I am Kyle's self-indulgence

I finally got my own copy of Absolute Watchmen yesterday (I would have had it shortly after my birthday, but the first eBay seller I ordered it from soon after vanished off the face of the earth, taking my $45.75 with him. Grrr). I'm glad to finally have this attractive, over-sized volume: I've read my paperback copy so many times the cover and pages are showing wear.

Follow up:

The first thing I noticed about this book when I took it out of the box is its size. I knew it's oversized, but I didn't realize it would be just this big. Here it is next to my dog-eared copy:

I remember reading once that Watchmen's artist, Dave Gibbons, was a little daunted at the initial prospect of rendering 9 detailed panels for each page of the comic book. That's a lot of information to cram into a small space. While there's never been any real problem with seeing all the information in the original comic, the larger format seems a more suitable container for the dense content.

Aside from the size, the only real change in the production of Absolute Watchmen is in the coloring. The change are subtle but valuable. Advances in printing allow more a broader range of solid color than was available 20 years ago. When Watchmen was first published comics still used a minute form of Benday dots to create different colors. The Absolute edition of Watchmen replaces those dots with dynamic solid colors, making the images sharper and more vivid. The notable exception is "Black Freighter" panels. Because they are supposed to be lifted from another comic book from the period, these panels are colored with a more exaggerated system of dots. It's an interesting and attractive effect that helps to further distinguish the real world from the comic-within-the comic. Click on the thumbnails below to see a comparison. The first is a scan of my paperback copy, and the second is from the Absolute edition.

Finally, there's the supplemental material included at the back of the book, which includes comment from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, the original concept proposal, character sketches, and sample pages from Moore's original script. All of these provide interesting insights into the creators' thinking at the early stages of the project, and show just how much subtle and subliminal detail they had planned from the beginning.

Absolute Watchmen is a gorgeous publication and, for me, well worth the higher price. More than any other comic book, this groundbreaking miniseries deserves to be seen in a format that accomodates its smallest details.