When I was working upon the ABC books, I wanted to show different ways that mainstream comics could viably have gone, that they didn't have to follow 'Watchmen' and the other 1980s books down this relentlessly dark route. It was never my intention to start a trend for darkness. I'm not a particularly dark individual.
Alan Moore
In comics, there are depths that don't reveal themselves immediately, and the stuff that you might consider anal about 'Watching the Watchmen' - like the notes where I plot the rotation of a perfume bottle through the air - might not be particularly obvious to anyone who reads it.
Dave Gibbons
I think with something like 'Watchmen' you can genuinely call that a graphic novel because it has the weight and the intent of a proper novel and it also is the complete story.
With the 'Watchmen' comic, we attempted to tell it in an accessible way. I deliberately made the artwork very clear, deceptively so. You think you're sucking on a sweetie, but it turns out to be a sugar-coated chili.
One of the attractions for me of having 'Watchmen' made into the first Motion Comic was just that - it was breaking new ground.
People unacquainted with graphic novels, including journalists, tend to think of 'Watchmen' as a book by Alan Moore that happens to have some illustrations. And that does a disservice to the entire form.
I generally like very visually striking films. I love a lot of Stanley Kubrick's films. I would have to say 'Dr. Strangelove', which of course has got resonance in 'Watchmen'. It's a favorite movie of mine.
The thing about 'Watchmen' that people should know is that when it came out there was absolutely nothing like it. Up until then, comics were about the same thing: a guy in tights fighting another guy in tights and saving the girl - that was it.
Gerard Way
'Watchmen' is a politically charged story, and it explores exactly what a hero is, how the world would treat them and how they would react. It was the first time I read a superhero story that explored that situation. These are very real people with very real problems.
'Watchmen' is not only the greatest comic ever written, it's a really important work of fiction.
Anyone who sets foot into the 'Watchmen' universe and isn't just a little nervous should be given a few days of electroshock therapy. I've always considered 'Watchmen' to be one of the best graphic novels ever written, and when it came out back in 1986 I was as blown away as everyone else. Just masterful.
J. Michael Straczynski
I was into Alan Moore and Frank Miller. I was a teenager when all those books where coming out for the first time - 'Watchmen,' 'V for Vendetta.' It was a great time to get into comics.
Jane Goldman
There are so many books I love for different reasons. For superhero stuff, I always go back to Alan Moore's 'Watchmen' or his 'Swamp Thing' run. Those are my two favorites, and there are indie books that I really love, like Eddie Campbell's 'Alec' books and 'From Hell.'
Jeff Lemire
In any character you do, especially something like 'Watchmen,' if you're gonna do this, you're gonna do this right. I'm fighting for the Comedian every step of the way; there's not even a question, Adrian is a scumbag.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan
A 12-year-old can watch 'Spiderman.' A 12-year-old cannot watch 'Watchmen.'
The work I'm doing on 'Watchmen' is mind bending and physically just hard.
To do this movie in a watered-down fashion or have these characters be watered down wouldn't have been near as effective. It wouldn't have been staying true to what this 'Watchmen' phenomenon is.
I think, before 'Watchmen,' I was the guy from 'Grey's Anatomy' who's a pretty good guy, a pretty charming sweet guy, and so as an actor, I really wanted to do something as far from that as I could.
'Watchmen' is a cornerstone of both DC Comics' publishing history and its future.
Jim Lee
One of DC's strengths is our archive of storylines ranging from 'Watchmen' to 'Arkham Asylum' to 'Sandman.'
When I read 'Watchmen,' it changed my view of so many things. It was the first time I'd read a graphic novel really like that.
The problem for me is that 'Watchmen,' one of the great comics of all time, is a look at superheroes that has gone beyond the concept of or necessity for superheroes.
You know that moment in 'The Matrix' when Neo takes the red pill and is plunged into the real world? That's what it felt like when I first read 'Watchmen' - like someone was taking a can opener to my head to make room for Moore's audacious brilliance.
