Humble apologies for not posting recently, I’ve been entertaining unexpected visitors. For the past fortnight I have been sharing my quarters with Messrs. Hubris and Chagrin.
They came a calling when a friend lent me Watchmen, a comic book by Alan Moore about a group of feasible superheroes existing within an alternate modern history, attempting to unravel a plot pursuing global instability whilst wrestling with the idiosyncrasies of their conceptualised identities.
I took on the book with lightly dismissive low expectation. I was, after all, a man of the hefty highbrow - used to complex, multi-layered plots dancing from poetical prose. A comic might be enjoyably and momentarily diverting but would not, could not, provide sustaining nourishment of the soul. Just as a tin of spaghetti hoops makes for an entertainingly regressive snack, but you wouldn’t present it as the main feature of a dinner party.
Well, wasn’t I an idiot? Hubris and Chagrin knocked my door that night with suitcases sufficiently stuffed to suggest a lengthy stay.
Watchmen was shocking. Not shockingly awful, not causing horror and disgust, but something that jarringly bestirred my prejudicial sensibilities. It was utterly not as I’d expected, on so many levels.
The storyline itself was richly dark, disturbingly deep and improbably plausible and the nine-panel layout allowed for a contradistinctive narrative weave that darted between concurrent, overlapping storylines. Consequently, rather than following a single textual thread, the reading rhythm demanded simultaneous absorption of journal chronicle, multiple dialogue and pictorial representation, which took a while to get used to. Due to the uniqueness of the medium and the genius of its creators, one’s experiential methodology had to adapt accordingly.
And so, as the doorbell rang, I knew I had to invite my guests in. I had been guilty of presuming that comics were some kind of refuge for the indulgence of childish escapism, a fantasyland for the young and the great unwashed. I was, quite frankly, extraordinarily ignorant and foolish.
It’s curious how we can so easily dismiss things that aren’t within our immediate frame of reference, those we are socially encouraged to forego, things we don't fully understand or past pleasures incongruent with our refined sense of self.
Erroneously we don’t, or I didn’t, allow for the possibility that apparently competing elements can comfortably co-exist, each offering something different but equally rewarding. Reading comics does not require that the novel is disregarded. There is room aplenty for both.
Fundamentally it’s about prejudice. Commonly, and rightly, this issue tends to focus on the suffering inflicted upon the victims. But it’s also worth realising that our pre-conceived ideas have a negative and limiting impact on us as well.
In the world of Watchmen, this black and white mindset is that perpetuated by Rorschach. I will leave you to discover for yourselves just how well he is ultimately served by that perspective.
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