Watchmen (palavra em inglês que significa "vigilantes") é uma série de história em quadrinhos escrita por Alan Moore e ilustrada por Dave Gibbons, publicada originalmente em 12 edições mensais pela editora norte-americana DC Comics entre 1986 e 1987. A série foi posteriormente reimpressa no formato graphic novel em uma edição única.
Watchmen é considerada um marco importante no desenvolvimento dos quadrinhos nos EUA: introduziu temas e abordagens antes ligadas apenas aos quadrinhos alternativos. Diz-se que Watchmen foi, no contexto dos quadrinhos da década de 1980, juntamente com The Dark Knight Returns de Frank Miller e Maus de Art Spiegelman), um dos responsáveis por despertar o interesse do público adulto para um formato até então considerado infantil.
Watchmen é considerada um marco importante no desenvolvimento dos quadrinhos nos EUA: introduziu temas e abordagens antes ligadas apenas aos quadrinhos alternativos. Diz-se que Watchmen foi, no contexto dos quadrinhos da década de 1980, juntamente com The Dark Knight Returns de Frank Miller e Maus de Art Spiegelman), um dos responsáveis por despertar o interesse do público adulto para um formato até então considerado infantil.
Ambientada em uma realidade fictícia na qual os super-heróis são uma presença real na história da humanidade, Watchmen é um drama de crime e aventura que incorpora temas e referências relacionados à filosofia, ética, moral, cultura popular, história, artes e ciência.
A trama principal trata dos desdobramentos de uma conspiração revelada pela investigação do assassinato de um super-herói. Em torno desta história giram várias tramas menores que exploram a natureza humana e as diferentes interpretações de cada pessoa para os conflitos do bem contra o mal, através das histórias pessoais e relacionamentos dos personagens principais.
A responsabilidade moral é um tema de destaque, e o título Watchmen refere-se à frase em latim "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes", traduzida comumente como "Who watches the watchmen?" ("Quem vigia os vigilantes?"), tirada de uma sátira de Juvenal. Neste sentido, a obra procura questionar o próprio conceito de "super-herói" comum nos quadrinhos norte-americanos e enraizados em sua cultura de massas daquele país e a partir daí manifestar-se sobre questões diversas: ao longo de seu texto, a obra (assim como seus próprios personagens) evita mesmo utilizar-se da expressão "super-herói", preferindo termos como "aventureiros fantasiados" ou "vigilantes mascarados".
A trama principal trata dos desdobramentos de uma conspiração revelada pela investigação do assassinato de um super-herói. Em torno desta história giram várias tramas menores que exploram a natureza humana e as diferentes interpretações de cada pessoa para os conflitos do bem contra o mal, através das histórias pessoais e relacionamentos dos personagens principais.
A responsabilidade moral é um tema de destaque, e o título Watchmen refere-se à frase em latim "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes", traduzida comumente como "Who watches the watchmen?" ("Quem vigia os vigilantes?"), tirada de uma sátira de Juvenal. Neste sentido, a obra procura questionar o próprio conceito de "super-herói" comum nos quadrinhos norte-americanos e enraizados em sua cultura de massas daquele país e a partir daí manifestar-se sobre questões diversas: ao longo de seu texto, a obra (assim como seus próprios personagens) evita mesmo utilizar-se da expressão "super-herói", preferindo termos como "aventureiros fantasiados" ou "vigilantes mascarados".
A história abre com a investigação do assassinato do homem de negócios Edward Blake, logo revelado como sendo a identidade civil do vigilante mascarado conhecido como Comediante. Tal assassinato chama a atenção de Rorscharch, o qual passará toda a primeira metade da trama entrando em contato com seus antigos companheiros em busca de pistas, considerando praticamente todos como possíveis suspeitos.
A seguir apresento o trecho de uma entrevista, feita com Alan Moore antes do lançamento da série, publicada na revista The Telegraph Wire # 23, em outubro de 1985.
"MOORE ON MOORE: an interview with Alan Moore by Wendi Lee
WENDI: Tell me a little bit about WATCHMEN.
ALAN: That's something I'm doing for DC. Like I said, I took over SWAMP THING on the run. And I had to get the first script in to DC within three weeks. This meant that the direction of the story that I was bound to for the next couple of years had to be thought out in those next three or four weeks. So there were bound to be areas of sloppiness.
Also, it was the first time I'd been exposed to a twenty-three page format. That really does make a difference. I really only just mastered the eight-page format in Britain. The length of the stories determines the sort of stories that you do. For example, if you've got a very long story, the timing can be different. You can afford to spend
a page dealing with a couple of seconds [characters]. If you've got an eight-page format story, you don't have that luxury. In England, I've been working with six and eight-page scripts and just sort of trying to find my way around them. Then, all of a sudden, I've got the twenty-three page format to work with. After twenty-four issues of SWAMP THING, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. I've done some experimenting, I've messed around and I've seen what can be done. It's not all been successful, but I think I've learned quite a bit.