When 'Watchmen' was published in 1986, the vast majority of comics readers deemed it a watershed in comics history. The 12-part serial comic book was widely acclaimed as a genius subversion of the superhero genre, and it did much to popularize comics to adults.
Indeed, the hype around 'Watchmen' is its curse. If you want to enjoy the comic for what it is, ignore the attributions of literariness and the novelistic pretensions with which some critics have imbued it. This isn't high culture, and it doesn't pretend to be. It's good, juicy pulp fiction with a little nuclear apocalypse thrown in.
Within the macho-melodrama tropes of the superhero genre, it's fair to say 'Watchmen' stands out for its rich entertainment, its darkness, and its lurid pleasures. Its vividly drawn panels, moody colors and lush imagery make its popularity well-deserved, if disproportionate.
The male domination and chauvinism of the comics form is either being wittily lampooned in 'Watchmen' or handily perpetuated, depending on whom you ask.
I watch 'Watchmen', and I wish I was in that writers room, so I could figure out what they're doing, story-breaking-wise. I've never seen a television show like that.
A man's mind is wont to tell him more than seven watchmen sitting in a tower.
The '80s convergence of comics' new adult sensibility with the movies' advancing technology was bound to catch the attention of even slow-on-the-uptake Hollywood, and this particularly was true when 'Watchmen' and 'The Dark Knight Returns' became phenomena.
I first became an Alan Moore fan in Covent Garden on a Saturday afternoon in 1987, when I bought a copy of 'Watchmen,' his graphic novel about ageing superheroes and nuclear apocalypse.
It's not easy to convey to someone who doesn't read comics just how Alan Moore has dominated the field since 'Watchmen.'
I had always been fascinated by comics, but it had taken me several weeks to make up my mind to buy 'Watchmen'; for someone on a publisher's assistant's salary, it was some quite unheard-of sum of money.
The difference between 'Watchmen' and a normal comic book is this: With 'Batman's Gotham City,' you are transported to another world where that superhero makes sense; 'Watchmen' comes at it in a different way, it almost superimposes its heroes on your world, which then changes how you view your world through its prism.
I understand the rules of Superman - not necessarily better than anyone else - but better than a normal filmmaker would. After doing 'Watchmen' and digging that deep into the why of superheroes, when Superman is presented to you, I felt like I was in a unique position to say 'I get this guy. I know what this is.'
'Watchmen' is like the music you feel is written just for you. 'That's my song, no one else gets that but me.' That's why the fan base is so rabid, because they feel personal about it.
One of the things I think is important about 'Watchmen' is that it have resonance within cinematic pop culture as well as superhero culture.
People always come up to me now and say, 'Watchmen' is the best superhero movie ever made.' I'm always saying 'That's super cool. That's nice of you to say.' But it happens now, more and more and more than it did when it first came out.
I mean, like, I can go in a room and say, look, 'Watchmen' should be at least 15 minutes longer than 'Batman.' I mean, that's, like, any geek will tell you that.
I believe that pop culture is just, like, so ready for 'Watchmen.' We tried so hard to ride that wave between satire and reality, and all the things that make you still care about the character, but you don't miss the commentary about them.
Twenty years ago my parents wouldn't know who the X-Men were, and now everybody knows that stuff. It means that deconstruction of the superhero is something you can do. All those movies have led to a point where we can finally have 'Watchmen' with a Superman character who doesn't want to save the world and a Batman who has trouble in bed.
I always say, I'm certain I changed 'Watchmen' less than the Coen brothers changed 'No Country for Old Men.' I'm certain of it. But you don't hear the Cormac McCarthy fans, like, up in arms about it. They should be. It's like an amazing Pulitzer Prize-winning book.
The challenge with 'Watchmen' is making sure that the ideas that were in the book got into the movie. That was my biggest stretch. I wanted people to watch the movie and get it. It's one of those things where, over time, it has happened more.
I think that, for me, Superman just seemed to make a lot of sense to me. After doing 'Watchmen,' it was - you know that thing, you've got to know the rules before you can break them? There was something about that in making 'Watchmen.'
