One
compulsive reader’s observations ...
after
gazing into Watchmen for the
umpteenth time
PART THE SIXTH
All right, I’ve got photons in my teeth and my wrist brace on ...
6:2
– The chapter title is in quotation marks in the comic, and extends just a
smidgen pas the panel borders . . .
.
. . while in the reprints the chapter title is just as wide, without quotation marks.
At
least in 1951, JDs were smoking regular cigarettes, not ball-pipes. Probably because regular cigs were simpler
and cheaper.
What
the heck is that hanging-balls mobile dangling at top of the panels? It’s also seen in 13:6.
It
doesn’t make sense that Kitty Genovese, a bar manager with some clerical
skills, had the money for a special-order dress.
From the chalk outline and the
images of neighbors and balconies, it looks like this world’s Kitty Genovese
died outside – Kovacs says, “outside her own apartment building.” On our Earth, the attack commenced outside, but
the actual rape-murder took place inside her building, in the rear hallway.
It’s
a necessary story point, but to me it has always seemed unbelievable that, in
Sing-Sing prison, home to murderers and all types of lowlife, prisoners are
within reach of “hot cooking fat.”
In
the comic, the epigraph bar has quotation marks around Nietzsche’s words – the
quotation marks don’t appear in bound editions.
In
Kovacs’s “My Parents” story, he applauds the A-bomb’s use using the same
rationale that Ozzy uses: “saved millions of lives” and “more people would of
been killed.” Perhaps the difference to
Rorschach, morally, is that Truman’s use of the A-bomb was part of a long,
declared conflict, with strongly defined sides.
On the other hand (or tentacle), the Space Squid was deployed at the
whim of one man, unelected, who used it as part of a maniacal scheme to make money
and secure his own power.
I
noticed that “My Dream” is dated 5/27/63, but it must be a typo – Kovacs was in
the Charlton Home in 1953 – in 1963 he was 23 years old. The drawing is labeled “13 years old.” Since this has never been changed in bound
editions, I suppose that either I’m the first person to notice (ha!) or this was an intentional “typo”
intended by the writer.
Thanks for obsessing with me. Six chapters remain.