ALAN: That's something I'm doing for DC. Like I said, I took over SWAMP THING on the run. And I had to get the first script in to DC within three weeks. This meant that the direction of the story that I was bound to for the next couple of years had to be thought out in those next three or four weeks. So there were bound to be areas of sloppiness.
Also, it was the first time I'd been exposed to a twenty-three page format. That really does make a difference. I really only just mastered the eight-page format in Britain. The length of the stories determines the sort of stories that you do. For example, if you've got a very long story, the timing can be different. You can afford to spend
a page dealing with a couple of seconds [characters]. If you've got an eight-page format story, you don't have that luxury. In England, I've been working with six and eight-page scripts and just sort of trying to find my way around them. Then, all of a sudden, I've got the twenty-three page format to work with. After twenty-four issues of SWAMP THING, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. I've done some experimenting, I've messed around and I've seen what can be done. It's not all been successful, but I think I've learned quite a bit.
WATCHMEN is my first project to actually use what I've learned. WATCHMEN is very, very structured. It's twelve issues long. I know exactly what the image in the last panel is going to be. I can see it as a whole from beginning to end. I'm really pleased at the way it's working. I've been working really closely with Dave Gibbons on the project. Dave's putting so much into it. It's not just the writing; we're coming together on a level of pure story-telling. I mean, the way Dave's drawing things affects the way I'm writing it. It's really an amazing experience. I'm enjoying myself immensely. Most of my stuff, I have a lot of reservations about. Three issues, maybe four issues of SWAMP THING I'd say are really good. But most of them, of course, I don't like -- personally. I mean, I do write an awwful lot of rubbish... The AMERICAN FLAGG! stories were rubbish. But WATCHMEN, I think, is the best thing I've ever done. I think it's really, really good.
WENDI: Can you give me an idea of what it's about?
ALAN: Sure. We're trying to step back from the superhero a little bit; we want to take a fresh look at the idea of being a superhero. Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel brought out SUPERMAN in 1939. There were no other superheroes and I think that for us today, it's very hard to imagine what the impact of that character was; since Superman in comics, the sky is full of flying men. It's not quite the same. The whole superhero idea has grown up with cliches around it and that has smothered it in a way. You can no longer see the woods for the trees.
What me and Dave have tried to do with WATCHMEN is to somehow get back to that point where we stepped away from the conventional idea of superheroes. I wanted to do something that used the superhero in a very, very different way to the way it's been used before: psychologically. One of the main things is to see what effect a superhero would have upon the world. In the DC and Marvel universes, they don't have any effect. They're all extraordinary beings, but the world they live in is very much the same as ours.
In WATCHMEN, we try to think it through politically and socially. We've got a character called Dr. Manhattan who is the only actual superhero in the book. He's the only actual one with powers. He emerges about 1965
and from that point on, the world is different forever. Since he's strongly aligned to the American military, obviously, he's like a step beyond the neutron bomb. Instantly, the balance of power changes. I think if the American government had found a superhero, they would have been a little bit more adventuresome in their foreign policy whereas the Russians would most certainly have been a little more timid. In the world we're dealing with, America won the Vietnamese war. The Russians have not invaded Afghanistan. Basically they're in the Kremlin under the table with their fingers in their ears. They're terrified and the only option that they have left is mutually assured destruction. Their backs are against the wall.
You've reached a point where the doomsday clock is seconds away from midnight. It's closer to disaster than our own world is. That is one of the main themes of the book: it's this paranoid, frightening world that's just getting closer and closer to Armageddon. And it's all because of one superhero.
There are other costumed heroes in the book, but most of them are retired because I don't think that the American legal system, or any legal system, would support heroes. It would just cause so many problems. If you allow one guy in a mask to go around beating people up, anyone in a mask can beat people up. It just wouldn't work. So most of the superheroes have been forced into retirement -- apart from those who are valuable to the military which includes Dr. Manhattan. That is where it all begins.
There's a lot of different threads in it. One of the things that ties the entire story together is a murder mystery that runs all the way through the plot. I can't tell you an awful lot without giving away the plot.
We've got some interesting characters. There's Rorschach who's a really psychopathic vigilante. Whereas in most comic books the psychopath will get angry, a *real* psychopath will break your arm and smile... or never react at all.
