Great Books and Genre Books—Part One

Now, by any standard, WATCHMAN is an impressive comic book, rich with invention, a dramatically original approach to the conventional superhero genre.

Merely trying to list the clever artistic effects would be exhausting: Moore’s use of exact background details, the inclusion of snippets from imaginary books and articles from the fictional world of his invention, the cleverness of having one character telling his tale from outside of time, the sly updating of the Charleston characters (Rorschach riffs The Question, Nite Owl riffs Blue Beetle, and so on). Nothing like it had ever been done before in comic books. It is sui generis. 

But is it the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Is it the Mona Lisa? Is it PARADISE LOST or THE TEMPEST? Here we are not talking about what one man’s particular taste might or might not prefer. I might prefer cotton candy to steak and potatoes: but the fact of the matter is, one is something to get one’s teeth into and chew over; the other disappears on the tongue. One is nutritious and one is not.

We are talking about the great and the shallow things of life. We live in a philistine and egalitarian age, where the passion of the world is to equalize unequal things, and beat high towers flat. As pleasing as this endeavor is to the democratic spirit, it is nonetheless, at its heart, a fraud. There are real towers whose shadow is cast over all the world. There is something to food aside from the taste: there is also the nourishment of the body. Likewise, there is something to literature aside from the taste: there is the nourishment of the mind and the exercise of the faculties. Fun books are for fun. Good books make you think. Great books make you think about the Great Ideas.

Whether your taste runs to thinking about Great Ideas, or whether a particular book agrees or disagrees without your own ideas is a different question.

There no author with whom I disagree more sharply and more deeply on all topics than Karl Marx. I loathe this man as I loathe some devil from Hell. Nonetheless, as a matter of objective fact, independent of my personal opinions and tastes, the master work of this great author, DAS KAPITAL, engages the Great Ideas.

Marx writes about history, the role of mankind, the nature of man’s labor, the nature of society and the evolution of society, the role of free will, the nature of justice, especially social justice, and so on. He happens to be wrong on each and every conclusion he comes to on these topics—this is a point a Marxist would debate with me. But what cannot be debated is that these are the topics he addresses: topics of weight and import.

A man’s conclusions on these topics will change the way he must live his life; it will influence, for good or ill, what he thinks about himself and the world and his place init; it will determine on which side of the wars and struggles of his age he will stand; it will determine to what standard he rallies.    

Nietzsche is a similar diabolic author, one whose works I esteem to be poison to the soul.  Nonetheless, as a matter of objective fact, independent of my personal opinions and tastes, the master work of this great author engages the Great Ideas. He is wrong about what he says about God and Man, Destiny and Will, Power and Morality and the Meaning of Life. But the fact is he is indeed talking about God and Man, Destiny and Will, Power and Morality and the Meaning of Life. He is saying something more significant than “Question Authority.”

What is Alan Moore talking about in his work? WATCHMAN has a number of themes surely possessed of more depth and weight than any other funnybook—which is the faintest praise anyone has ever penned. He is talking about godlike powers and their moral and social implications: what happens when you trust people with power to make the decisions in your life. He is talking about whether the ends justify the means (which is the philosophy of Ozymandias) or whether moral laws are strict and simple, black-and-white (which is the philosophy of Rorschach). There are themes of time and destiny and free will (Doctor Manhattan touches on this). There is a theme that power corrupts (The Comedian). The book poses the question, Who Watches the Watchmen? It asks us to Question Authority.

All good stuff. I have read many a thriller by Tom Clancey or historical novel by Alfred Duggan or detective tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Sax Rohmer that do not touch on even half these issues half so thoughtfully. For a genre work, WATCHMEN is deep indeed. In terms of influence, no comic, not even the shocking DARK KNIGHT by Frank Miller, produced a deeper or more lasting change in the comicbook genre.

Again, Moore’s “Question Authority” theme is one I find mildly distasteful: I selected this example precisely because any personal agreement or disagreement needs to be factored out of the equation. Whether I agree or not, Moore is talking about themes that might make a teenager ponder, and even become part of his permanent attitude about life; whereas Marx is talking about ideas that could and did change the world and become part of history.  

But a man might live or die in the revolution trumpeted by Marx: and there are people who will conform their whole lives to the shape of his ideas, and serve them with devotion as one serves a god; or people who would sacrifice all to oppose them in word and deed. What is Alan Moore’s little cautionary tale is that compared to such gigantic significance? Moore’s work does not even have the depth or striking power of NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR by George Orwell. Outside the genre, its influence is nil.