Our Watchmen podcast kicks off in earnest as we break down the first issue of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal comic book series, “At Midnight, All the Agents…” Spoilers abound, but find out more about the structure behind the issue, Easter eggs, and how it all might tie into the upcoming HBO series of the same name. 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 HBO’s Watchmen where we watch Watchmen, and then watch you watching Watchmen, while you watch us watch Watchmen. I’m Alex. Justin: I’m Justin. Pete: I’m Pete. That’s too much, dude. That’s too much. Alex: No, no. It’s just the right amount, it’s just the right amount. Pete: No. That’s a little too much. Alex: I got it. I nailed it. I nailed it. Crushed it, you guys. Episode over. Justin: Yeah. Alex: Okay. Justin: It’s very short. We’re doing short podcasts. Alex: Now, we do need to apologize before we get into the bulk of our podcast. We do have a fourth cohost. Justin: Alan Moore is our fourth host for this. He… We should say the writer of Watchmen, the comic book. Alex: Yeah, so we’re very excited to have him on board. Justin: And eventually, obviously he took his name off of the movie and the other comic book versions of it, and he was going to be here today but he actually isn’t here. He’s actually at DC comics physically taking his name off the comics. Alex: Oh wow. Pete: Oh wow. Alex: That’s going to take him a while. They have a lot of copies. Pete: Yeah, it’s a long [crosstalk 00:00:52]. Justin: But he’s going to be here, he said he’s definitely going to be here next week to talk about- Alex: Well he better hurry up because Watchmen is I think the highest selling graphic novel of all time. Justin: It’s got a lot of- Alex: A lot of copies. Justin: A lot of white out. A lot of white out coming in. Alex: This guy is going to have to invest in it. Justin: Yes, no, and he likes to smell it a little bit as well. Pete: It’s going to take more time. Alex: You probably know this, but Watchmen the TV series, is not going to be on until October on HBO. So in the intervening time, what we’re going to be doing on the next 12 episodes of Watchmen Watch is we’re going to be looking back at the comic issue by issue. And this week we’re going to be talking about the first issue of Watchmen At Midnight, All the Agents. That’s based on a Bob Dylan quote, I believe you dudes. Justin: Yep. Alex: Let’s talk about this issue. I don’t know. I want to be honest about something upfront here. Pete: Oh, here we go. Alex: I want to be honest with you guys. Justin: Ooh. Confessions. Pete: Oh. Confessions. Alex: I read Watchmen, all in a chunk, probably decades ago at this point. Justin: Wow. Alex: I think I read it maybe, or skimmed it again, before the movie came out just so I could kind of familiarize myself with it. But it’s been years since I actually read this book. Pete: Are you talking about the 80s? It’s been since the 80s? Alex: The Zack Snyder Watchmen movie did not come out in the 80s. What is your joke? Pete: I don’t know. Justin: The 80s is when it came out. Pete: Yeah. Justin: That’s when you were there. Alex: The book. Yes. He was there when Alan Moore was like, “The end.” Justin: That’s why we got the connect. Pete: Yeah. That’s how we got the phone number. Alex: Anyway, I haven’t actually deeply read it in decades at this point. So doing that for this podcast, actually taking the time to make sure that I synthesized as much of the words, of the panels, and everything as possible, was first of all fascinating. Because I don’t know if you guys know this, this is a very good comic. Justin: This is a very good comic. Alex: Yes. It’s very well done. Alan Moore, good on writing. Dave Gibbons, very good on art. Justin: He’s good on writing. Alex: Yes. Justin: He’s good on writing. Pete: Very good on writing. Justin: He’s as good on writing as you are on saying that. Alex: Yes, John Higgins on color. And it was edited by Len Wein and Barbara Kesel. This is… I really honestly was kind of blown away by how good this is. Justin: Yeah. Alex: Because we do a regular live comic book talk show. Pete: We do. Alex: Watchmen comes up a lot when we’re talking about it. Justin: Yep. Pete: Certainly. Alex: So it’s almost become abstract to me in terms of like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the best comic book of all time. I get it. That’s fine.” Justin: Yeah, no exactly. You don’t think about it as much anymore. Alex: Right, but this is legitimately an excellent comic book. Justin: Breaking news. Breaking news. Pete: [crosstalk 00:03:28] blown away you are by this comic. Justin: I felt the same way because… Like Alex was saying, actually rereading it, the pacing of this comic book is unbelievable. Pete: Yeah. It really is. Justin: It’s so shocking. Pete: It starts out so well, grabs your attention, never lets go. It’s really impressive. Justin: Just how much control Alan Moore has of the story from the jump and the art on top of that is just so good. Dave Gibbons’ art, it’s so… It’s of the era but it also feels timeless. It has a lot of the sort of dark shadowing to it, which gives it this sort of tense, bleak tone, but it still feels just as relevant as modern art. Alex: Well, I think just real quick, the thing that I was going to say about the timeless thing, the thing that struck me is so many things you go back and read and you’re like, “Oh that, I can see how that worked at the time, why it was important.” Justin: Yeah. Alex: This is still a very good comic book. Pete: And it’s also one of those things where the imagery and the stuff that they use in comics, everything that I see kind of informs them. It’s like one of those things that sticks with you. When I picture someone getting thrown out of a window, it’s always The Comedian. Justin: Yeah. What you picture often, right? Pete: Yeah. Alex: Usually as you’re being thrown out a window. Pete: But it’s done so iconically and so well- Justin: First story windows. Pete: Everything after that blows. Justin: Yeah. The 9-panel grid that, it’s used in this is sort of a, and it’s not all… There’s not nine panels on every page, but using that grid as a basis, I feel like that’s something that a lot of comic book artists are coming back to now. Pete: Yeah. Especially recently. Justin: I also want to say in the 80s, this was in sort of the Cold War, like nuclear threat that definitely weighs heavily on this series. And now we’re sort of back in international politics being terrifying. Our American politics being expressed- Pete: Keanu Reeves is popular again. It’s like the 80s all over again. Justin: He really weighs in here, the Keanu Reeves of it all. So I do think rereading it now just in 2019 with our politics and culture defi
