Off-Topic: Dean & Britta at Johnny Brenda's, June 4, 2009

Watchmen: A Film Proposal

I'll be brief.

I've finally figured out how they could make an acceptable Watchmen film: tell the story using techniques unique to cinema.

Moore & Gibbons showed readers just what you could do with a comic book. They did things you couldn't do in any other medium. What's essentially a murder mystery with a big twist was layered with so much non-linearity, parallelism, synchronicity, and multiple perspectives that it became something else entirely.

Couldn't you take the same basic skeleton -- Rorschach investigates a random murder, it turns out to be the Comedian, he warns some old friends -- and flesh it out in a way that only a movie can? I don't know much about the mechanics of sophisticated cinema, but I'd be willing to be bet there are some interesting things that could be done. Don't try to replicate or approximate what Moore & Gibbons did, do something entirely different. Make it unrecognizable.

Who directs?

Miracleman: Kree + Skrull = Qys?

During a recent re-read of Alan Moore seminal Miracleman run, it occurred to me out of nowhere that the alien Qys are a reasonable amalgamation of Marvel Comics' extraterrestrial races the Kree and the Skrull.

The defining feature of the Skull is their ability to alter their appearance at will. The Qys, similarly, maintain a library of bodies from which they can pick and choose as circumstances require.



The Kree, on the other hand, are known for their Supreme Intelligence (above), the massive hive-mind that governs their empire. Is the massive, omnisexual, super-intelligent body worn by the Qys' ruler (at top) all that different?

I doubt that the similarities were intentional, but it's interesting to me, nonethless.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that it makes more sense when you say KREE + SKRULL = QYS, partly because Marvel always seems to say "Kree/Skrull War" in that order. Plus, the phonological math makes more sense that way.

Bad Decisions: A Comic Book Tattoo

A friend of mine recently shared his plans to get a "sleeve", as they're called in the tattoo world, depicting the major characters, plot points, and themes of a somewhat obscure, critically acclaimed, and out of print super-hero story.

I'm not a big fan of tattoos to begin with, something to do with my personal attitude toward the inevitability of change, but I've counseled him against pursuing this project for a specific reason: what happens when the movie comes out? For two decades, we were all sure that they'd never make that Watchmen movie, but it finally happened. So that awesome Watchmen sleeve you got in 1997? It's ridiculous now.

I've promised not to reveal the particular subject of my friend's sleeve project -- it looks like he might be a first mover on that one -- but I'm sure that the story's eventually going to be reprinted, the film rights will be sold, and the movie will very possibly get made. Then he'll be the guy at the beach with the Watchmen-equivalent tattoo.

I've suggested alternatives. Topping my list was something from Love & Rockets or maybe Stray Bullets, but he hasn't read them yet. How about Quimby the Mouse? Something by Jason (whom he enjoys)? Or, if your heart's set on a super-hero theme, the classic Shooter/Swan run on the Legion of Super-Heroes?

Photo by Squidita.

So Long, Fellas...

Is Dwight Serious?

On Twitter, Rainn Wilson claims no one but his Web site, SoulPancake, is discussing spirituality and Watchmen. Apparently, he seriously believes this. Despite, well, y'know. The article in question is pretty poor stuff. Lumping the book and movie together, the reviewer treats us to truly head scratch-inducing misfires such as claiming Rorschach doesn't believe in morality.

Rorschach views God as an absent interventionist who allows tragedies to occur. Therefore, morality does not exist, and murder can be justified.

I suppose theists (SoulPancake is somehow about spirituality) might have a hard time understanding morality -- absolute, personal morality -- in the absence of some supernatural being, but c'mon, man. What's weirder is the way the reviewer doesn't recognize Rorschach's absence of belief in a god. It's twisted into "Rorschach believes in God, but he thinks God is an 'absent interventionist'". Weird, weird stuff.

I truly hope this doesn't affect my appreciation of The Office.

UPDATE: Holy mother of what the hell...

Alan Moore probably grew up feeling the same way I did about superheroes. That would explain why he and artist Dave Gibbons created the graphic novel Watchmen, an adult’s attempt to capture the childhood experience of reading comics.

I think one of those page scraping nonsense engines may have written this article.

Watchmen: Dear A.O. Scott

I loved the fact that you recognized the genius of the SpongeBob movie (and I don't mean that sarcastically), but I think you're off-base when it comes to Watchmen (the book, not the movie).