Hi, Folks:
My early Christmas present this year is “Watching the Watchmen: The Definitive Companion to the Ultimate Graphic Novel” by Dave Gibbons and Chip Kidd. This is a particularly stunning book, and it includes a lot of the thumbnails, script pages, and early character designs for the characters. It also includes such treats as the publication history behind the Watchmen, and personal anecdotes from Gibbons.
For me, the most exciting part of this is the look under the hood it provides us for a glimpse at the creative process of these great cartoonists. Not only does it explain how Gibbons penciled, inked, and lettered Watchmen, but why he adopted the nine-panel grid, his workflow, and even the type of pens he used for inking. This kind of information is invaluable and inspirational for cartoonists.
John Higgins was the series colorist, and I don’t think you can praise him enough for the work he did on Watchmen. Working within the confines of pre-digital coloring, Higgins did an incredible job of amplifying the comic and making its message that much more clear. Back then, color guides had CMYK codes jotted down all of the pages, and then a group of unnamed workers would cut out the combination of films to make that printing possible.
What the book does not include is Alan Moore. Mr. Moore, arguably the most influential comic writer alive, has studiously avoided getting caught up in the pre-movie hype around Watchmen. Moore’s feud with DC is well known, as is his habit of disassociating himself (and his name) from any of the movies that have been developed off his comics. (If memory serves correctly, that includes From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and V for Vendetta.) While we can admire Alan Moore’s ideas, it’s a second or third-hand type of admiration.
This book is a large, dust-jacketed coffee table book. It is beautifully designed and printed, and quite weighty, giving you the feeling that you have bought something of substance.
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