Comics are books too

I remember saying that when I was about 10. I was not being theatrical. I was buying extra time with a superhero.

Today, I am saying it again...

Comic book writer Alan Moore’s Watchmen is a modern classic. I was expecting a great deal from it. But as is the habit with classics, they vault over mortal expectations, however high.

It happened near the end of chapter 9...

Dr Manhattan is on Mars. His girlfriend is pleading with him to save earth, which is howling for a nuclear showdown. After a lab accident, Dr Manhattan is not human anymore. He is a godlike creature that sees subatomic particles. He can deconstruct landscapes into quarks, one of the most fundamental particles in the universe. More fantastically, he can rearrange matter and energy to form almost anything. He believes humans are of no particular importance to deserve saving. However, he changes his mind and consoles his girlfriend…

 

“Come… dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; [you are] the clay in which, the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.”

 

Now that’s a lot more than *pow* and *bif*, ain’t it? Comics are books too.