WATCHPANELS, Part the First

WATCHPANELS

One compulsive reader’s observations ...

after gazing into Watchmen for the umpteenth time

PART THE FIRST

All right, I’ve got photons in my teeth and my wrist brace on ...

CHAPTER 1

On page 6, we have the Chapter Title.

Compare the original comic page (with quotation marks and credits) with the reprint versions.

 – In Annotated, Klinger says that Rorschach’s jagged word balloons are reflections of the distortions in his voice caused by the mask. In his first speech balloons, 1:7:3 and 1:7:8, you get the idea.

However, in 1.10 and 1.11, his speech balloons are just as jagged when his mask is up.

             When the detectives investigating Blake’s murder enter the building’s elevator to descend, we get the first sight of the ball-pipes which feature throughout the story.

            Maybe the ball-pipes are newfangled or just plain pricey, because Hollis Mason smokes old-fashioned cigarettes, as seen in 1:9:3.

             On page 19, Rorschach sneaks in to see Laurie and Doctor Manhattan.

            In Annotated Watchmen, Klinger joins me in noting the similarity of the sign’s logo to Superman’s original “S”-shield, shown here from Action Comics #1 in 1938.

           On page 22, these are a few of the only word balloons from Dr Manhattan that somebody forgot to color blue.  (It also happens in Chapter 8, as we’ll notice.)

             In the comic, the Dylan song lines don’t appear – nor in the Graphitti version.

            In the supplemental matter, page 1 of Hollis Mason’s Under the Hood, we have a nice paperclipped note telling us what we’re going to read.  You can see that “corn” in the word “corner” is not touched by the shadow of the note.

            However, for Annotated Watchmen, this page was redone.  There’s slightly more space between the note and the text.  Also, the shadow of the note touches the “rn” in “corner.”

            You’ll note that Mason describes Moe Vernon as a guy with “three chins,” in the comic printing.

            But for Annotated, Vernon had “three thins” – what?

            On “page 2” of Under the Hood, the photo caption mistakenly says that Mason was 21 years old.  In the original comic, that is! 

            In bound editions, this goof was fixed so that Mason is twelve years old.

           On the last page of the comic, we have a “coming attractions” note which does not appear in bound versions.

            Thanks for stopping by.  We have eleven chapters to go!

See you next Monday for our nit-pickings on Chapter Two of Watchmen.

  

WATCHMENUTIA #1: Keep Smiling!

KEEP SMILING!

            If you go over a thing often enough, you might not see everything that’s there ... but you’re also likely to see things that AREN’T there.

            I found a lot of  subtle and not-so-subtle images in Watchmen which reminded me of the good ol’ Smiley.  You tell me if some of these are reaching too far.  others may have noted them, but gosh-darn it, this is my blog!

CHAPTER ONE:

            As Detectives Bourquin and Fine leave the Blake murder scene on page 3, they get on an elevator already occupied by one of the building’s tenants.

            The end of his pipe has a familiar shape.

CHAPTER TWO:

            In this 1977 flashback to the pre-Keene Act riots, note the charging hydrant to the right of this panel from page 17.  And, of course, the splatter on Archie the owlship, in the foreground, is shaped like the blood smear on Edward Blake’s Smiley pin.  But back to the Smiley-face hydrant ...

            Now do you see it?

CHAPTER FOUR:

            At Christmastime in 1963, Janey gets the shivers thinking about Jon Osterman’s view of time, on page 11.

            Check out the Smiley-like reflections in the Christmas-tree ornaments.

CHAPTER SEVEN:

            Here, on the cover of the comic, and just inside on page 1, the smear of dust on Dan’s goggles, left by Janey’s finger, gives a Smiley-like look.

            Here’s one of the more obvious images, from page 18.

            And in the last panel of the chapter, on page 28, there’s another too-obvious-to-miss Smiley.

CHAPTER EIGHT:

            For a change, here’s a “Frowny” face that I cannot believe is coincidental.  Look at the mouthpiece of Sally Jupiter’s phone.

*************** 

            Later in Chapter Eight, a prolonged view of Hollis Mason’s jack o’lantern carving produces a familiar cheerful face.

CHAPTER TEN:

            This cheerful radar screen is repeated in the first panel inside.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

            For the longest time, I was trying to see a Smiley in the reflective bowl with the zigzag motif.  No, don’t look at the bowl.  Look at Veidt’s plate!  The peas are the eyes, the fork is the bloodstain, and the inner ring of the plate serves as the smile!

CHAPTER TWELVE:

            Along with “Bodies Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings,” we see the now-detached crown of the familiar charging hydrant.

            This time, it has an extra blot, to match the Comedian’s badge!

            A repeated angle of the entrance tunnel into Karnak from the frozen-over vivarium has an ironically brightly smiling countenance.

            And as Rorschach tries to escape Karnak.

            You see it too, don’t you?

            Thanks for joining me on this tour of Smiley faces in the Watchmen comics maxiseries.

PS:  The fun doesn’t stop there!

           

            Watchmen: The Art of the Film, by Peter Aperlo (2009: Titan Books), contains three “comics” pages, reproduced on pages 62-63 of that volume.  They were drawn by Gibbons and colored by John Higgins at the behest of film director Zack Snyder to give us “a taste of what the graphic novel’s climax might have looked like if Adrian Veidt had followed the film's script.  These new ‘pages’ were drawn at Zack Snyder's request during pre-production....”

****************

           

            When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you!  And pretty soon, you may find yourself seeing Smileys everywhere!

