Gibbons, Dave - Watchmen, issue 10, page 16 (Jul 1987)
Artist: Dave Gibbons (Penciller)
19 Comments - 1,920 Views - 1 Like
Artwork Details
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DescriptionI owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Stu Neft for selling me this page. He was a pleasure to deal with - I hope I get the chance to shake his hand one of these days.Watchmen was created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins. DC Comics published the series with the first issue released September 1986 and the last in October 1987. Watchmen originated from a story proposal Moore submitted to DC featuring superhero characters that the company had acquired from Charlton Comics. As Moore's proposed story would have left many of the characters unusable for future stories, managing editor Dick Giordano convinced the writer to create original characters instead. Watchmen is set in an alternate reality which closely mirrors the contemporary world of the 1980s. The primary difference is the presence of super-heroes. Their existence in this version of America is shown to have dramatically affected and altered the outcomes of real-world events such as the Vietnam War and the presidency of Richard Nixon. In keeping with the realism of the series, although the costumed crime fighters of Watchmen are commonly called ‘superheroes’, the only character that possesses obvious superhuman powers is Doctor Manhattan. Eventually, superheroes grow unpopular among the police and the public, which has led to the passage of legislation in 1977 to outlaw them. While many of the heroes retired, Doctor Manhattan and The Comedian operate as government-sanctioned agents, while Rorschach continues to operate outside the law. When writing the script for the first issue, Moore said he realized he had only enough plot for six issues…but he was contracted for twelve. His solution was to alternate issues that dealt with the overall plot of the series with origin issues for the characters. Moore wrote very detailed scripts for Gibbons to work from – Gibbons would later recall that the script for the first issue of Watchmen was one hundred and one, single-spaced, typed pages. Gibbons had a great deal of autonomy in developing the visual look of Watchmen and frequently inserted background details that Moore admitted he did not notice until later. Near the end of the project, Moore realized that the story bore some similarity to ‘The Architects of Fear’, an episode of The Outer Limits television series. Moore and editor Len Wein argued over changing the ending, and when Moore refused to give in, Wein quit the book. Moore acknowledged the Outer Limits episode similarity by referencing it in the series' last issue. Structurally, certain aspects of Watchmen deviated from the norm in comic books at the time, particularly the nine-panel layout and the coloring. Additionally, the cover of each issue serves as the first panel to the story. And, the end of each issue, with the exception of issue twelve, contains supplemental prose pieces written by Moore. Almost unbelievable now given its enduring success, but DC had trouble selling ad space in issues of Watchmen, which left an extra eight to nine pages per issue. DC planned to insert house ads and a longer letters column to fill the space, but editor Len Wein instead decided to use the extra pages to have Moore to fill out the series' back story. Among the contents are fictional book chapters, letters, reports and articles written by various Watchmen characters. Moore said, ‘By the time we got around to issue #3, #4, and so on, we thought that the book looked nice without a letters page. It looks less like a comic book, so we stuck with it.’ Social/Sharing |
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Comments on this Artwork
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Disco Stu
Member Since 2004
Posted on 10/27/2008
Chris, it was my pleasure. I'm glad the page ended up in such a good home, and i'll hold you to that hand shake should we ever meet up some day.
Felix Lu 
Member Since 2005
Posted on 11/2/2008
Congrats to you and Stu for getting the deal done! (Great page, btw!)
Matt S
Member Since 2006
Posted on 3/25/2009
just a Awesome page Chris! am i stating the obvious? lol
Suat Tong Ng
Member Since 2009
Posted on 9/17/2009
I just noticed this - I liked the dialogue in this whole sequence. A very nice page!
J L
Member Since 2005
Posted on 1/7/2010
Congrats on having not one, but two superb WM pages!!!! Amazing!!!!
Alex B
Member Since 2008
Posted on 9/7/2010
Owning the 2 pages of that scene is absolutely impossible to believe. The Grail of all grails imho. HUGE CONGRATS !
Mark Howland
Member Since 2004
Posted on 6/9/2011
Oh, dear God! Two Watchmen pages with Rorshach doing his dirtiest? So very sweet.
C .
Member Since 2008
Posted on 1/21/2012
Everytime i look at your gallery i stay with my mouth open, but with these two pieces of Watchmen i really hallucinate.
Matt Todd
Member Since 2014
Posted on 6/15/2018
The Nite-Owl performance Gibbons creates is incredible!!! Love this page!!!
Mark Howland
Member Since 2004
Posted on 12/16/2018
What a GREAT trio of pages, Chris. You own your own museum, one of many wings!
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