Another thing that might not be apparent to younger readers - when Watchmen came out, it looked very old-school in its layout. At that time, comics were really starting to get flashy with their artwork (because personal computers I reckon). Watchmen is strict nine-panel and very old-fashioned in its layout of the comic sections. Not sure why they did that but visually it made Watchmen stand out, and look a bit dated even when it was first published.
After sealing the deal, the two artists spent a day at Gibbons' house sketching costumes, brainstorming details about their alternative U.S., and discussing influences, including comic-book creators Will Eisner (The Spirit) and Steve Ditko (Spider-Man). Their surprising touchstone: MAD magazine's famous 1953 skewering of Superman, ''Superduperman.'' ''We wanted to take Superduperman 180 degrees — dramatic, instead of comedic,'' says Moore, who declares Harvey Kurtzman's MAD the ''best comic ever!'' Many choices for Watchmen deviated from the comics norm, like using moodier, secondary colors and dividing the page into a claustrophobic nine-panel grid instead of a few panels of varying size.
NEIL GAIMAN
My very small part in Watchmen is that, every now and then, Alan would phone me: ''Neil, you're an educated man. Where does it say...?'' He would need a quote from the Bible, or an essay about owls. I was his occasional research assistant.
Neat.
I'm not a comic expert and didn't notice the layout, but I suspected the visual style was deliberately imitating the older superhero comics they were skewering. It was a nice touch. Everything about what you're holding suggests you're going to get a traditional superhero comic — the name, the style, the subject, the glimpses you might get of costumed adventurers, but of course that's before you start reading and figure it out.