Posted in: Comics | Tagged: annotated, Comics, dc, dc comics, entertainment, Watchmen

How Watchmen Will Be Annotated – And Remind You About Vietnam

Published Thu, 16 Mar 2017 10:30:50 -0500

Last updated Thu, 16 Mar 2017 16:43:40 -0500

Leslie S. Klinger has been putting together The Annotated Watchmen for DC Comics. He writes,

This came about because, when we were wrapping Annotated Sandman, I happened to say that my other dream project would be to take a similar approach to Watchmen, one of the great works of art of the 20th century. My editor said, "Well, send us a proposal," and to my great shock and delight, after six months of hearing nothing, I was told, "Let's go ahead!"

When we first heard about this project, we wondered if it might be using Doug Atkinson's extensive online annotations. Leslie seems aware of that one.

Watchmen (like Sandman) has been annotated before, with notes posted on the Internet by various fans. None have taken the same approach that I'm planning. The existing notes are interesting, primarily consisting of pointing out to readers little artistic touches or motifs that appear throughout the story, but that isn't what I intend. Rather, as I've done with Sandman and my other books, I hope to expand the reader's understanding of the cultural/historical/literary background of the book. Moore & Gibbons assumed literate readers who would have the context of the material at their fingertips, but as the mid-1980's recede far into the taillights (Watchmen came out THIRTY YEARS ago!), there's more and more that needs explaining. So plan on a trip back to those wonder years when Vietnam and nuclear war were on the minds of everyone, and comic books were supposed to be just entertainment…

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