i'm gonna cheat a bit on this one, since it's pretty tough to find a book cover that really speaks to me.
watchmen! yes, watchmen. does watchmen count as a book? it's a graphic novel... close enough, right?
i actually have the hardcover edition, which features a slightly less unsettling image.
uh, spoilers ahead i guess?
when i first started reading watchmen, i was way too young. i couldn't bear the blood on the comedian's button, much less the opening scene where the comedian gets the crap kicked out of him and tossed out a window. funnily enough, i think the book had been given to us by one of mom's friends, who was also a comics fan. it's one heckuva comic to recommend for a kid. come to think of it, maybe watchmen was what put me off comics for a while...
the summer after i graduated high school, i picked up watchmen for the first time in years. dc's rebirth event had recently begun, and i'd heard that the watchmen universe was going to play a role in future events. so in anticipation of this, i began reading dc comics and i began reading watchmen.
i was absolutely blown away. the gritty art style, the symbolism and commentary, the fact that it was still relevant in the year 2016 (heck, it's still relevant!)... wow. there's so much to deconstruct that i couldn't do it justice even in a series of blog posts.
anyway, back to the cover. it's a zoomed-in shot of the comedian's button. let's zoom out a bit in case you've never seen the full thing.
so let's discuss a few things about this symbol, shall we?
1) in spite of his moniker, the comedian's a stone-cold killer. an antihero through and through. he might oppose crime, but he's pretty fricked up. and yet he wears a cute little smiley face button while he mows down his enemies. it's a pretty bizarre juxtaposition. you might even call it... funny?
2) speaking of juxtapositions, let's talk about the blood spatter on the button. it's a smiley face. smiley faces are supposed to be associated with things that are happy, kid-friendly, and safe or whatever, right? but then you have the blood on it. and then it takes on a much darker meaning. the button isn't completely clean, nor is it drenched in blood. even in the first panel, sitting in a pool of the comedian's blood, the button smiles on with just a small splatter across its face. in this sense it's kind of a bridge between two paradigms. peace and war. justice and cruelty. cartoony cheer and grim reality. it's real depressing, huh?
3) and it endures. the bloodstained button pops up in a number of forms throughout the series. it serves as a bookend, appearing in the first panel of the first issue and the last panel of the last issue. and it tunnels itself all the way to dc's prime earth, to set up for the cash grab series known as doomsday clock (kidding). in all seriousness, i'm excited to see how the series ends.
so yeah. watchmen bummed me out big time. 10/10 would recommend though. ☺
No comments:
Post a Comment