Watchmen Graphic Novel

Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins. The series was published by DC Comics during 1986 and 1987.


Moore used the story as a means to reflect contemporary anxieties and to critique the superhero concept. Watchmen takes place in an alternate history United States where superheroes emerged in the 1940s and 1960s, helping the United States to win the Vietnam War. The country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, freelance costumed vigilantes have been outlawed and most costumed superheroes are in retirement or working for the government.

Gibbons said he deliberately constructed the visual look of Watchmen so that each page would be identifiable as part of that particular series and "not some other comic book". He made a concerted effort to draw the characters in a manner different than that commonly seen in comics. The artist tried to draw the series with "a particular weight of line, using a hard, stiff pen that didn't have much modulation in terms of thick and thin" which he hoped "would differentiate it from the usual lush, fluid kind of comic book line".

Colourist John Higgins used a template that was "moodier" and favoured secondary colours. Moore stated that he had also "always loved John's colouring, but always associated him with being an airbrush colourist", which Moore was not fond of; Higgins subsequently decided to colour Watchmen in European-style flat colour. Moore noted that the artist paid particular attention to lighting and subtle colour changes; in issue six, Higgins began with "warm and cheerful" colours and throughout the issue gradually made it darker to give the story a dark and bleak feeling. (1)

I do like the style of the watchmen comic, and do feel like it has a moodier feel that standard comic book, a noir, or pulp feel- similar to that of the 100 Bullets. These are definitely ideas and concepts that I can utilise within my own animation, due to the fact that the storyline will be quite dark, and intense, it’s only fitting that the style of that animation should relate to that as well.

Sources used within this post

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen