WATCHPANELS, Part the Second

WATCHPANELS

One compulsive reader’s observations ...

after gazing into Watchmen for the umpteenth time

 PART THE SECOND

CHAPTER 2:

            On page 3 of the original comic, the chapter title is on two lines, aligned left, with the credits on right.  Also, the title and credits are a little wider than the panel grid.

            In the bound versions, the chapter title is one line filling this whole space, and the title is within the width of the panels.  The credits are gone, too.

            On the same page, I don’t understand why the flag for Blake’s coffin was folded, but not in the ceremonial triangle.

You’d expect that this would take place, hein?  In case you wondered if the triangle is a military-only tradition, it’s not. The triangle fold is a sign of respect for the flag, not for the person being interred.  Of course, one might argue that the non-triangle shape means that Edward Blake was not involved in Adrian Veidt’s Pyramid Deliveries conspiracy!

             Sally Jupiter’s reminiscences of the Minutemen are illustrated with the taking of the group portrait in 1940.  Take a gander at the panel showing the photographer in his shroud.

            Call me weird, but that white shape reminds me of Hira Manish’s illustration of The Infamous Squid (this panel is on page 11 of Chapter Eight.)

            In that same 1940 flashback, we’re privy to Blake’s attempted rape of Sally.

            It’s only appropriate that Sally scratches Blake at the same place where in 1971, Blake’s Vietnamese dolly would slash him.

             In the 1966 “organizational meeting” for the Crimebusters, Blake is reading the New York Gazette.

           It’s only curious because the masthead has the month and year, but no date. “April, 1966.”

             On page 26, can it be coincidental that while Rorschach’s journal talks about “heads between teats,” Blake is hitting the wall with his head between the teats of the nekkid girl on the wall?

             On the last page of Chapter Two, the comic’s final panel has only the clock.

            It’s the bound versions which have Elvis Costello lyrics.

            On “page 8” of Under the Hood, written in 1962, Mason says the vigilantes are on “America’s West Coast.”  Wouldn’t the “EAST coast,” like New York, be much more accurate?  Mothman was in Connecticut, and the Comedian was cleaning up “the city’s” waterfronts, in NYC.

            On “page 10,” the last page of this chapter, the paperclipped note about forthcoming chapters does not appear in bound volumes.

           This is a scan of my Graphitti copy.

            Thanks for obsessing with me!  Stay tuned for my fixations on Watchmen, Chapter Three, next week.