Who Watches the Watchword?

[T]o actually read a comic, you do have to be able to read, which is not something you can say about watching a film.

—Alan Moore, interview

I guess I'm the only one in the world who wasn't excited about the Watchmen trailer. I thought it was too saturated, slow-motion, synthetic, generally 300-y, and lacking all the much-promised "realism." Plus, there definitely aren't any ulterior reasons.

But the trailer, followed by this week's San Diego Comic-Con, will begin the all-out media blitz of the new Watchmen. Not just the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons comic, but the film and, more importantly, the entity intellectually owned by TimeWarner. One of the main components to reselling the comic for a wider audience was to debut an animated version of the comic on iTunes.

This annoys the shit and any hint of charm out of me.

Now, I apologize in advance for getting into RANT ON! mode since, admittedly, I haven't seen the animated comic. (There's something wrong with my iTunes Store keygen which won't let me purchase anything from there.) But, if it brings, as described by its Warner Premiere Motion Comics press release, "a visually engaging experience to life through the use of subtle movements, voice-overs, sweeping music scores and stunning comic book artwork," then there's one thing to keep in mind. IT'S NOT A FUCKING COMIC. And its creators have nothing to do with it.

Comics are not movies. They don't have music. They don't have movement. Intelligent people and comic fans make this mistake, sometimes even comparing comics to storyboards. There are things that only movies can do. There are things that only comics can do. If you really want to know the difference, I'm sure Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics or Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art are available at your local library; I'll loudly recommend those essentials through even sore lungs.

Comics are color (or lack of) and images and iconography sequentially and strategically placed to move the eye to convey something: emotion, story, or information. Part of its art is how it moves the eye. This is one of the five billion reasons Watchmen is a masterpiece, because it has better movement in one page than an all-night Nora Ephron marathon. But they do this with static images and absolutely no persistence of vision.

That's not the hoopla received from the Watchmen motion comic. I got at least six different emails from excited friends, all comic fans, sending out links. Harry Knowles, the poser twit fanboy ambassador, said it was "pretty darn groovy," but wishes "they had done a full on audio production—with more voice actors and ambient sound." In fact, I've only seen one critical instance, though I'm not going to pretend my RSS reader is all-seeing.

Let's start with the premise/tagline stated in the trailer (why couldn't they go with the time-tested "Who Watches the Watchmen?"), that Watchmen is "THE MOST CELEBRATED GRAPHIC NOVEL OF ALL TIME." If true (which I believe), then take other most celebrated pieces of art from other mediums and try this tact with them:

• Tolstoy's War and Peace, the interactive version!: Choose your own way through post-Napoleonic War Russia! (Warning: It's pretty boring for the first 100 minutes.)
  
• Picasso's Guernica, the first person shooter!: Go inside one of the few paintings to psychically communicate the atrocity of a war massacre! Our advance game modelers put you into the surrealistic environment where reality twists Nazi warfare into your palpable revulsion!
  
• Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, the board-game!: Be the first person to roll your way to the Fourth Movement and win an Ode to Joy!
  
• Welles's Citizen Kane, the storybook!: Get to the last page to find out the secret of Rosebud—in pop-up form!
  
• Scott's 1984 commercial, the novelization!: The harrowing adventure of a dark future where the government takes over by limiting people's language! Follow the travails of Dirk 84, and his forbidden love Donna 19, as they fight to get the Dyson Sphere Crystal in order defeat the evil Big Brother! Written by Peter David.
  
• Captain Crunch: The Motion Picture!: High seas adventure. If it isn't the Captain, it doesn't CRUNCH—your balls. (Note: Movies adapting cereal was actually a suggestion Moore himself made in a recent interview.)

While we're at it, why not just make a Choose Your Own Adventure: Watchmen? Is Ozymandias fast enough to catch a bullet? Will Moloch get the type of cancer for which there is a cure, or the one for which there isn't? Who does the Comedian rape: Sally Jupiter or Hollis Mason? Does Rorschach feel cleansed, feel the dark planet turn under his feet and know what cats know that makes them scream like babies into the night, then look at the sky through smoke heavy with human fat and see God not there, with the cold suffocating dark going on forever and realize we are alone—or not? Turn to page 398 if yes, 1,047 if no!

And, yes, I understand that TimeWarner could be much worse.


Before you go and say, "What about abridged audio-books?" I cop to that being a decent comparison. The difference is, in those instances, the book is first and foremost. If DC or TimeWarner made an even bigger marketing push on, say, a Watchmen TPB or the Essential Watchmen hardcover, then I wouldn't have a problem. I understand this isn't the first time a great work has been co-opted. (The other Warners Motion Comic is Paul Dini and Bruce Timm's Eisner Award-winning Mad Love, itself an adaptation of the Batman: The Animated Series format they created, which was later re-adapted into a pretty good episode.)

But animated Watchmen is the act of the corporate intellectual property-right owners strategically marketing an upcoming adaptation by butchering, by cropping and panning over the most innovative yet communicative sequential art ever committed to paper, adding sweeping moves and music—without (and this is the key, most important part) the consent of its chief author. It's deliberately pushing this as a main-point, more accessible entry into a movie by turning its source into a base and, essentially, illiterate form. After hearing a lifetime of backhanded insults about how illiterate I and comic readers are, they take our shining beacon—one of the most structurally complex yet accessible narratives of all time—and dumb it down.

