Well, it’s finally here, folks. After more than two decades in development, Watchmen is finally hitting screens nationwide this weekend. In a way, it’s sort of miraculous that it actually panned out. Of course, the road hasn’t been easy, with a seemingly endless parade of directors, screenwriters, producers and stars attached to the project at some point. But to me, it’s even more interesting to observe how comic book culture has progressed to this point. Just over a decade ago, it seems like Batman was the only comic getting the blockbuster treatment, and just about everything else was played for campy nostalgia, e.g. The Phantom. Hell, back in 2000 studios were worried whether the X-Men could sell tickets. So the fact that there’s not only a massively budgeted adaptation of Watchmen out there but also one that’s surprisingly faithful to its dense, ambitious source material just shows how far comics- and comic-book movies- have come in the last ten years. If only the movie was better, this saga would have the happy ending that all Watchmen fans crave.

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There are a million reasons a Watchmen movie should never have been made and no good reason it should have, aside from the obvious one: superheroes are big box office, and Watchmen was one of the most tantalizing untouched superhero properties available. It’s also an incredibly dense, multi-layered work, deriving much of its power from its subversion of five decades worth of comic book conventions. Having read the script Sam Hamm penned for Terry Gilliam’s aborted attempt at mounting Watchmen for the screen back in the early ‘90s, I know the new adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons from “visionary director” Zack Snyder isn’t the worst case scenario. Nor does it exceed expectations. It’s just sort of pointless, which is what most fans of the classic comic have probably been expecting all along.

So can we separate the movie from its source material and judge it on its own merits?

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As you may have heard, Alan Moore, the writer of the 1986-1987 comic book series Watchmen, is so disenchanted with both Hollywood and DC Comics (the company that published the comic back when Moore was their official house genius) that he wants nothing to do with promoting Zack Snyder's movie version. It turns out that (as Michael Ordoña reports in the San Francisco Chronicle) Dave Gibbons, the other half of the comic's creative team, isn't so bashful. Gibbons says, "people say, 'Did you do any drawings for the Watchmen movie?' And I say, 'Thousands of them ... 20 years ago.' " Snyder has made a lot of noise about this being a faithful adaptation, and since movies and comics are both visual story-telling media, for Snyder that means duplicating the look of what was on the printed page, transferring it to the big screen, and setting it in motion. (That was basically his strategy with his movie version of Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's 300, too.) Gibbons, who calls the movie "far better than anyone could have reasonably imagined," says that "when you draw a comic book, you kind of have a movie in your head. You try to focus in and isolate one frame of what you're seeing. This is a bit like seeing that movie, but in the real world. You're going, 'That's that picture you drew; that's another picture you drew.' " Looking forward to watching it on DVD, he adds, "you can go back though and pause and look at the background because there's a lot of resonance in there. What Alan says about the graphic novel is, 'Everything in it means something. There's nothing put in there just to put it in.' And that's so with the movie as well. Even down to quite obscure background dressing, it all has some connection."

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Who Watches The Incredibles?

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You may have noticed that Alan Moore isn’t doing a lot of press in support of the Watchmen movie. If you’re familiar at all with Moore and his usual m.o., this doesn’t surprise you. Moore has distanced himself from pretty much all the previous adaptations of his work, including From Hell, V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, so why should Watchmen be any different? But maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. Maybe Moore is actually employing some reverse psychology, some of the mind-bending trickeration that makes his comic book work so compelling, in order to convince us all to see the Watchmen movie. Let’s examine this new Wired interview with Moore for clues.

“I think that adaptation is largely a waste of time in almost any circumstances,” says Moore.

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Can you feel the excitement building? Yeah, me neither, but there’s nothing we can do about it: Watchmen will be arriving in theaters two weeks from Friday and we’ll just have to ride out the hype together. It’s already proven too much for our regular Watchmen correspondent Leonard Pierce, who is currently receiving treatment in an undisclosed location, so I’m filling in for him today with the latest in Watchmania.

British tabloid The Sun has an exclusive clip from the film, which runs approximately 90 seconds and appears to have been chosen completely at random.

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Movie nerds like myself, who have invested what little remains of their self-identity in the remote possibility of Watchmen not being terrible, were thrown into a major tizzy a few months ago when FOX Studios, which claims to own the rights to any and all future movie adaptations of the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons superhero classic, moved to legally block Warner Brothers from releasing the Zack Snyder film.

Many felt this would be an epic moral battle where FOX exerted their rights in the labyrinth of complex entertainment laws to protect their rightful property regardless of future plans, while fending off the ire of pissed-off fans; others thought that it would be a titanic legal showdown where Warner allayed incomprehensible facts and figures in a desperate attempt to prove themselves on the correct side of the law and get their movie out on time.  Others, like your humble correspondent, figured that it was basically just FOX making a bunch of noise, based on a slender bit of legalese, in order to wring a fat payday out of what's widely predicted to be one of 2009's top-grossing films.   As Mania.com is reporting, well...one of us was right.

