Watchmen vs Ink-Man
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Who watches the Watchmen? It is a Spanish proverb, that gives a strong hint, that breaks the convention of the superheroes’ traditional picture. Before I read the Watchmen, I started my artistic journey as a political cartoonist after a huge influence of the Palestinian political cartoonist Naji al-Ali, who was assassinated in 1987 in London because of his controversial cartoons, criticizing the Arabic and Palestinian leaders as well as the Israeli occupation. I was just drawing just one panel cartoon, when I have a smart idea that should be critical and funny or literally make fun of certain political event. After that my artistic interest expanded to make conceptual art has philosophical, technological, scientific, historical, controversial or intellectual ideas, then it shifted towards comics, because in comics I can satisfy all my interests in one field, I could reflect my own ideas, but in the same time I can do my research about topics I’m interested in, besides I can produce art and learn anatomy, perspective, penciling, inking, coloring and lettering either traditionally or digitally, as well as writing. I got to the conclusion that I can be an intellectual and artist in the same time because in my comics, I will be able to tackle all kinds of topics that are necessary to humanity. All that resulted to come up with a character called INK-MAN for a story has political, philosophical, humanitarian and scientific aspects, the name of the character is Kannan Zaytoon, who suffers from wars and threats he receives because of his political cartoons. He develops a romantic relationship with an American reporter”Sophia Leia”, while she is covering news during the Israeli attack on Gaza Strip. Kannan travels to the U.S. and try to develop media called holographic ink, he gained power that lead him to be the INK-MAN, who concerns to fight weapons industries because he believes that they destroy the world, resulted to face his villain “The Armor “ who kills Sophia, and who will have huge battles with.
When I learned about the Watchmen, I found the story resonate perfectly to my path, that stimulated ideas for five issues as follow:
First issue: The origin of INK-MAN, that talks about his living in Gaza Strip and how he suffers from the Israeli Occupation and the siege the has been imposed since 2007.
Second issue: the background of INK-MAN, and a brief history of Palestine, and INK-MAN’s father experience in 1948, when they fled Aqir village to Gaza Strip.
Third issue: when the Ink-man goes to the United States, besides introducing his villain “ The Armor” who owns weapons factories and his main concern is to sell weapons to make profits with no consideration about the destruction that may cause to the world, and that's the opposite of INK-MAN’s humanitarian belief, also the gun law will be discussed in this issue.
Forth issue: This issue will discuss some philosophical questions, why I'm here, morality, determinism and free will and the existence itself.
Fifth issue: This issues will discuss humanitarian rights and democracy, capitalism and socialism.
What hits me in the gut when I read Watchmen, that it discusses a lot of topics that I love to discuss such as philosophy, politics, history, psychology, and what is like to be a human, how to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil, and what stuck out, how he broke the convention by presenting some of superheroes as psychopath people and like any other human being the have burden guilt to carry.
The era that Alan Moore lived in was during Vietnam war and cold war that was very obvious in his production and you can read between the lines that political corruption influenced the morality negatively in the whole society, especially when he mentioned about Nixon and that idea really resonate very well with INK-MAN idea as I consider the strength of NRA and Zionist lobby in the United States that affect the whole political system with the increase of the monstrous capitalism will destroy the whole world apart because the capital of the whole world is in the hand of 1% of the American population, and some countries are starving to death, in addition to the chaos in the middle East as the American administration helps Israel to establish its Jewish state, as a part of the systematic settler colonialism, that Britain started in 1917 when Belfour announced his declaration to give Palestine to Jews, with no consideration of Palestinian right, and this is totally against the democratic conceptions.
Alan Moore wanted to see how Superheroes would be like in a real world, but the story became more complex, it became about power and idea of superheros manifest within societies.
that they usually pictured as innocents, helpful, humanitarians, and have the noble and moral behaviors. Alan Moore wanted to follow a different path, he likes to tackle dull real world themes in his writing, he asked himself : What superheroes would look if they live in real world? And he applied it directly to his story, and that’s why it is considered the comics that changed comics, and one of the Time Magazine's 100 best english - language novel since 1923, and received many awards including Eisner Award and Hugo Award. In 1970’s Comics was still considered for kids, but it became deeper that that after Watchmen, It’s sold over a million copies and is the first thing people mention when talking comics–for-adults.
