love it great table book and companuion piece to the graphic novel you will love it! 256 Watching the Watchmen is artist Dave Gibbons’s description of the events and concepts leading up to Alan Moore’s and his Watchmen comic book series. It’s not Alan Moore’s take on the trials and tribulations of getting the series written, but the book is utterly fascinating nonetheless. Full of storyboards, pencils, and finished page art to supplement the text, I found the book hard to put down. 256 I don't believe I've ever given Dave Gibbons the amount of credit he deserves for the creation of Watchmen. It wasn't until my most recent re-reading that I really paid attention to what he managed to accomplish with a 9 panel grid. The subtlety and level of detail he conveys - with absolute clarity - is every bit as genius as Alan Moore's words. There isn't anything flashy about his style, but I can't imagine any of today's big name artists capable of the feat, especially since so many of them struggle with basic storytelling and lay out pages with loud, splashy action scenes where you can't tell what's actually happening from panel to panel.
I've always appreciated Watchmen as a dense and complicated work, but this behind-the-scenes look helped me understand the exact mathematical precision it took to construct it. Sure, it all started with an insanely detailed script from Moore. (91 pages for issue #1!) But it was Gibbons who brought it all together, and this archive shows you how seriously he took it. There are detailed maps and schematics of locations like Moloch's apartment, the Owlship and the street corner so he'd always have the spacing correct between the newsstand and the Gunga Diner. He dripped real ink into Rorschach patterns over and over to make sure his looked authentic. He even had an entire graph just to chart the rotation of a falling perfume bottle in relation to the fixed stars in the background.
Gibbons must have kept every scrap of paper from those years, and this book is like rifling through his old desk drawers. Not everything is particularly illuminating, but every bit of it is interesting. 256 Watchmen is a very special comic. It remains so despite the Snyder movie, despite the two decades that have passed, despite the reveal at the end (which actually makes rereading the comic exciting), despite the strange form - half comic and half book - ... I've reread it recently and got more out of it. A lot more than rewatching the Snyder movie. So a book describing the process of creating the comic should be just as fascinating, right?
Well ... I'm not the intended audience.
See, I want to read and hear the stories that went into forming the comic. I want to hear about discarded ideas and how the movement from adapting a property to creating new characters came about. I want to see a glimpse of what would have been ... that's what I want from a companion to the graphic novel. I don't want to see the drafts (various, from first to final) of EVERY PAGE in the novel ... without commentary. I don't need little snippets here and there ... I want something meaty to chew on. And Watching The Watchmen didn't really do that. Sure, I got a tiny peak behind the engine, but these were anecdotes at best. And Moore is not included. I'm excited that Gibbons and Higgins (illustrator and colorist, respectively) were able to talk about their work (this is Gibbons's book with a guest appearance by Higgins), but I want to know about the story. What is also sad is that the Glimpses section of the Definitive Edition of Watchmen (hardcover edition) has easily 25% of the non-page work that was showed in Watching The Watchmen.
So, there's not a ton that's new (partly due to Gibbons not owning most of the original artwork), and the commentary is sparse. If I was into the art or coloring of Watchmen (a lot more than I am, that is), then this book would have sparked a lot more interest. As it is, it was a wonderful waste of time that allowed me to think of how awesome Watchmen is and gave me the urge to go read Miller's Dark Knight Returns as well as Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing. 256 Para fans, fans a morir, y que tengan dinero para la costosa edición si no están de Españita. De no haberla comprado con mi descuento de librero tal vez hubiera pasado en esta compra.
Los pequeños detalles detrás de la cortina gracias a Gibbons de la elaboración de Watchmen se ven complementados con casi la totalidad de los sketches de las páginas finales de la novela gráfica publicada. Este artefacto será la delicia de cualquiera que desee adentrarse más en los abismos creados por Alan Moore (aunque lastimosamente pero no inesperadamente, sin su colaboración) 256
With Alan Moore severing all ties with DC due to various reasons, it looks like we're not going to get a discussion by him of how the story of Watchmen came about or how he plotted the series, page-by-page and panel-by-panel. However, what we get here is Dave Gibbons' take on things, though primarily concentrating on the glorious artwork that he created over 25 years ago.
And my! What a lot of artwork there is. Firstly, this thick, oversized book is a lot bigger than I'd thought it'd be. It feels like it weighs half a ton. It also seems that Mr Gibbons has saved 95% of all his notes, doodles, rough drafts, and layouts (though none of the actual artwork used in the series) that he produced for Watchmen in the mid eighties. Does this guy throw nothing away!? Of course, nowadays he could sell this stuff for a lot of money - even the rather scribbly bits. In fact, in part of the book Gibbons laments the fact that he sold all his original artwork for the comic book series for a very reasonable sum during the early days.
Together with the treasure trove of art from Gibbons' Watchmen box, a number of other pieces of related artwork and photos of memorabilia are collected. Shown are the various posters used to promote the original series, lead minatures of the main characters, artistic material from the role-playing game and even a picture of a smiley face carrier-bag. I must admit that I quite like the Marvel version mock-up of the Watchmen. Very Kirby-ish.
Most of the book is taken up with Gibbons' roughs showing the layouts for each individual panel. Nearly all pages from all issues are shown in these little sketches. To begin with, it was quite fascinating to see these. But then, after a couple of issues, you realise that they're just rough versions of the art you've already seen and so start to skip over them. Still, it's certainly comprehensive.
Running through the book are words by Gibbons' describing his memories of the time planning, producing and promoting this landmark series. To me, this is the most fascinating part of the book. Obviously, the actual events are over 25 years ago so things are somewhat sketchy, but what is discussed is almost exclusively positive and steers well away from the Moore/DC debacle. John Higgins also chips in a few pages discussing the colouring on Watchmen, including some words about, and examples of, the new colouring job for the Absolute edition.
Overall, the book is a quality piece of work. It's size is large enough to show off the beautiful artwork on good quality, glossy paper. Chip Kidd's design works well and doesn't detract. And there's plenty in there to keep a Watchmen fan flicking through the images for weeks. 256 For a coffee table book about the creation of 'Watchmen' made without Alan Moore's involvement, I thought it was pretty great. Lots of beautiful sketches and other artwork, many fascinating letters and notes from those early days, as well as short remembrances and anecdotes from Dave Gibbons and John Higgins (the colorist).
My only complaint is that a large portion of the book is devoted to displaying the initial very rough outlines (in the book they're called 'thumbnails') of almost every page in the comic. Although interesting in their own right, collectively they span dozens upon dozens of pages and after a while I became kind of... over-saturated (if that makes sense) and was flipping through those pages to get to the next 'good' part. Instead, I think I would have preferred more comparisons between sketches and finalised pages, or more pages from the original script - or maybe just a thinner book. :) 256 Look behind the panels, revealing of mind boggling precision. 256 An absolute must-have for all fans of Moore and Gibbons and their life-changing work on the seminal artistic and cultural achievement that is, was, and will be Watchmen, this book sheds light into the messy and brilliant process of Gibbons, Moore, Higgins, and all parties involved, and provides incredible insights into the inspiration and perspiration behind the greatest graphic novel of all times, written, as it was, to honor the profound medium that is the venerable comic book, no matter what time or culture decides it to be, Moore and Gibbons did it an ineffably divine service with the gift that is Watchmen and Gibbons took it a step further for fans and comic authors such as myself to provide so much depth and detail into everything that went through his mind and hands as the process developed into something far greater than a simple story for the simple enjoyment of a couple of comic book lovers. In my mind, nothing will ever touch the prophetic genius of Watchmen, the poignancy, the humanity, the scale, the scope, and this book is a must have for any serious fan as it will inspire even more and ever further forms of art and artistic communication, as authors seek to tell their own stories with the skill and integrity and sheer passion that Moore, Gibbons, and Higgins poured into Watchmen. 256
(More pictures at parkablogs.com)
The construct of the book is great. It's hardcover with a dust jacket. The paper stock is good, thick and low gloss.
Inside the book are tons of initial sketches, designs, storyboards, comic panels, scripts and scribbles. Dave Gibbons really packed in a lot of stuff from their sketchbooks. The scans are so high in resolution you can see the texture of the sketchbooks' paper grain.
The book starts off with the background story on the history of Watchmen, when Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore first met. Then there's the process of creating the comics, getting the readers reactions (one sent in a fan note using plastic bag), to the sending of the last pages off in an overweight parcel to the publisher.
Everything is written in a very condensed manner, the way magazines write their articles. That's not a bad thing though. But for a graphic novel of such caliber, I'm very sure they left out a lot of things.
Also, nothing is mentioned about the plot and the character development. I can't believe they actually left out the story about the story, which is what made Watchmen so popular.
My reservation about the book is on the perceived lack of depth. Overall, this book is strictly for fans of Watchmen, especially those who have the graphic novel.
This review was first published on parkablogs.com. There are more pictures and videos on my blog. 256
Enjoy the ultimate companion to a comics masterpiece, as award-winning artist Dave Gibbons gives his own account of the genesis of WATCHMEN in this dust-jacketed hardback volume, opening his vast personal archives to reveal never-published pages, original character designs, page thumbnails, sketches and much more, including posters, covers and rare portfolio art. Featuring the breathtaking design of Chip Kidd and Mike Essl, WATCHING THE WATCHMEN is both a major art book in its own right, and the definitive companion to the graphic novel that changed an industry.
Voted among Time magazine's 100 Best Novels from 1923 to the present, a perennial bestseller over the past twenty years and widely considered the greatest graphic novel of all time, WATCHMEN is a gripping, labyrinthine piece of comic art, which has earned an acclaimed place in modern literary history.
I've had a great time, re-visiting the very beginnings of Watchmen and unearthing material I haven't set eyes on for many years. As a fan myself, this is the kind of stuff I eat up and I'm sure the many devotees of the graphic novel will do the same! says Gibbons.
© DC Comics 2008. All Rights Reserved. Watching the Watchmen: The Definitive Companion to the Ultimate Graphic Novel