Gibbons might have signed off on this but Moore has not realistically had anything to do with DC Comics since 1988. Why? Because the comics industry is notorious for its creators-rights, and Moore's and Gibbon's contract stipulated that they'd gain rights to the book—where he and Gibbons created all the characters—only if the book went out of print for one year. This was a loophole that would never happen. Some have said Moore knew what he was getting into, but Watchmen's quality and success and event-ness was so unprecedented that it not only spurned him and Frank Miller away from DC for years, it made a giant leap in an industry that'd barely made baby-steps to celebrate creators and not concepts or characters. In fact, it's been long commented that DC lucratively learned its lesson from screwing Moore by its handling of its next superstar, Neil Gaiman, primarily with the creation of Vertigo. Films aren't any better to their creators when it comes to rights, but at least they've got a justification—huge investment. What are the comics' excuse?

And that's not to say I'm being a philistine socialist about the purity of comics and cross-promotion. That's why the Watchmen video game doesn't bug me one iota. One of the reasons Moore left was due to profit sharing over ancillary Watchmen properties, like (and this is to show how innovative the comics industry was in the late '80s) RPG boardgames. Moore and Gibbons were even chiefly involved with Watchmen's marketing, including the bloody smiley-face button and "WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?" slogan, things that I'm sure will be ubiquitous come March 2009.

Some movie sites reported the "news" from the earlier linked EW interview that, shock, Moore doesn't approve of Watchmen the movie, won't have his name on the film, and won't take any money from that. This shocking news is over three years old, starting after Joel Silver mistakenly (maybe deliberately) declared Moore's participation in V for Vendetta. And Moore, whose movie adaptation treatment has been called the worst of any major writer, will continue to not be associated with the movies, and will deliberately refuse to even see them (although he did read an early draft of V for Vendetta that accurately pointed out it never once mentioned fascism, the point of the comics). (Obviously he didn't comment on the Watchmen trailer, but his daughter, Leah, Twittered: "It resembles Dave's art very closely, but dad does Rorschach's voice waaay better.") What struck even defenders as crazy or prima donna-ish was Moore declaration, since unobserved, that he wanted to take his name off the comics (he did something similar with Marvel and Captain Britain, which was slightly observed with an added sticker of disapproval). Does this sound extreme? Maybe. But it also might simply be the (over)reaction of the greatest and possibly most lucrative comic writer ever wanting artistic control for creating some of the medium's inarguable masterpieces. They don't do this shit to Spielberg.

In the wake of this summer's movie schedule there's been a lot of talk about superhero fatigue. To which I've been wanting to scream, as a self-appointed spokesman for comic fans, "NOW YOU KNOW HOW WE FEEL." Michael Chabon has a rant about the stiltedness of short fiction that applies even better to comics: "Imagine that, sometime about 1950, it had been decided, collectively, informally, a little at a time, but with finality, to proscribe every kind of novel from the canon of the future but the nurse romance." Take the nurse romance analogy and change it to super-heroes. To love comics you have to learn to love them or tolerate them. Every major comic talent ever, with few exceptions, has done them. Now, imagine the non-mainstream, largely stilted alternative so reactionary and unimaginative that the best term to describe it would be mid-'90s Sundance character pieces. This all creates a ghetto mentality, a pulpy, cannibalistic relationship to a dying status quo. I don't need a reminder that the medium I've cheer-led too much hasn't produced much of merit and that, no matter how much puppy-dog excitement it gets from the merest mainstream attention, it's still decades behind most other mediums.

But I know how to read. So no thanks, TimeWarner, on reading my comics to me.

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Midnight With the Stars and You

The BBC aired a documentary called Stanley Kubrick's Boxes about a guy rummaging through—you guessed it (available here, here, here, here, and here).


(skip to about 5:20 for some good stuff)

Elsewhere, my two favorite revelations:

Kubrick was a prophetic about the ultimate fate of Eastern Europe Communism:

Praise was lavished on Kubrick for The Shining. Like so many of his other films, this fast became a cult classic. Business was always business, however. In response to a request by Frank Pierce on October 26, 1987, to sell the country rights to The Shining to Hungarofilm for $12,000 for five years Kubrick write NO! in gigantic letters by the side of this message and sent the following cable.

October, 1987
To Frank Pierce
Dear Frank, I think you know that I have always maintained that it is a very great mistake to virtually give away films to Socialist countries when at some point in the future they are likely to be viable commercial markets. Obviously I haven't changed my views about this. Stanley.

And Stanley was a Barbra fan:

August 10, 1964
To Sidney Chaplin (Streisand's co-star in the stage production)

Barbra is the end! None of the praise she has received has sufficiently described her genius. I won't attempt to here but I do have one observation. I think it's true only the most magical actors in the world can overdo and make it believable and tasteful. She belongs in that group.

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Type a Plan to Love Me

I've got a rich, rewarding history when it comes to long, deep conversations with myself and people trying to sell me onto their porn web site via Instant Messenger. But these pornbots today!

