Comments on: Why you should not watch the Watchmen

By: Sintzin Soledad

Sintzin Soledad — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 21:55:32 +0000

Hmm, I read your post. It doesn’t seem like he’s comparing himself to a rapist. It seems like he’s comparing the audience to a rape victim who gets Stockholm Syndrome and has consensual sex with her attacker. I don’t think he meant to compare himself to a rapist.

Even so he should think before saying stuff, because it could make him look bad.

In the Hayter script I read it doesn’t portray The Comedian’s attack on Sally Jupiter; it has happened and characters refer to it. The scene where Laurie Jupiter attacks Edward Blake is in the Hayter script.

By: Zom

Zom — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:40:15 +0000

My wife definitely won’t be buying me a copy.

Despite knowing me for seven years she still, on some fundamental level, thinks comics are for weirdos.

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:33:07 +0000

My wife bought my copy ;)
There is a lot of *extremely* dodgy stuff in Lost Girls, but even within the fiction it’s generally presented as fantasy, and as far as I can recall no-one is presented as enjoying anything non-consensual in ‘reality’. And given that it’s overwhelmingly presented from the women’s perspective, I don’t see a problem with it from a feminist perspective per se. However, a lot of the ‘book within a book’ stuff plays on rape fantasies and so on.
Lost Girls is something you should definitely read *at some point* – it’s a masterpiece, and an Important Work and all that – but it’s a surprisingly clinical work, and not something I’d get hugely bothered about were I you.

By: Zom

Zom — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:11:29 +0000

Ah, yeah, I’d forgotten about the stuff in LOEG vol 1. Hmmm, I’d have to read it again, but I’m wondering if it’s defensible, especially given what becomes of Griffin in vol 2. That Hyde business has never struck me as trivialising the subject.

Lost Girls I’ve not read, but my sister, a tried and true feminist in the more hardcore political definition of the word, didn’t find anything wrong with it. That’s not obviously an argument in and of itself, but it suggests to me that, again, the inclusion of rape is defensible.

Not sure I really want to read Lost Girls though (I’m embarrassed about what my wife will think, honest guvnor!)

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:10:53 +0000

Oh, and just so you know, I *will* be blogging more about actual comics soon. It’s just the last couple of months have been so *dire* as far as stuff worth writing about goes…

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:09:53 +0000

Rape is trivialised in the first two League books (or you could read it that way) and arguably in parts of Lost Girls.
You’re right that certainly Moore’s attitude towards sexual violence is more nuanced than that of most writers, and certainly the deliberate choice to remove anything even remotely arousing from the Ripper murders in From Hell and to link those murders to objectification of women is an entirely good thing, but to my mind the cumulative impact of his work (and this is a purely aesthetic judgement on my part) is to make rape and sexual violence seem overall more ‘normal’.
That’s purely a personal judgement though, and not something I’m holding out as an absolute capital-t Truth. And it certainly doesn’t make me think his work isn’t very worthwhile…

By: Zom

Zom — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:54:19 +0000

We’ve been over this on Barbelith before, but I just don’t get the Moore overuses rape thing. Yes it’s there in bunch of his work, but surely the objection hinges around the idea that rape is trivialised by overuse as a plot element, and that’s not an argument that I can get behind, at least in this instance, because rape is never presented *as trivial* in Moore’s works. In fact I’d go further and suggest that Moore’s deliberate and consistent attempts to link rape to violence and power are actually of value.

By: Leon

Leon — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:57:14 +0000

I don’t know I don’t rate Sim’s art at all, never have. Moore’s creations have always just been a better read and more consistent in quality imo. Yeah and not having some insane sexist tirade dressed up as a critique of feminism helps too..

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:20:34 +0000

Moore is the most talented writer ever to work in the medium, by a long way. But he’s not an all-round creator – his art is perfunctory at best. On the other hand, Sim as a comic writer is at least worthy of mention in the same breath as Moore – not *as* good, but not made laughable by the comparison, as almost all other comic writers are. He’s also the best letterer ever except maybe Todd Klein, probably in my top ten favourite comic artists as far as ability to draw, well, in a variety of styles goes, and second only to Eisner for layouts.

There are a handful of people who are a bit better at one thing, but *no-one* who’s anywhere near as good at everything.

By: Leon

Leon — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:14:01 +0000

No! I like my blood pressure within normal limits thank you very much! I loved Cerebus but his crap about women is just beyond words. It fucked up a fantastic read and totally borked the greatness of Cerebus’ journey.

I don’t think he’s the single greatest comic creator in the history of the medium however, that accolade goes the man of magic from Northhampton. ;)