ALAN: Sure. We're trying to step back from the superhero a little bit; we want to take a fresh look at the idea of being a superhero. Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel brought out SUPERMAN in 1939. There were no other superheroes and I think that for us today, it's very hard to imagine what the impact of that character was; since Superman in comics, the sky is full of flying men. It's not quite the same. The whole superhero idea has grown up with cliches around it and that has smothered it in a way. You can no longer see the woods for the trees.
What me and Dave have tried to do with WATCHMEN is to somehow get back to that point where we stepped away from the conventional idea of superheroes. I wanted to do something that used the superhero in a very, very different way to the way it's been used before: psychologically. One of the main things is to see what effect a superhero would have upon the world. In the DC and Marvel universes, they don't have any effect. They're all extraordinary beings, but the world they live in is very much the same as ours.
In WATCHMEN, we try to think it through politically and socially. We've got a character called Dr. Manhattan who is the only actual superhero in the book. He's the only actual one with powers. He emerges about 1965
and from that point on, the world is different forever. Since he's strongly aligned to the American military, obviously, he's like a step beyond the neutron bomb. Instantly, the balance of power changes. I think if the American government had found a superhero, they would have been a little bit more adventuresome in their foreign policy whereas the Russians would most certainly have been a little more timid. In the world we're dealing with, America won the Vietnamese war. The Russians have not invaded Afghanistan. Basically they're in the Kremlin under the table with their fingers in their ears. They're terrified and the only option that they have left is mutually assured destruction. Their backs are against the wall.
You've reached a point where the doomsday clock is seconds away from midnight. It's closer to disaster than our own world is. That is one of the main themes of the book: it's this paranoid, frightening world that's just getting closer and closer to Armageddon. And it's all because of one superhero.
There are other costumed heroes in the book, but most of them are retired because I don't think that the American legal system, or any legal system, would support heroes. It would just cause so many problems. If you allow one guy in a mask to go around beating people up, anyone in a mask can beat people up. It just wouldn't work. So most of the superheroes have been forced into retirement -- apart from those who are valuable to the military which includes Dr. Manhattan. That is where it all begins.
There's a lot of different threads in it. One of the things that ties the entire story together is a murder mystery that runs all the way through the plot. I can't tell you an awful lot without giving away the plot.
We've got some interesting characters. There's Rorschach who's a really psychopathic vigilante. Whereas in most comic books the psychopath will get angry, a *real* psychopath will break your arm and smile... or never react at all.
WENDI: That's frightening!
ALAN: Yeah. I've met a couple of psychopaths. They never growl, they never snarl, they never do anything outrageous.
ALAN: Yeah. I've met a couple of psychopaths. They never growl, they never snarl, they never do anything outrageous.
WENDI: They're perfectly pleasant people.
ALAN: Absolutely placid. It's abnormal emotional reactions. That's what Rorschach is all about. There's another character called the Comedian who's like a one-man CIA Dirty Tricks Division. He's one of the government agents who has been allowed to carry on.
There's another female superhero who basically only took on the job because her mother wanted her to and there's a very self-pitying retired superhero who just mainly sits in his chair and thinks about the old days.
And the world around them looks totally different. Technology's changed: there are no gas guzzlers anymore. There are just these very big, nice-looking electric cars. And the streets look totally different because there are a lot of battery points where the taxis can go and charge themselves up. We're not going to explain all this, but Dave's putting it all in the background so that we can have a complete three-dimensional world where everything makes sense.
There's no McDonald's. Instead there's a chain of Indian fast food places called Gunga-Diners just because of the change in the political situation. At some point in the last 15 years, America's had an influx of Indian immigrants, presumably refugees fleeing from one of the political hot spots in the world. That's not important to the story, but we try to realize the world and give it a texture and a feeling. So from the very first panels, you're there in the streets and you think, "That car is wrong. Why are people's lapels different? And the cut of their trousers is different. What are those things they're smoking? Those aren't cigarettes."
And we don't explain all this. In fact, there's even a point where Dave's shown a Heinz bean can -- and it's got 58 varieties instead of 57. It's just little bits like that running through the story. We just want to dump people into this alien environment where everything is slightly askew, everything is slightly different.
Dave's doing it on a 9-panel page grid. I'm used to working on a 6-panel grid. So when you've got nine panels to a page, the amount of information is suddenly different on a page. And I'm finding that my scripts for WATCHMEN, my normal scripts are pretty thick, but the scripts for WATCHMEN are a couple of inches thick, maybe an inch and a half. I mean when it lands on Dave's doorstep in the morning, I don't know what he thinks!
ALAN: Absolutely placid. It's abnormal emotional reactions. That's what Rorschach is all about. There's another character called the Comedian who's like a one-man CIA Dirty Tricks Division. He's one of the government agents who has been allowed to carry on.
