The Annotated Watchmen, Doug Atkinson [fb2 epub reader txt] 📗

later. (It all ties together.)

Since this is Monday, Rorschach must have great endurance to hold on

so long. He's probably used to it, though.

Panel 7: The puddle again.

Page 7, panel 1: The triangle symbol, with an Eastern connection.

The smear of blood across the face repeats the smiley-face from #1.

Panel 3: The lamp in the upper right repeats the very minor theme of

a zig-zag pattern on a sphere. Officer Capaldi is the woman on the left of

the panel.

Panel 6: Note the skull-and-crossbones in the "Grateful Dead" poster.

(The other posters read, "Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life"

and "No Nukes.")

Page 8, panel 1: The truck is, again, from Pyramid Deliveries, and

gives us the triangle again. (A triangle also has mirror symmetry.)

Panel 8: The early arrival of next month's comics explains how the

kid has the new "Black Freighter" already. Tuesday is a somewhat unusual

day for a comics shipment to arrive, at least in our world.

Page 10, panel 1: The Gunga Diner interior. The speaker is Laurie.

Most of this page is seen in a mirror.

Panel 4: The Diner is across from the Utopia. (The people walking on

the street have been shown in passing before; the woman with the girl was

seen in 1:4:5.) They're now showing "Things to Come" (reflecting the theme

of change). The "Y"-shaped symbols contain triangles and have a mirror-

symmetry themselves.

At this distance, Dan should probably be visible in the mirror.

Page 11, panel 1: The hands on this page belong to Rorschach. Notice

the symmetrical stain pattern on the plate, and the Heinz bean can.

Rorschach wears his watch on his right wrist, a clue to his identity.

Panel 3: The pile of New Frontiersman under the bed are another

hint to Rorschach's real identity.

Panel 4: We see his mother in the next issue.

Panel 5: Another mirror-image; the "Hiroshima lovers" are a theme for

the rest of the series. "Who Watches the Watchmen" graffiti in the

background.

Panel 6: Once again, Rorschach is either investigating all leads or

is behaving like a paranoid loon. Laurie is more plausible than Moloch,

but not by much.

Panels 7-9: Rorschach is creating a Rorschach blot with the napkin;

its shape is an upside-down question mark, perhaps referring to his

inspiration, the Question. The gang sprays another "Hiroshima

Lovers" image on the wall. The man in panel 8 may be dropping the message

Rorschach picks up on panel 18; he faintly resembles the courier from

issue #10, but is too far to really tell.

Page 12, panel 1: "Afghanistan: Is Pakistan Next?" The radiation

symbol is still on the wall. This page is the first to alternate real and

"Black Freighter" panels.

Panel 5: Note the "...don't people see the signs? Don't they know

where this is headed?" viz. the sign-man in the background.

Panel 7: The Chrysler Building is vaguely visible behind the

Promethean.

Panel 8: Another mirror image, and streak across eye (related to the

issue #1 smiley face).

Panel 9: Notice the "The End is Nigh" man going through the trash.

From this we can postulate the layout of this corner, Fortieth and

Seventh:

Gunga| | Promethean

Diner| | Cab Co.

------- --------------- /|

|

Newsstand | N

------- --------------- |

Utopia| | Institute for

| | Extraspatial

| | Studies

(Does this corner exist in "our" New York? What's located there?")

Page 13, panel 1: The shiny desk and floor provide another mirror.

The hands belong, of course, to Adrian; the woman is his secretary. The

"V" has mirror symmetry, and the link on the desk forms an "X" (what this

may signify I don't know).

Those are very interesting symbols on Veidt's computer terminal.

Some of them make sense (an =, a :, a 0) but others are incomprehensible.

Does he use some bizarre sort of code on his personal terminal?

Panel 3: Is Veidt foreshadowing the end of this issue? Does he know

too much?

Pages 14-15: This split-page panel is unique in the series. The pool

is another mirror surface.

Page 17, panel 4: The Gazette headline reads, "Industrialist in

Murder." Notice the sign man in the background. The person by the corner

might be Joey.

Panel 8: And the sign man is in the trash again; we learn the

significance of this later. Ironic line from the newsvendor.

Page 18, panel 1: The same graffiti we saw on page 11. The hands in

the panel (mirror image) appear on 2/3 of the panels on the page. If

alert, you can work out the identity of Rorschach here.

From the slant, the writing could be by someone left-handed. Moloch

is left-handed; look at the way he holds the gun in the beginning of

this issue. If this is a fake, it's a good one.

Panel 4: Another Pale Horse poster on the left, above a torn

Ozymandias Famine Relief poster; on the right, more "Who Watches the Watchmen?"

Panel 5: A Nostalgia ad.

Panel 6: Compare Rorschach's pulling on the glove with the woman's

pulling on her stocking. Is Rorschach being ironic when he says, "My

spotless gloves," or is he overlooking their condition?

Panel 8: Note the similarity of mugger and victim's silhouette to the

graffiti.

Page 19: Another mirror.

Panel 6: On the table is "Under the Hood." The old heroes have been

on Dan's mind lately.

Page 21, panel 2: Joey, last seen in issue #3.

