Musings of a Punk Rock Father

I read Batman Year One yesterday. I've been meaning to for years. I made it a priority when I heard that Aranovsky was going to adapt it for the first good Batman film since Schumacher ruined the franchise, but then Christopher Nolan did Batman Begins instead.

I liked that Miller's story featured the origins, essentially, for both Batman and Commissioner Gordon. In this book, he is Lieutenant Gordon, then on the last page he is Captain Gordon. Miller cuts back and forth between the two stories, revealing the similarities in the two characters. His storytelling is strong, as is his dialogue. He writes the two characters so well that the reader would be able to figure out which character was speaking without the use of different lettering for each.

I've come to appreciate how comic books can utilize narration in a way that seems lazy in films. Bruce Wayne and James Gordon narrate throughout the book, but it serves the story rather than help the author avoid any real creativity in the storytelling.

Now I need to read The Dark Knight Returns.

Chapter VI is an unsettling work. In it we see a young Rorschach and the violence and abuse to which his mother subjected him. It is essentially a superhero origins tale, but one that is more richly written than most. Gibbons illustrates the violence with unflinching detail.

I don't have much to say, other than that Moore and Gibbons present a dark, disturbing, moving portrait of a vigilante.

I posted once about starting to read Alan Moore's "Watchmen" graphic novel, and had said I would continue with updates as I progressed through the book. Unfortunately, other reading endeavors got in the way at that time. I have, though, once again begun reading it.

I think I noted in my other post how wonderfully Moore subverts the expectations of a superhero story, and how complex he makes the characters. These people are more than masked heroes, they have lives and thoughts and feeling. Reading through chapter 5, I am getting an even better picture of who these people are.

Some thoughts on the book:

In Chapter III, Moore has a really interesting set of panels. In the chapter, Jon is talking to media about himself, but members of an audience begin to get worked up. Meanhile, Laurie and Dan are out for a stroll and find themselves is a street fight with a pack of hooligans. In one panel, Secret service agents, or maybe just bodyguards, push Jon out of the studio saying, "C'mon, let's get out! The mob's getting aroused..." In the next, Laurie and Dan are shown after defeating the gang in an almost post-coital position. They are slumped with the backs against a wall, kind of leaning on one another, breathing heavy. Laurie pulls out a cigarette.

Chapter IV expertly captures Dr. Osterman's ability to exist in all points of his life simultaneously. The use of Jon dropping the photograph into the dust of the moon helps the reader to see how he views time. Moore uses the mixed up chronology to emphasize Jon's feelings as much as he uses it as a cool way to tell the story. In lesser hands, the scenes may not have been placed in such a way as to create maximum impact.

Finally, in Chapter V, Moore shows how deftly he weaves multiple stories and voices in one cohesive thread. Moore and artist Gibbons also reveal a stroke of genius: they utilize mirror reflections (combined with a mirrored panel structure) multiple times to serve the story titled "Fearful Symmetry" (with a quote at the end from Blake's poem). I also thought I saw the word "tiger" spelled "tyger" as it is in the poem, but when I went back through the chapter, I couldn't find it.

I look forward to the next chapter.

I just started reading Watchmen, mostly on Kyle's recommendation. I've known for a while that I would do well to read some of Alan Moore's work, but, quite frankly, I haven't really felt much like reading comics. Sin City sort of re-awakened my desire to read some good graphic novels, mostly because as faithful the film was to the source material, and as well-filmed and breathtaking it was, the stories seemed better served on the pages in black and white (and the occasional red).

I just discovered where my library keeps its graphic novels, so I sought out the "M"s for Alan Moore, and there on the shelf sat "Watchmen". Sidenote: the graphic novels are kept in the juvenile section, which makes no sense because this is hardly juvenile material.

I'm only 30 pages or so into the story, and already Moore is aiming high. The set-up reminds me of movies like "Lethal Weapon", but it soon takes some turns and fleshes out characters in ways rarely seen in action films or superhero stories. I enjoy how the story subverts the superhero genre, down to the characters mocking the way they used to don costumes before heading out to battle.

The relationships are already complex; Moore uses flashback skillfully to navigate from present to past and back again, and sets his scenes up in such a way that the juxtaposition creates more dramatic tension than the scenes would on their own.

As far as the art, Dave Gibbons uses the panels to full effect. As all great comics do, they tell the story the way great films do. There is as much information in the composition of the pages and the individual panels as there is in the dialogue and narration. I am struck by the timelessness of the art. It does not look dated as I would have expected it to, since it was drawn nearly 20 years ago.

I look forward to the way the story plays out.