of us who enjoyed his work as an artist and editor owe Dick Giordano
a debt of gratitude. This is especially true for those of us who were inspired
to create our own stories, our own artwork… or even essays about a comic
book series he helped publish 25 years ago.
