So who first decided to use the 9-panel grid in Watchmen?

So,is Watchmen hailed because it was the first of its kind? Was it really the first comic to portray superheroes in a darker light?

Who knows? Maybe Gibbons sold it to Alan and Alan was just informing Jamie of his choice. Maybe it was a mixture of a large number of confused factors.

>>91946544
No. Squadron Supreme did it first.

Moore just told it with math panel power.

>>91946544
No, of course not. For fucks sake, it wasn't even the first dark superhero deconstruction that Alan Moore had done. Miracleman was already out by the time he did Watchmen. So were Squadron Supreme and Dark Knight Returns.

>>91946544
nothing is ever the first of its kind (i know this is a dipshit thing to say), it was the first containing these elements that became prominent culturally

>>91946608
>>91946579

Thanks for the answers,so is Watchmen genuinely good,not only in its time but for all? Is it a tad bit overrated? I'm borrowing the complete edition from a friend next week and I wanna know what's /co/ perspective

>>91946544
It's hailed because it's a well done story on every front a comic can be. Great writing, great pacing, great art and great world building.

>>91946661
Watchmen is great but it is by no means the first of its kind. It's a bit overrated, but only because people seem to think it was the only good/"dark" comic to come out around that time.

>>91946661
Yes, it's a fantastic comic. It's not "the greatest comic ever written" like some people try to claim it is, but it's still one of the best comics to come out of the Big 2 and absolutely stands the test of time.

>>91946631
Not really. That'd be Dark Knight Returns. Watchmen was big when it came out, sure, but it didn't really become lauded as a masterpiece until years after its release. Dark Knight Returns, on the other hand, was a paradigm shift in how comics were written. It pretty much gave birth to the "modern age" of comics (or dark age, if you want to go down that route), for better or worse.

>>91946631
>it was the first containing these elements that became prominent culturally

No, it was highly lauded and sold well (especially enough to stay in print for a long time), but Dark Knight Returns was more prominent partly because it used an established hero and was one of the influences on Burton's first Batman (which was a massive mainstream success when it was out).

DC didn't really do much with Watchmen during the 80's and 90's other than keeping the book in print, so there wasn't as much public awareness at the time. Remember that at this point, graphic novels were only slowly starting to trickle into bookstores.

Watchmen was still highly regarded but I honestly don't think it achieved full mainstream awareness until the 00's.

>>91946995
Watchmen was the book that blew the bookstore trade market wide open though

>>91946579
>>91946608
>Squadron Supreme
It was based on idea, injecting realism is not a deconstruction, neither is playing with or around the tropes. Deconstruction is something much more which only Watchmen achieves.

>>91948222
I agree. Watchmen is pretty much a character exercise in how superheroes don't work with the various characters of the work.

>>91946995
There are bookstores that only sold books like Swamp Thing, Sandman, Watchmen etc because of the hierarchy of the medium at the time.

>>91946488
>the hernandez bros are hacks and liars

Nothing new here.

>>91948346
This, you led me believe Alan freaking Moore was inspired by some random indie comic that he probably in actually hasn't even read?

>>91948290
Yeah it is playing with the themes of superheroics and very much giving off the messages you wouldn't see in the book about Superheros. Miller's take on Batman for example is just reliant on the realism. It's very much a binary narrative with clear good vs evil narrative. I don't think it makes something new of the themes of cape comics the same way Watchmen does. I really don't know why people call it deconstruction, it's just a realistic take on Superheros with some subversive elements.

>>91948408
But Moore himself has said he read and enjoyed them.

>>91946488

Pretty sure it was Gibbons

Whoever it was was taking it from Los Bros Hernandez and Ditko

>>91948474
Literally disproved in op image
try again

>>91948531
>Moore has read and enjoyed Hernandez Bros' comics
>THIS IS COMPLETELY DISPROVEN BECAUSE OF THE 9-PANEL GRID

Maybe reading is not your strong suit.

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322KB, 666x1000px

It's from Ditko's Dr. Strange you megaplebs.

Even the moody horror coloring is the same

>>91948585
>>moody horror coloring

Eh. It always seemed to me that Watchmen used the saturated, bright coloring to hearken back to the 4CP era as a whole, not specifically horror comics.

>>91948531
>collaborators describe their inspiration differently
>"SOMEONE'S LYING!!!"
/co/mblr please.
>>91948729
Maybe not horror specifically, but it did seem like one of the ways they intentionally made it "not a superhero book" by using coloring more indicative of pre-Code war/horror/crime comics.

>>91948408
do you really think Love and Rockets is that obscure, especially among that circle?

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605KB, 661x1000px

>>91946995
>DC didn't really do much with Watchmen during the 80's and 90's other than keeping the book in print, so there wasn't as much public awareness at the time.
Oldfag here who grew up in the 80s and personally witnessed both TDKR and Watchmen come out. This is incorrect. Both Watchmen and TDKR had a good amount of promotion and hype being put out during it's time. There were a really good amount of ads in comics, posters up in shops, etc. and a lot of this promotional material lasted in shops for long after their release. Both really hit like lightning when it came out. Besides being really well done and different for it's eras, they were both incredibly pertinent for it's time. TDKR hasn't aged as well as Watchmen, but both have weathered the decades since incredibly overall and still remain hallmarks in the industry and basically started a new comic age. It was strange in the sense that after that you could actually feel things in the industry had changed and grown up a little more. There really hasn't been another moment like that since then, where there's more or less a definitive age end/start marker that everyone could sense. Probably the only thing to come close after that would be Rebirth, but even that hit was a significantly smaller scale.

>>91946488
Haha, I saw the same conversation on twitter and thought the same thing. I believe Jaime and I believe Gibbons so I bet Dave had suggested it and the it just made Alan think of how the grid worked well in 100 Rooms.

Of course it's not really a big deal. I think Jaime points out right after in that interview that it was just a Ditko grid and Gibbons probably thought of it as a Ditko grid too.

>>91948889
But are you talking about in comic shops or in non-comic shops? I'm talking about like Waldenbooks and stuff like that. I remember in the 90's I'd see a copy of Watchmen at bookstores, but it wasn't like it was getting hyped up to the general public. But it probably sold well that it was still being stocked outside of comic shops.

I have no doubt that it was heavily promoted in the 80's to comic shops and comic fans when it was being serialized, but I'm not completely convinced the general public was fully aware of it except maybe for an article in a magazine like Rolling Stone or wherever. The 00's was when I started noticing Time and other mainstream magazines talk it up more, years before the movie filming was officially underway.

>>91948222
this

>>91948585
That's not what's being discussed here anon.

>>91948585
Kurtzman I'm pretty sure used the 9 panel grid before even Ditko and maybe a few other EC dudes, that isn't the point though