This would, of course, reach its ultimate expression in THE SPIRIT.

I have to agree that Watchmen is probably the most widely praised comic book by those outside of the comic book community, or at the very least one of the most popular.  I'm not saying that it deserves to be either.  Go to any bookstore in the country, regardless of the size of it's "graphic novel" section, more than likely it has a copy of the Watchmen for sale.

I discovered comics through the Marvel Transformers comics of the 80s.  Those aren't superhero comics.  I don't think it's as much about the genre of the "gateway" comic book as much as it is about the introduction to the medium of comic books in general, whatever form that happens to take.  

I read Watchmen for the first time only 8 or 9 years ago.  I enjoyed it a great deal up until the giant telepathic squid, but even then I liked it and still like it.  I don't understand the attitude that if I don't like something and you do, therefore you must not know any better or are ignorant in some capacity.

I love Ditko's Spider-Man.  Little did I know he was heavily inspired by Ayn Rand.  Doesn't make those Spider-Man stories any less great.  

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But suppose you were loving those Ditko Spider-Man stories, and then started praising the Randian qualities as if they were unique to Ditko?

This is where so many of those who praise WATCHMEN go astray. Their unfamiliarity with comicbook history, and, it often seems, a fair amount of cultural history, leads them to make false assumptions about the merit of the work. They find it brilliant and innovative. I find it riddled with cliches and "reinterpretations", and basically Moore plucking the single string on his banjo over and over again.

I've made the comparison to Bobcat Goldthwaite. When I first saw this comedian, I thought he was hilarious and brilliant. Then I saw him a few more times, and realized Oh! That's all he does. . .

Andrew W. Farago wrote: To say that kids have fewer options now is ignoring the fact that pop culture has fragmented like crazy over the past decade, and it only works if you're looking at monthly Marvel and DC Comics as the only real choice for comics readers.

But I didn't say that I'm only looking at monthly books by Marvel and DC.  I used that as but one example when you brought up that they both have "dedicated all-ages lines". 

Anyway, I think we're at an impasse.  I simply can not be as optimistic about the state of comic book publishing in general, and about getting them into the hands of kids specifically, as you are.  I just can't.  When I talk to my nephew, at ten the prime age for the medium, and he says neither he nor his friends care for them, that he doesn't know any kids at school that read them, I'm sorry but that's in stark contrast to just 30 years ago. It's certainly in stark contrast to when I was his age in 1977. It's anecdotal to be sure, and I'm not implying that means no kids across the country are reading comic books at all, but not one he knows of in a school his size?  He's a popular kid and has a ton of friends, is active in a bunch of school activities that puts him in contact with a bunch of different cliques, yet he doesn't know anyone reading comic books.  They simply are not that important to them, certainly not as important to them as they were to me in the 70s. 

Where you see an optimistic display of children embracing the medium, I see less than a tenth, arguably more, of the the number of kids now that like them than even two decades ago when you were around their age.  Sorry, but I can't be optimistic about a medium that has shrunk at such an alarming rate in so short a period of time.

Nostalgia is a powerful force!

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That's not what he said, Al.

In WATCHMEN, Moore inverted -- I might say perverted -- pretty much everything the superhero genre is all about.

Costumes or distinctive appearance, sometimes super-powers, and a willingness to die to protect the general public. Pretty much everything the superhero genre is about.

The first fits most of the characters in Watchmen, the second fits Dr Manhattan and, in the sense of unusual prowess (such as possessed by Batman) fits most of the other characters, and the third fits Dr Manhattan and Rorshach. Nite Owl only gives up when he realises he can't win. It's pretty clear that some of the other characters, like the first Nite Owl, would have opposed Ozymandias given information and opportunity.

I can't see the truth in the above allegation. Mind you, it might come from the same place as, "People who like Watchmen don't know about comics. I can always tell people who don't know about comics, because they like Watchmen": that is, not proper reasoning.

It's okay not to like Watchmen. It doesn't need shaky justification.

IMP.

John Byrne wrote: ... The ideal candidate for doing the project should be someone who is equally a one trick pony, but from the opposite end of the spectrum. Immediately, one name sprang to the forefront: Rob Liefeld...

That would be so absurd that I want to see it done now! Heh.