            For instance, I’ve had this mini-Mr Coffee for more than a decade.  Over time, parts of the Teflon-like coating of the hot plate have worn off.

            Doesn’t my Mr Coffee hot plate have a cheerful disposition?

   So, no matter what life brews up for you, keep smiling!

Tomorrow’s Tech … Today!

Tomorrow’s Tech … Today!

Many futuristic inventions have come to pass, while some may never be realized.

INSTANT MEDICINE

            One of the more hopeful projections of SF’s future societies is the idea that medicine and healing will be dramatically sped up.  On this front, Star Trek may lead the pack with its diagnostic tables, tricorders, and the good ol’ anabolic protoplaser. Richard Shaver’s Teros and Deros wielded both healthy (“ben”) and harmful (“stim”) rays.  Did you know that Wonder Woman’s healing “purple ray” was actually based on an Edgar Cayce gadget?

            In 1979’s Alien, Kane is hustled to the “infirmary” after the facehugger has latched onto him.  He lies on a diagnostic bed which analyzes him.  Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of the movie actually calls this tech “the autodoc.” 

In a deleted scene from towards the film’s end, Ripley discovers Captain Dallas cocooned to a wall by the xenomorph.  When Dallas begs for death, Ripley offers to place him in the Notromo’s autodoc, but it’s too late; incineration is the only way to keep the alien’s spawn from hatching through Dallas.

            Here on Earth, Wilhelm Reich’s belief in the healing power of concentrated cosmic energy — “orgone therapy” — led to his imprisonment by the US government, where he died in 1957.  But times change!  In 2014, NASA signed two patent agreements with Texas-based GRoK Technologies. 

One would cover the growth of 3-D human tissue for drug testing; the other involved a device to treat pain without drugs.  The hope was to employ such devices on the International Space Station.

            Regarding diagnostic beds, the limits of modern medicine still require sensors to be attached to the patient, darn it.  But on a more optimistic note, Xprize is currently offering $10 million for a working medical tricorder design!

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CHRONOSCOPE / TIME VIEWER
            If you can’t travel through time, perhaps you can watch history “live”!  The idea of a “television through time” has been a fruitful concept, beginning with an 1883 story, “L'historioscope,” by Eugène Mouton.  In comic books, it may be a uncomplicated as a super-fast trip into space to overtake light-waves from the past, or a “time telescope,” such as used by Superboy in a 1960 tale to show the teenaged Bruce Wayne their costumed-hero future friendship.

          Asimov’s 1956 story “The Dead Past” asks where time viewing might end, pointing out that being able to view the past might include a secret meeting held an hour ago, or private lives one second ago!  The 2000 Stephen Baxter/Arthur Clarke novel The Light of Other Days likewise opines that past-viewing would lead to society’s ruination by the elimination of privacy.  Meanwhile, on the viddy, Dr Who and Star Trek have featured time viewers in individual episodes.

          The explanation behind most fictional chronoscopes involves the harnessing of light rays emitted by past events. Strictly speaking, astronomers are viewing the past when they examine the heavens!  But so far the only theorized real-world possibility involves moving a wormhole’s exit from its gravitational field, to affect time and stretch it out for watching.  But good luck leaving the neighborhood after the show is over!

All right, gang, it's "time" to go.  Be "well"!  And come back next Monday for the next installment in a new series ... called WATCHMENUTIA ... about that favorite deconstructionist comic-book maxi-series, you-know-what.
   

MA-128 - Obsessive Love Tales

Have a twisted Valentine's Day with these slightly skewed love songs ...

Here's the lineup:

01 - Tapeworm of Love - Brute Force - 1967   (1:48)

02 - Alien Girl - Richard Bone - 1981   (3:04)

03 - Cold Blue Steel (Against My Head) - The Guardians of American Morality - 1987   (3:27)

04 - Plastic Love - Zed - 1983   (5:01)

05 - Creepin' Up on You - Darren Hayes - 2002   (4:52)

06 - Hypnotised - Scarlett Von Vollenman - 1981   (2:56)

07 - Helen in Your Headphones - The Dots - 1982   (3:02)

08 - Secret Love for Dinosaurs - The Procession - 1987   (3:01)

09 - Not from Her World - 4 Out of 5 Doctors - 1980   (4:28)

10 - I'm in Love with My Computer - Andy Warhol Banana Technicolor - 1982   (3:43)

11 - Contact High - Bill Lloyd - 1999   (4:31)

12 - Astral Love - Newstreet - 1982   (4:25)

13 - I'm in Love with My Walls - Lester Bangs and the Delinquents - 1981   (2:50)

14 - Loving a Siamese Twin - MAD Magazine - Jeanne Hayes - 1963   (2:18)

15 - Girls in Uniform - The Catch - 1982   (3:09)

16 - Toothless Girl - None If Any - 1985   (2:48)

17 - (My Girl's a) Hologram - The Rabies - 1982   (2:07)

18 - Plastic Doll - Bohemia - 1981   (3:02)

19 - Fictional Girl - Silent Guests - 1981   (3:28)

20 - X-Ray Specs - Moose Lodge - 1984   (1:38)

21 - Alien Too (Fallin') - French Revolution - 1988   (4:45)

22 - Anorexia - The Headhunters - 1985   (3:15)

23 - Girl in a Magazine - The Brains - 1980   (2:58)

https://www.filefactory.com/file/3k7vx7labs9c/MA-128.rar

See you next Monday!