There's another female superhero who basically only took on the job because her mother wanted her to and there's a very self-pitying retired superhero who just mainly sits in his chair and thinks about the old days.
And the world around them looks totally different. Technology's changed: there are no gas guzzlers anymore. There are just these very big, nice-looking electric cars. And the streets look totally different because there are a lot of battery points where the taxis can go and charge themselves up. We're not going to explain all this, but Dave's putting it all in the background so that we can have a complete three-dimensional world where everything makes sense.
There's no McDonald's. Instead there's a chain of Indian fast food places called Gunga-Diners just because of the change in the political situation. At some point in the last 15 years, America's had an influx of Indian immigrants, presumably refugees fleeing from one of the political hot spots in the world. That's not important to the story, but we try to realize the world and give it a texture and a feeling. So from the very first panels, you're there in the streets and you think, "That car is wrong. Why are people's lapels different? And the cut of their trousers is different. What are those things they're smoking? Those aren't cigarettes."
And we don't explain all this. In fact, there's even a point where Dave's shown a Heinz bean can -- and it's got 58 varieties instead of 57. It's just little bits like that running through the story. We just want to dump people into this alien environment where everything is slightly askew, everything is slightly different.
Dave's doing it on a 9-panel page grid. I'm used to working on a 6-panel grid. So when you've got nine panels to a page, the amount of information is suddenly different on a page. And I'm finding that my scripts for WATCHMEN, my normal scripts are pretty thick, but the scripts for WATCHMEN are a couple of inches thick, maybe an inch and a half. I mean when it lands on Dave's doorstep in the morning, I don't know what he thinks!
WENDI: When is WATCHMEN coming out?
ALAN: It's going to be coming out sometime next summer. We want six issues in-house before we start so that we can avoid the CAMELOT situation. The way the story is structured, if it doesn't come out every month, it'll destroy the whole rhythm of it. It's got to be bang-bang-bang-bang-bang so when people read the first issue, they're stuck on a train to Hell and they don't get off till issue 12! (laughter)"
ALAN: It's going to be coming out sometime next summer. We want six issues in-house before we start so that we can avoid the CAMELOT situation. The way the story is structured, if it doesn't come out every month, it'll destroy the whole rhythm of it. It's got to be bang-bang-bang-bang-bang so when people read the first issue, they're stuck on a train to Hell and they don't get off till issue 12! (laughter)"
A última notícia para os fãs das HQ's de Alan Moore é a produção cinematográfica de Watchmen. No site Omelete é possivel conseguir mais informações sobre o filme. Aqui vai um trecho da entrevista feita por eles com o Diretor Zack Snyder, que também dirigiu o filme 300.
omelete
"Na semana passada vimos a Warner Bros. fazendo alterações significativas em suas adaptações para as telas - Mulher-Maravilha, The Flash... -, provavelmente deixando-as mais "familiares". Como fica Watchmen no meio disso?
snyder
Isso é ótimo! Quero que todos os filmes de quadrinhos saiam assim, porque isso vai deixar o meu muito mais bacana. Ahaha. Quanto mais Quartetos Fantásticos forem feitos, melhor pra mim! Expliquei pra Warner que Watchmen é muito mais Dr. Fantástico (Dr. Strangelove, de Stanley Kubrick) que Quarteto.
omelete
Os fãs não precisam se preocupar, então.
snyder
Está tudo indo muito bem com Watchmen. O estúdio entende a proposta do filme. Da mesma forma que 300 chega num momento em que todo mundo está cansado de filmes épicos medievais, espero que Watchmen seja lançado quando o público estiver deixando de lado os filmes de super-heróis e precisar daquele "algo mais", uma reinvenção desse mundo.
Parece perfeito. A história em quadrinhos original saiu em condições idênticas, reinventando esse gênero no papel...
Sim! O mundo dos quadrinhos estava cansado da mesmice e agora é o mundo do cinema que chegará nesse ponto.
omelete
E qual é o status do projeto?
snyder
Estamos montando o orçamento e o roteiro está quase pronto, andando bem e ficando muito legal. Vamos ambientá-lo em 1985, como a HQ, com Nixon e a Guerra Fria, para que as metáforas fiquem claras. Não queremos falar de terrorismo ou coisa do tipo, que é o que aconteceria se o situássemos hoje em dia. O que tem que ir para as telas é a visão de Alan Moore sobre a autoridade e o governo, que, espero, fará com que as pessoas extrapolem a idéia para os dias de hoje. "
Ficamos no aguardo então. Futuramente o Setor 8 falará mais no assunto e a Subway comtinuará incansávelmente falando da obra de Alan Moore.
Até mais!!!