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No, unfortunately, your humble correspondent, despite his long history of being obsessed with the upcoming Zack Snyder adaptation of Alan Moore's brilliant Watchmen  comic, was not one of those recently invited to view 26 minutes of the footage at a special preview screening. Nor was I numbered among those who got to see the entire film at a preview in Portland, to decidedly mixed reviews.  Why I wasn't included despite my spooky fixation on the movie is unclear; it might have something to do with the fact that I've predicted the movie will suck raw pork knuckles since it was first announced.  Whatever the case, I haven't seen the damn movie yet, and so that's not what I'm going to be reviewing today.

What I'm going to be reviewing today isn't even, technically, a movie.  I'm not sure what it is.  Its producers call it a "motion comic".  It's not an animated film, exactly, nor is it a motion picture, nor is it a webcomic or anything else that we have the critical language to talk about.  It's also not playing at a theater near you:  it's available (the first three chapters, at least) exclusively as a download from the iTunes music store.  Even though it isn't music, either.  So what is it?  It's basically the entire comic, written by Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons, panel by panel, with a very basic, stripped-down sort of cutout animation.  It's also narrated, but not dramatized -- that is, the dialogue is read aloud, in a sort of dramatic fashion, by character actor Tom Stechschulte.  But he's the only member of the cast, which means it's not really a dramatic adaptation of the story -- or any kind of adaptation at all, really.  It's almost like a book on tape of a comic book, only it movies.  Kinda.

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Now that Dark Knight is finally going to be opening nationwide, we can finally return to the natural occupation of the comic book fan:  deranged obsession over Zack Snyder's upcoming movie adaptation of Watchmen.

As we've discussed before, one of the problems with the recent wave of successful motion picture adaptations of comic book properties is that while they've made tons of money for the producers of the movies, it hasn't worked the other way around. Comic book companies have slavered to get their properties on screen in recent years, in the hopes that audiences turned on by the big-screen adventures of Batman or the X-Men will follow those characters into their local comic book shop.  This is especially important in these days of direct sales, when comic book sales are at a historical low, and people speak in non-hysterical terms about the demise of the industry.  So it's worth noting that the millions in profit made my comic book movies hasn't generally been matched by a notable increase in comic book sales, one comic is bucking that trend:  Watchmen. 

One of the earliest comic book mini-series to take advantage of the 'graphic novel collection' format in the 1980s, Watchmen was already one of the most successful titles in DC's history, despite its indie sensibilities, adult storytelling, and complex, morally difficult story.  But with the movie adaptation getting ever closer, its sales have shot way up -- and DC plans to capitalize on the interest in spades.  They'll be promoting an aggressive three-pronged marketing attack to ensure that anyone sucked in by the movie to the degree that they absolutely must have the comic will be able to get one with not trouble.  The triple attack includes a retailer discount for any shops that wish to carry the original softcover graphic novel; a new hardbound edition for collectors; and a deluxe edition featuring making-of material, rare artwork, and other bonus materials, the comic book equivalent of a fancy Criterion Collection disc.

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Boy, it seems like forever since we've had any Watchmen news, doesn't it? Well, don't worry, fellow slavering comic book fans: we fully intend to completely suck every tiny bit of magic out of the movie by relentlessly cramming every bit of Watchmen-related insider gossip down your gullets until, by the time the movie finally comes out sometime around the crack of doom, you will feel like you have already seen it eighteen times and be utterly sick of it. You're welcome.

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Honestly, folks, we don't know why we're so obsessed with Watchmen news lately.  We'll stop as soon as the movie comes out and is terrible, we promise.  In the meantime, we're obviously not the only people who can't get enough of the hype, because when Jeffrey Dean Morgan was at a press junket promoting P.S. I Love You, all anyone wanted to talk to him about was his role as the Comedian in the upcoming comic adaptation.  Morgan reports that the sets, which have only been seen in a few photos released by director Zack Snyder, are "so true to the book it's insane", discussed the challenge of playing a morally reprehensible character like the Comedian, and vows that the film is "going to change the way people look at movies".  Meanwhile, artist Dave Gibbons, who drew the original Watchmen graphic novel (and who, because author Alan Moore maintains a policy of having nothing to do with film adaptations of his work, is the only creator involved in the movie), visited the set for the first time, describing the sensation of seeing the characters he helped bring into existence walking around and talking as "the most surreal experience of my life".  Gibbons, who Morgan reports was tearing up at seeing the sets, keeps mum about the specifics of the film, as have most people working on the set, but claims that among the cast and crew there is a "palpable commitment to do this right".  Only 15 months to go...