Heroes Never Rust #94: Endings

20 Wednesday May 2015

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Heroes Never Rust #94 by Sean Ironman

Watchmen: Endings

Endings are difficult. Do you leave the story open-ended? Do you lead into another story? Do you connect the story back to the beginning? Do you have an epilogue? There are a lot of questions and no answers. Ambiguous endings work from time to time, but so do endings that give a definite end to the characters. There is no one right way to tell a story, and there is no one right way to end a story. Watchmen’s final issue opens with six splash pages showing the destruction that Ozymandias has caused in New York city. There is a bit of a scuffle back at Ozymandias’ secret base as Silk Spectre and Doctor Manhattan get in on the fight. But, for the most part, the superheroics of typical superhero comics are not found here. Watchmen’s ending works well because the last third of the issue deals with Ozymandias potentially being right.

The problem with many endings is that they become too simple. This is especially true with superhero stories, which usually end with the hero and the villain punching each other until the villain either dies or gives up. The writer tries to wrap up the story, so the story gets stripped down. But, Watchmen goes in the opposite direction—it gets more complicated in the final chapter. There’s a light scuffle in the first half, but then news stories come in on Ozymandias’ many TVs. People are scared that there is an alien presence threatening Earth. The United States and Russia begin to talk about peace. What’s the point of countries waging war only to be destroyed by aliens? Russia and the United States come together, and nuclear Armageddon is averted. Ozymandias’ plan worked. Instead of going with the easier ending of Doctor Manhattan coming in and crushing Ozymandias and the world finding out about Ozymandias’ actions, the comic pushes into unknown territory. Was Ozymandias right? Are the heroes still heroes for lying to the world? And who does watch the watchmen? It seems that in many superhero stories, if not many action/adventure stories, once the climax occurs, the story simplifies. Watchmen succeeds because the final issue furthers the themes and leaves the reader with something to think about.

There seems to be a lot of focus on happy or sad endings. But, to me, a good ending is neither. To me, the ending is the lost shot at making your story memorable. Some readers might prefer a happy ending, and other readers might prefer a sad one, but if the ending is complex and leaves the reader not knowing how he or she feels, then the story will be one the reader needs to think about. If the ending is totally satisfying, then the reader just continues on with his or her life. In Watchmen, Rorschach is killed, Doctor Manhattan leaves Earth, Ozymandias continues on, and Night Owl and Silk Spectre are in a relationship and talk about continuing adventuring. There are a lot of questions and what ifs to play with the ending, allowing readers to continue the story in their own heads. The final sequence involves Rorschach’s journal, which he mailed before confronting Ozymandias, possibly being chosen by the young newspaper intern, Seymour, for some filler. The beauty of this sequence is that Moore and Gibbons do not show Seymour picking up the journal, nevertheless publishing it. The journal is in a pile of papers—it stands out because we as readers recognize it, but Seymour’s hand is just shown hovering about the pile. It leaves the reader questioning whether the journal will be published or not. And, if it is published, will anyone believe it? If it is published, will Night Owl and Silk Spectre tell the truth, or will they lie to protect the world Ozymandias has created? There’s a world after the story we as readers are given. There is a world before the story, and after the story.

Watchmen’s ending is not truly ambiguous, however. Readers can play what if, but what occurs at the end is clear. Ambiguous endings can fail because events can be taken multiple ways or the story’s ending is unclear. With Watchmen, there are possibilities, but the ending that occurs is very clear. Questions are left for the reader to consider—questions about Ozymandias’ plan, about what Night Owl and Silk Spectre will do now, about whether the newspaper employees will publish Rorschach’s journal, and if so, will the world take it seriously. Any answers to these questions are valid. One reader may walk away knowing that Rorschach’s journal is published, that Ozymandias’ plan ultimately failed. Another reader, like me, believes the journal will change nothing, published or not. But both readers are correct. There’s nothing to really read between the lines—the writer isn’t trying to hide the true ending from the reader. Lives continue on, situations may change, but there s clarity in the ending. It seems to me that the most difficult aspect of writing an ending is to be clear, yet leave certain story elements still up in the air. Will the character’s actions produce lasting change?

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Photo by John King

Sean Ironman (Episode 102) earned his MFA at the University of Central Florida. Currently, he teaches creative nonfiction and digital media at the University of Central Arkansas as a visiting professor. His work can be read in The Writer’s Chronicle, Redivider, and Breakers: A Comics Anthology, among others.

