Rorschach is in prison, but he’s not trapped in here with us, etc., etc. We delve deep into the mind of Watchmen’s most divisive character as the podcast breaks down issue #6 of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ comic book series, “The Abyss Gazes Also.” Additionally, Justin gets scared of a bug. SUBSCRIBE TO WATCHMEN WATCH ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. The theme music for Watchmen Watch was written and performed by Jeff Solomon. Plus, here’s a transcript of the episode for you to read through as you listen: Alex: Welcome to Watchmen Watch, a podcast about Watchmen where we smell Watchmen, scent of a Watchman. I’m Alex. Justin: I’m Justin. Pete: I’m Pete. Alex: And on this episode, we’re going to be talking about issue six of the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons comic book The Abyss Also Gazes, The Abyss Gazes Also, excuse me. Sorry Friedrich Neitzsche or however … Justin: How dare you? Alex: Sorry about that. We do have a little bit of news Justin: Yes, so obviously you guys all know that Alan Moore’s the fourth host of this podcast. He did just text me, and obviously he is sitting here in the room, but he texted me, and he’s very shy today, so he doesn’t want to talk, but he is here. So just so you know, everyone listening, he’s here. Very shy. Alex: I do see that he’s doing his hidie beard and for those of you who don’t know, it’s very cute. He takes his beard, and he folds it up over his face so he can hide behind it. Justin: He’s doing it right now, Alex, because you’re calling them out pretty hard. Let’s just talk about this comic book that he wrote in front of him for the next 20 to 40 minutes. Pete: I’m feeling like he’s not really committed to our team here. Alex: Don’t say this in front of him. Justin: Don’t say it in front of him. Alan, thank you for coming. You’re doing a great job. Excuse me, Mr. Moore. Alex: In a second, I’m going to slip a little ice cream in your beard because you’re such a good boy. Justin: That’s really nice. That’s the best way to treat a person is to slip ice cream into their beard. Alex: Right Pete? You have a beard. You love that? Justin: Through the beard into his mouth, or are you just making a mess? Alex: No, up and over the beard. Justin: Up and over? Pete: How do you slip ice cream? Alex: He has his beard. We’ve already established this, and we can see exactly what’s going on. Justin: Yes, we can all see that his is in front of his face. Alex: He’s folded up. So I’m going to take it, and I’m going to slip it over the top so it’ll like slide down his face into his mouth. Justin: And let me just say, Alex, don’t Dodge Pete’s question of how do you slip ice cream? How do you slip an ice cream, on your little fingers, your dirty little mitts. Alex: Yeah, you just like, you take a pinch. It’s like in recipes where they say a pinch of ice cream. Justin: Yeah, that’s true. Pete: That’s what they say in recipes. Justin: You have a children’s cookbook. Alex: Not so much a cookbook, but it is for children. Justin: That opened up a lot of doors. Alex: Here’s something that definitely isn’t for children, issue six of Watchman. As we mentioned is called the abyss gazes also. Now previously the character Rorschach AKA Walter Kovacs, but don’t call him that. Justin: Doesn’t like it. Alex: Doesn’t like it. Justin: Doesn’t like his name. Alex: He got arrested, thrown in prison for all his multitude of vigilante crimes over the years and this issue almost exclusively continues to focus on Rorschach. Last issue was mostly Rorschach. This is all Rorschach. This is definitely his issue as he is interrogated in prison. Now, I’ll just throw out the thematic thing that I noticed right up front, and I think this is a pretty obvious one, but I think it’s great. Really great comic book you guys. It’s great how well Moore hits this over the course of the issue is that it is the Rorschach test. That’s what we’re dealing with. That’s what we start with, that’s what we end with, and Rorschach clearly sees the entire world in black and white, right? Alex: He doesn’t even see the blots. He sees men are all violent beasts who need to be put down and women are all slut whores who he is too uncomfortable to even touch or look at or think about it in any particular way. That’s how he separates the world. But on the other hand, you have every other character looking at him and doing one of two things. We either see characters reading things into him that aren’t there or trying to read things into him that aren’t necessarily there, or what happens to the interview over the course of them, is they become him the more that they reflect off of him. Justin: Yeah, and I think that’s a hundred percent accurate. He is the ultimate Rorschach test. The way that his interviewer here, his psychologist, changes over the course of the issue makes you feel like Rorschach is right, which I think is an interesting turn. We’re meant to at the beginning of this issue, he is the other, he has this f****d up life, and he sees the world in a crazy dark way that we don’t think is how it’s meant to be seen. As it goes on, our audience surrogate character, the psychologist comes around to Rorschach’s understanding of the world, leaving us in a pretty dark place. Alex: Well, to the point that his speech starts to ape Rorschach’s rhythms. We get a lot of writing in the psychologist’s journal throughout it. At the beginning, he’s a very chipper, very happy guys. He’s in a loving relationship with his wife, but as he interviews Walter Kovacs over the course of a couple of days, it’s not that long, and coincidentally, and I think Moore did this on purpose, it’s leading right into my birthday, which is very exciting. My birthday’s in October 29 so this takes place right before it. Justin: Great choice Alan. Thank you for doing that. Alex: Yes. And this feels like how I feel going into my birthday. Pete: Wow. This is how you feel going into your birthday. Alex: Every year. No, but over the course of a couple of days, he very quickly turns, things get darker. He starts to see the amount that his wife needs sex as gross and disgusting. He is abusive towards men. Rorschach starts being honest with him about things and telling him things that truly happened. Justin: Opening up, bringing him more into his world. Alex: And by the end, the man is writing in his journal exactly how Rorschach writes in his journal. Justin: What I love about this is the perspective is totally flipped. Like up until this point, we’ve been in Rorschach’s head. We’ve been along for the ride with his action adventure. We’ve been reading his journal, and now it’s fully flipped. We’re outside of his head for the first time and in the head of the psychologist analyzing him. Alex: Yeah. Well I’ve got to ask, we’ve talked about this on a couple of podcasts, but Pete, you love Rorschach, how’d you feel about him in this issue. Pete: It was great. Obviously, I don’t like his negative views towards women or any of that stuff, but I do love his conviction. I do love the fact that he tries to do what is right and that he is very messed up but tries to stop evil when he sees it. Also, what’s interesting is DC is like famously almost ant… Like has therapists and stuff like really effect each other where you have like Harley Quinn and the Joker. That’s therapist and therapy very much affect each other. So it’s very interesting this whole thing about being in a room trapped with somebody for a couple hours a day can really affect y