Watchmen is a graphic novel composed of 12 comic issues, are in the form of 22 pages comic story per issue, the script is written in 135 pages with descriptions and details, which is considered extraordinary, usually 22 comic pages requires 22 pages of writing, but Alan Moore chose to write every single detail for the artist.
It was published by DC Comics between 1986 and 1987, DC Comics purchased the right to Charlton Comics' old "Action Heros", during the time of forming the Watchmen idea, Alan Moore rewrote the Charlton Heros, retitling it "Who Killed the Peacemaker?", Moore's main concern is the characters are recognizable, But DC Comics, suggested to create new characters, at first he thought he would lose the emotional resonance that the characters had for the reader, but after that, he realized that if he wrote them well enough make them seem familiar, so he based the Watchmen's character on Charlton heros.
Main characters:
The Comedian (Edward Blake): is psychopath vigilante who used to be a member of Watchmen as apart of the government, the character is based on the Charlton Comics character Peacemaker, He believes that humans are savage in nature, and that civilization can never be more than an idea. He therefore chooses to become a mockery of society, fighting and killing without reservation, basically, he is bad guy, who rapes women, who commits crime wars, he chose comedian, because he thinks that the whole world is a big joke .
He is found dead when the story begins, his character appears in flashbacks and aspects of his personality are revealed by other characters, In the film also places him as John F. Kennedy's assassin.
Rorschach (Walter Kovacs): He was a Watchmen member, who became a vigilante with a white mask contains of constant changing ink blots, Rorschach's main goal is to investigate who killed the Comedian.the character based on the Charlton character the Question created by Steve Ditko who created Spider-Man, and Dr. Strange, Rorschach's view about the world is either black and white, there is no gray.
The night Owl (Dan Dreiderg): He is a retired superhero, who used to fight crimes with the Watchmen, and it appears that he has more morals and humanitarian than Rorschach and the Comedian, the character is based on Blue Beetle that was designed by Ditko as a part of Charlton Comics, but he still has similarity with the Batman.
D. Manhattan (Dr. Jonathan Osterman):
He is the only superhuman, who has super powers, unlike the others, he was a scientist who was caught in an “Intrinsic Field subtractor” in 1959, made him the first superpower being, and start to work for the US government against the Soviet Union, and helped in Vietnam war. The character based on Charlton’s Captain Atom also created by Ditko, but Moore went deeper, and made him quantum superhero, who lives in quantum world, that could appear in several places at once, and perceive the time with a different perspective, that affected his perception as a human being especially relationships, but he kept his humanitarian traits .
Silk Spectre : The daughter of a former Watchmen member, Sally Jupiter, who she has an uncomfortable relationship with her mother since she was pushed into superhero life, and became Dr. Manhattan’s girlfriend, but she couldn’t handle living with a quantum person.
The character based on Charlton character, Nightshade.
Ozymandias / Adrian Veidt: Based on Alexander the Great, a former Watchmen member, who retired to devote his attention to his own enterprises, according to the story, he believed to be the smartest man on the planet. Ozymandias based on Charlton’s character Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, and Alan Moore admired Peter Cannon because of his full brain capacity and can have a mental control.
I'm attracted to the art that was made by Dave Gibbons, the proportion, anatomy, perspective, emotional expression and inking was done correctly, I would say that Dave Gibbons is co- creator with Alan Moore, because without of him the story won't be as popular as it is , they have done a great collaboration. I don't forget John Higgins who was the colourist who used the British coloring that is one of its characteristic is not shiny but it give the purpose of presentation.
Works Cited
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Jaworski, Adam, and Crispin Thurlow. "Mediatizing the 'super-rich,' Normalizing Privilege." Routledge 27, no. 3 (June 2017): 276-87. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2017.1301792.
Lustick, Ian S. "The Balfour Declaration a Century Later: Accidentally Relevant." Middle East Policy 24, no. 4 (June 12, 2017): 166-76. http://ezproxy.pc.maricopa.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=126586950&site=ehost-live.
McConnaughey, Joshua. The Story Behind the Watchmen. Essential Web Comics. Last modified June 6, 2011. Accessed February 10, 2019. http://www.essentialwebcomics.com/showcase/reviews-and-commentaries/143-the-story-behind-the-watchmen.
Nivea, Serrao. "Watchmen: Behind the Smiley Face." Entertainment Weekly, June 16, 2017, 62-63. http://ezproxy.pc.maricopa.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=123484066&site=ehost-live.
"Watchmen."DC Comics. Accessed February 10, 2019. https://www.dccomics.com/characters/watchmen.