Watchmen
"This book examines each of the series' twelve issues in unprecedented detail, moving page by page and panel by panel to reveal the hidden foundations of this milestone in modern storytelling. Edited with notes by Leslie S. Klinger, this new edition draws upon critical and scholastic commentary, in-depth interviews with Dave Gibbons, and previously unseen original source material. Klinger provides the reader with a unique and comprehensive view of Watchmen as both a singular artistic achievement and a transformative event in the history of comics as a medium. Set in a world in which history has been forever altered by the existence of superheroes, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' monumental graphic novel Watchmen is one of the most influential comic book series of all time. Following two generations of masked crime-fighters from the end of World War II to the height of the Cold War, this compelling tale unfolds from a simple murder mystery into an epic saga of power, corruption and the ultimate meaning of humanity. More than 30 years after it was first published, Moore and Gibbons' masterpiece continues to inspire and entertain readers around the world. Named one of Time magazine's 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, Watchmen has won countless critical accolades and honors, including the Eisner Award and the Hugo Award"
Stats for nerds
22recommend
51mentions
47people
2010–2026years
43% recommend57% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- 20 years ago I read a The Guardian article about the "top geek novels". I immediately read a bunch of those.
Recently I managed to find the list again, and it's been endless pleasure:
- American Gods -- Neil Gaiman
- Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley
- The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett
- Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks
- Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson
- Cloud Atlas -- David Mitchell
- The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson
- The Dispossessed -- Ursula K Le Guin
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick
- Dune -- Frank Herbert
- Foundation -- Isaac Asimov
- Giles Goat-Boy -- John Barth
- Gravity's Rainbow -- Thomas Pynchon
- The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
- I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
- The Left Hand of Darkness -- Ursula K Le Guin
- The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick
- Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland
- Neuromancer -- William Gibson
- Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell
- Orlando -- Virgina Woolf
- The Shockwave Rider -- John Brunner
- Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson
- Stand on Zanzibar -- John Brunner
- Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein
- Trouble with lichen - John Wyndham
- UBIK -- Philip Dick
- Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
- Woman on the Edge of Time -- Marge Piercy
(I am creatively interpreting "The Colour of Magic" as "all Discworld", "Dune" as "the six Dune books", etc.)
- Say what you will about Moore (though he's the author of Watchmen, widely considered not only the greatest graphic novel of all time and a biting indictment of the entertainment industry and the military industrial complex... no small feat)
But -- I'm an occultist and a philosophical person, so I can tell you from first hand experience that occultism and philosophy are inextricably bound. Any pursuit of metaphysics is occult in nature. Occult simply means "hidden"; it is the domain of those things which can not be perceived directly, but have to be reasoned or intuited out via the mind.
- Alan Moore’s Watchmen - it’s hardly under the radar but it’s a breath of fresh air for novel die-hards
- Off topic, but I just learned that the author of Watchmen (Alan moore) wrote some superman stories. The one I’m trying to track down right now is “for the man who has everything.” He described his writing process for it in detail in his great, short book on comic writing
- Here are some of mine...
Non-fic
- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman
I used to be a member of a cult, and toward the end of that experience, I laughed when I realized I had read this book more than my cult's holy texts. We used to ask each other how many times we'd read those books, and I'd always think, "don't ask me about Feynman," as his experiences really get at the analytical-intuitive mind and takes it to a spiritual level that's not really allowable or approachable from within a typical spiritual text. I still think this is a pretty remarkable feat.
- Alone in the Ocean by Slava Kurilov
Something of the opposite of Feynman's book above, this is a very spiritual feelings-oriented book but it's grounded in a very real experience--the author defected from the USSR by jumping off an official "cruise to nowhere" ship and swimming to the Philippines. It helped me consider the concept of personal freedom and how much it overlaps with feelings for some people, long before it overlaps with objective logic. I learned that my feelings can be an important early-alert system, far from an unintelligible mush.
- Around the World on a Bicycle by Thomas Stevens
This book got me back into cycling exploration after a long hiatus.
- The Mind Map Book by Tony Buzan
I can't put a number on how many helpful and even liberating mind maps I created since buying this book in 1996 or so. I eventually spun off my own system that's similar but with various extensions.
Fiction
- The Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brian
Reading this series I realized how much depth, detail, and subtlety can really do for a work. It blew me away. Previously I had been of the mind that it was best for an author to act something like a professional communication robot, serving the reader and relentlessly cutting away any fat. But I think that kind of reverses itself if you are able to get at the human aspect, the us-fascination of your work--once it's there, it's probably more fun for both writer and reader to celebrate it.
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
While reading, I was excited and horrified to learn that my psychology overlaps with this fictional kid's psychology in more ways than it was comfortable to admit. I decided to hold onto that, and explore it. It helped me open up a world of functionality I now use over and over in journaling and problem-solving.
- Watchmen, writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins
Wow--what _do_ you do, how do you act, what is your response in this general kind of a situation? It's an incredible setup for such a question, one in which the ideal situation has ended up on its head, completely upside down with the good looking totally bad, and the totally bad coming out even worse than before.
- It’s hard to pick a favourite but I figure a decent rule of thumb would be to list books I’ve read at least twice:
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
- The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
- The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
- Watchmen by Alan Moore
- From Hell by Alan Moore
- V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series by Alan Moore
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Immortality by Milan Kundera
- first 3 books in the The Dark Tower series by Stephen King
- The Dark Half by Stephen King
- The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman
- Coalescent by Stephen Baxter
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
