I don't like Rorschach. There, I said it. I know he's the flagship character and everyone's favorite, and I'm not trying to be a purposeful contrarian, I just don't like the guy. The thing that bothers me most is that because he's so black and white (heh), he eventually has to create gaps in his analysis so that he doesn't break his philosophical views. The fact that he calls the Comedian's attempted rape of Silk Spectre a "moral lapse" is deplorable to me. We wouldn't get along, I guess is what I'm saying.
You're not supposed to. He's a psychopath. You're supposed to empathize with his perspective, but not like him. Bear in mind - Alan Moore hates superheroes. He was given a cadre of them to try and reinvigorate, and he ended up upending the entire genre. He's as much as said that superheroes are a projection of American fascism. Each and every superhero in Watchmen is deeply flawed - the more power, the greater the flaw.
He also did America's Best Comics, and his salvaging of some Rob Liefeld stuff before that, going out of his way to do a less cynical take on superheroes, because he didn't like the influence Watchmen had on the genre. I've never seen him say he hated superheros, though it wouldn't surprise me if he did, but he was probably overstating his opinion a bit. He also says things like this after all.
The Guardian, January 2014 The Guardian, December 2013 He's said other stuff for 30 years, but it's all been buried of late because of the gonzo shit he's said lately."To my mind, this embracing of what were unambiguously children's characters at their mid-20th century inception seems to indicate a retreat from the admittedly overwhelming complexities of modern existence," he wrote to Ó Méalóid. "It looks to me very much like a significant section of the public, having given up on attempting to understand the reality they are actually living in, have instead reasoned that they might at least be able to comprehend the sprawling, meaningless, but at-least-still-finite 'universes' presented by DC or Marvel Comics. I would also observe that it is, potentially, culturally catastrophic to have the ephemera of a previous century squatting possessively on the cultural stage and refusing to allow this surely unprecedented era to develop a culture of its own, relevant and sufficient to its times."
“I haven’t read any superhero comics since I finished with ‘Watchmen.’ I hate superheroes,” Moore told the Guardian in an interview published late last week. “I think they’re abominations. They don’t mean what they used to mean. They were originally in the hands of writers who would actively expand the imagination of their nine- to 13-year-old audience. That was completely what they were meant to do and they were doing it excellently. These days, superhero comics think the audience is certainly not nine to 13, it’s nothing to do with them. It’s an audience largely of 30-, 40-, 50-, 60-year old men, usually men.”
I am still reading Swamp Thing (onto book 3!) and what strikes me about it is that it is overwhelmingly sad more than anything else. Although I suppose you could argue ST is not a typical superhero perhaps? He is almost like Captain Planet - but a million times cooler. Do you relate to Alan Moore, kb?
Swamp Thing is now on my to-read list. Should I begin with "Saga of the Swamp Thing" ? Or do I need to go further back?
What kb said. I think you might eventually decide to read the earlier stuff if you really like Swamp Thing (and Moore's is quality) but the earlier stuff sounds a bit dicier in terms of story quality and the continuity, of course, gets all fucked up.
He does claim to have met John Constantine.
Friends who are producing a new theatrical version of Robert Anton Wilson's 'Cosmic Trigger' just conducted an interview with Moore where he talks art, magick and his decision to become a magician. I get to edit. I'll link the results when they can be made public.
Ah yes, it's been long enough for them to have revived the play this year in London. Will add a link to the video shortly.
I don't think you are supposed to even empathize with his perspective.
I think he's there to counter and contrast with our distaste at Dan's wishy-washiness. He's the vigilante that Dan didn't have the stomach to become. R is still a masked adventurer, and hasn't sold out, but he's had to become a monster to do it.
I think the point is that the only guy who we could possibly want to like is so totally unlikeable. I don't think "flagship character" means we should like him, and I don't know that he's everyone's favorite. We're not there just yet, but it becomes evident later that he's the only one we could possibly side with, and he's fucking mental. So what does that make us? Thick? Insane? Simplistic? Someone is definitely accusing us of being wrong in our thinking.
One of the trickiest things to learn in writing is Point of View. The more POVs you have, the more story you get to tell... but the fewer POVs you have, the more pure and relatable your tale. Watchmen has shit tons of POV. Without spoiling too much for the next couple weeks, it's worth noting who has POV and who doesn't. That said, each character is a protagonist of their own story, really. Some are more relatable than others. Nite Owl, if anything, is the story's access character - he was a little boy that loved superheroes so he became one and it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Laurie had no choice but to become a superhero and she hates it through and through. I'd say she has just as much POV as Dan does. More than Rorschach.