Ernestine: Hi
Me: Hello.
Ernestine: hey, A/S/L?
Me: Yeeeah. Do I know you?
Ernestine: hey whats up babe, U got a webcam? finally someone adds me, I am soo fuckin horny today for some reason lol
Me: Oh, OK. Interesting.
Ernestine: listen hun, I\'m just about to start my webcam show with jen, come chat me there in my chat room? We can cyber, I\'ll get naked if u do..lol!
Me: Uhm, I don't have a web cam. But I draw fast and semi-accurately.
Me: Can I get your postal address?
Ernestine: I can show u how to watch if u promise not to tell anyone else how to do it???PLEASE
Me: Your webcam's a trade secret?
Me: Would I be violating SEC laws if I revealed it?
Ernestine: well since its the law that u gotta be 18 (nudity involved), u have to sign up with a credit card for age verification! BUT.. Once you are inside, just clikc on \"Webcams\" let me know what name you use to sign in with so I know it\'s you babe! http://janeh.lovelocalgirls.com fill out the bottom of the page then fill out the next page as well and u can see me live!
Me: All that for getting off!
Ernestine: Please dont mention anything about that in the chatroom once u get in ok?
Me: So it's not a trade secret? Is someone really sensitive about the chat room?
Me: Too soon?
Ernestine: OH SHIT.. k I\'m late to start my show, I gotta get off msn...I\'ll see ya inside my chatroom babe.. remember not to mention that I am upgrading u... You can use your msn name to sign in so i know it\'s you..
Me: Right. because we bonded.
Ernestine: AUTO-RESPONSE: hey just in the middle of my webcam show if you want to watch click the link http://janeh.lovelocalgirls.com
Me: And you'll do an extra cunt-thrust just for me, right?

Where's the human touch!

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Let Us Mean More to Each Other

"I think about the old days a lot. […] If I try hard to remember, all kinds of stuff comes back—really vivid memories. All of a sudden out of nowhere I can bring back things I haven't thought about for years. It's pretty interesting. Memory is so crazy! It's like we've got these drawers crammed with tons of useless stuff. Meanwhile, all the really important things we just keep forgetting, one after another."

Korogi stands there holding the remote control.

"You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper. The fire isn't thinking, 'Oh, this is Kant,' or 'Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,' or 'Nice tits,' while it burns. To the fire, they're nothing but scraps of paper. It's the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there's no distinction—they're all just fuel."

Korogi nods to herself. Then she goes on:

"You know, I think if I didn't have that fuel, if I didn't have these memory drawers inside me, I would've snapped a long time ago. I would've curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. It's because I can pull the memories out of the drawers when I have to—the important ones and the useless ones—that I can go on living this nightmare of a life. I might think I can't take it anymore, that I can't go on anymore, but one way or another I get past that."

—Haruki Marakami, After Dark

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What Kind of Week Has It Been

Last Saturday I was driving while working my newest/greatest-ever!/unpaid gig to get a free lunch when I put my car into reverse on a richy rich Bee Caves street. Something happened that had occurred two months ago: the car became stuck in reverse, and the clutch became limp. No matter where I moved the stick the car stayed in reverse. When this had happened last time, it was because a pin attaching the clutch to the transmission had broke.

Luckily, this time, I was only two blocks away from a Shell service station. "Well, it's Saturday, and our weekday people aren't here," the Shell mechanic said. "And it ain't like we can go your car to look at it; we still gotta have it here."

Some time after I'd called a tow truck to take it somewhere else, I estimated in my head, based on how much it'd cost last time to fix, that, even though this was a relatively cheap fix, I didn't have enough money in the bank for a tow truck and labor.

I got on the phone with the tow truck people. "You said you'd be here 45 minutes ago! You're 20 minutes late!"

"Our guy says he's pulling up now."

"Yeah, well," I said, "I'll take care of it myself." And so I drove it to the service station. In reverse.

I took the bus cross-town yesterday to pick up the car. They told me my clutch is going out, which is a job arguably more expensive than the car has become. Also, the job ended up costing twice my estimate. And, because of (in my estimation) shoddy repair work, my car frequently won't go into reverse, second, or fourth gear now.

And let's not forget: Because the job ended up costing twice what I'd expected, I don't have enough for rent this month.

Remember my wacky bullshit handicap parking ticket, the one I was given in an empty parking lot after midnight at my place of work where I'd been given permission to park? I'd went in to contest it a few weeks ago, waited an hour only to find that I was just there to request a court date; they said they'd mail said date to me. After not having gotten any mail for the last week, I came home and found a stack in the kitchen, hidden by my roommates. On the stack was a letter from City of Austin.

It was a delinquent notice for not having paid the ticket.

Not only that, but through some filing error City of Austin put in two different citations for the same offense. Thus, the bill says I owe $550 for a parking ticket.

That's just the financial stuff. There's like fifteen billion little things that are attacking my manic depression, of which, I probably couldn't articulate, but are just as effectively making the shit-whole greater than the sum of its parts. Some weeks I feel like I'm living the origin of a supervillain.

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