Panel 3: Hustler is a real-world "men's" magazine, noted for being

more hardcore and pornographic than Playboy or Penthouse.

Panel 8: Another triangle image (compare with Pyramid Deliveries) and

the militant feminist symbol. The poster read, "Pink Triangle LIVE at

the Gay Women Against Rape Benefit Concert."

"Pink Triangle" is actually an odd name for a lesbian band. The

symbol comes from Nazi Germany, where gay men were made to wear pink

triangles. Lesbians and other "undesirables" wore black triangles. The usage of

the pink triangle as a symbol for all homosexuals is seen by some as

sexist, and some militant lesbians prefer to use the black triangle. Since

the point-up orientation of the symbol can indicate greater militancy

than the more common point-down, one is left with the impression that Moore

and Gibbons were trying to fit the poster into their motifs.

Also note that the term is "gay women," not "lesbians." We learn

later that "gay woman" has become the accepted term.

Panel 9: The ad on the back of the Hustler reads, "For Smokers With

Balls" and is for the ball-pipes. (The copy is sort of ironic. We've

seen the holders used by people in Happy Harry's, a man in New York in #4,

page 4, and a minor character in this issue on page 13, but Janey and

Laurie use them too, as well as the man embracing the other man in issue 1.

Surely not all these people are in Hustler's target audience.)

Page 22, panel 3: Notice the "Gunga Diner" balloon out the window.

If that's the same one, the station must be close to the action of the

series.

Panel 4: The shot of the Dead poster here gives us half of the

album's title. The full title is "Aoxomoxoa," a palindrome. Gibbons claims

to have chosen this by pure chance, but it still fits the motif.

Panel 6: The case number on the Blake file has a palindromic number,

and all the numbers in it have vertical and horizontal mirror symmetry.

Panel 7: He means "Rorschach," of course.

Panel 9: The skull-and-crossbones on the poster again.

Page 23, panels 1-3: A return to page 1.

Panel 4: New graffiti on the wall by the Rumrunner.

Panel 6: The broken Gordian Knot lock; comparison with page 3, panel

4 shows that Rorschach has broken it again. (The damage is different,

and the second lock has "X"s on it framing the keyhole.)

Page 24, panel 3: Underboss was a major mob crimelord; Rorschach and

Nite Owl eventually apprehended him.

Page 25, panels 3-6: Rorschach is gathering makeshift weapons here.

The aerosol can reads "Veidt For Men Hair Spray."

Page 26, panel 3: "Here be tygers" refers both to the quote giving us

the story title, and the practice of filling in unknown areas on old maps

with "Here be dragons." It may be NYPD slang for the unknown and

dangerous.

Page 28, panels 1, 5: The "Rumrunner" logo is similar to that of the

real-life Ramrod club, placing the apartment on West Street off

Christopher. The cop's "goddamned queer" line also points to that area, and is

similar to Comedian's line from issue #, page 7, panel 6.

Panel 9: Once again the puddle.

Pages 29-32: "A Man on Fifteen Dead Men's Chests," Chapter 5 of the

Treasure Island Treasury of Comics. An overview of the history of

DC's "Tales of the Black Freighter." EC and DC are/were both real

publishers. Joe Orlando is a real person; he's a VP at DC now. In the real

world, comics centered on superheroes, which declined in the '50's: the

horror comics of that period brought about public disapproval. In this

world there were few superhero comics: there was no witchhunt and EC

remained strong. (Ironically, though, the superheroes helped the survival of

the form; see page 59, paragraph 1.) Marvel never made it (since, in the

real world, their growth can be traced to FANTASTIC FOUR #1).

The title refers to the classic pirate song "Fifteen Men on a Dead

Man's Chest."

Page 61, paragraph 4: "Marooned" is the story Bernie is reading.

Page 62, panel 2: Another reference to Max Shea's disappearance

(first mentioned in issue #3).

By the way, if anyone is interested in reading a collaboration

between Alan Moore and Joe Orlando, look for SECRET ORIGINS #10, the secret origin

of the Phantom Stranger.

--

Chapter 6: "The Abyss Gazes Also"

Watchmen is a trademark of DC Comics Inc., copyright 1995.

These annotations copyright 1995 by Doug Atkinson. They may be freely

copied and distributed, provided the text is not altered.

Certain notes are true for each issue. Each one is written by

Alan Moore, drawn and lettered by Dave Gibbons, and colored by John

Higgins.

Moreover, each issue has a continuing motif, a reoccuring object

or pattern that is seen on the cover, the first and last page (usually),

and throughout the issue. This issue's motif is the images brought on by

the Rorschach blots.

Another trend is the title, which is always an excerpt from an

apropos quote shown in its entirety in the last panel. This issue's title is

from Nietzsche.

The clock appearing on the covers counts the minutes to

midnight, similar to the clock in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,

which is an estimate of the world's closeness to nuclear war. The clock

stands at 6 minutes to midnight.

Cover: A Rorschach blot. The blots used here are not actually the

classic blots created by Dr. Rorschach; they follow the same principle but

are smoother. Also, not all of the original blots were black-and-white,

and they were usually more complex.

Page 1, panel 1: Dr. Long is Rorschach's therapist in prison.

Panel 6: The Band-aid and bruise on his face