Quis custodiet ipsos cutodes.

Who watches the watchmen?

Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins gave us The Watchmen more than twenty years ago.

The movie comes out 03-06-09.

A quick look at the film's credits and you see no mention of Mr. Moore, the writer of the series. Apparently he had a falling-out with DC over the rights to his work. (The same is true of Moore's V for Vendetta.) I don't know what it's about, or who the good guys and the bad guys are. My gut says "writers always get screwed," but that's the problem with the gut, eh? The facts may be something else entirely.

Yesterday and today I re-read the "graphic novel." The art, colors and letters are beautiful, of course, comics can't fly on story alone. But Moore is an exceptionally accomplished and brilliant writer, and that is what hooks you. Like his countryman Neil Gaiman, Moore is something of a literary genius. The Watchmen fuses fantasy and noir to tell a political tale with an anarchist slant. It is multi-layered, and holds up well to repeated readings. Much of it won't translate well to the big screen. But after spending today re-visiting this remarkable work, I'm starting to get excited about 03.06.09!

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