Heroes Never Rust #93: Master Plans

13 Wednesday May 2015

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Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, sean ironman, Watchmen

Heroes Never Rust #93 by Sean Ironman

Watchmen: Master Plans

So we have come to this. The penultimate issue of Watchmen. The issue when the villain is truly revealed and his master plan is set. Although a few pages are given over to some of the residents of New York City, most of the issue is set aside for Night Owl and Rorschach’s confrontation with Ozymandias, the comic’s villain. There is some action, with Ozymandias easily taking care of the two heroes. (I must say, on a side note, how interesting it is to make Ozymandias so much more powerful that the heroes in this issue. At no point, do the heroes really even stand a chance at stopping Ozymandias. I like it.) The problem that many stories have, not just superhero stories, is that the villain ends up explaining the whole plot to the heroes. A lot happens in Watchmen, and readers do need to understand how each piece fits, but usually, there is no actual story-based reason for a character to lay out the plot. Yet, here in the penultimate issue, Ozymandias tells Rorschach and Night Owl everything. And it works! The issue is one of the best of Watchmen.

The comic sidesteps the exposition aspect of revealing Ozymandias’ master plan by making the revelation less about revelation and more of a persuasive argument. Ozymandias, for all his power, does not show aggression toward his old teammates. When Rorschach and Night Owl first approach, Ozymandias is eating. He only strikes Rorschach and Night Owl in defense. Once the heroes are on the floor, Ozymandias asks, “Now…what can I do for you?” Ozymandias isn’t looking for a fight. He truly believes that what he is doing is the best thing for the world, and instead of beating Rorschach and Night Owl, he is trying to convince them. He wants his old teammates on his side. When Night Owl asks Ozymandias what he’s trying to do, Ozymandias responds, “What we all tried to do after our initial struggle to find our feet. I’m trying to improve the world.”

Ozymandias doesn’t just reveal what he’s trying to do, but what he has done. He goes back to his beginnings as a masked vigilante. He talks about meeting The Comedian, about meeting his old teammates. Ozymandias is building an argument. The physical fights that occur between his words are because Rorschach attacks him while he is speaking. Ozymandias wants to help the world, just in a different way than Rorschach and Night Owl. The death of a few to save the many. Ozymandias only got Doctor Manhattan off world because Doctor Manhattan is too powerful, and The Comedian was killed because he discovered Ozymandias’ plan. Rorschach asks, “Blake’s murder. You confess?” and Ozymandias responds with “Confession implies penitence. I merely regret his accidental involvement.” Ozymandias, in a way, is right in distancing himself from emotion. A doctor cannot get emotionally involved with his or her patients. Perhaps a superhero must be objective. Ozymandias does not revel in what he has done, but he believes that by destroying the present system in place then the future will be secured.

At the end of the day, the issue works when Rorschach and Night Owl refuse to let Adrian succeed. They have listened to his pitch, but they won’t let him do it. And, in response, Ozymandias utters one of the best lines of Watchmen, “Dan, I’m not a republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I’d explain my master stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago.” The heroes are too late. Ozymandias isn’t trying to convince Rorschach and Night Owl to help him. He’s trying to convince them to understand why he did what he did. Being far from New York City, the location of the attack, the heroes don’t realize it’s too late to stop the attack.

The problem with the villain explaining the whole master plan is that, of course, the hero is going to get free and stop the villain. The villain is really just telling the hero how to stop the plan. But, here, the trope is turned on its head. As Ozymandias is laying out what he has done and why, readers will rely on what they have learned from stories so far, that the heroes will win. The villain’s plan will not succeed. But, the reader is proved wrong in Watchmen. It makes the comic more memorable and more shocking, not by the murder of the residents of New York City, but by making the reader feel comfortable and then pulling the rug out from underneath. Without Ozymandias revealing his master plan, even if the same attack was set and went off without the heroes standing a chance, the issue would fall flat. A surprise only works if readers are led to believe one thing first. By relying on the cliché of the overly talkative villain, Watchmen brings something new to the table.

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Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #92: Coincidence

06 Wednesday May 2015

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Alan Moore, Coincidence, Dave Gibbons, Narrative, Watchmen

Heroes Never Rust #92 by Sean Ironman

Watchmen: Coincidence

Eventually, a story must come together—well, at least a good one. All the subplots and character interactions must mean something. Many writers seem to try to make their story “realistic.” More like life. But, life is meaningless, and stories help us make sense of the randomness of life. At some point, stories come together and give readers/viewers something to hang onto. As Watchmen approaches its climax, issue ten brings the disparate plots together. We get Nixon preparing to possibly start nuclear armageddon, Night Owl and Rorschach growing closer like real partners and understanding one another, Ozymandias preparing and heading to his secret base, the pirate comic featuring the “hero” returning to his home town, the missing scientists and artists boarding a ship thinking they are going home only to discover that it is a trap and are blown away, the solution to the “mask killer” theory of Rorschach’s as Night Owl stumbles onto financial files on Ozymandias’ computer, Rorschach mailing in the journal he has been writing this whole time to the New Frontiersman, and Night Owl and Rorschach approaching Ozymandias’ secret base to confront the potential villain. A lot happens this issue, and even though Watchmen is typically dense, this issue features a lot of moving parts to close out parts of the story and set the reader up for the climax. This is also the part of a story that I feel is the most difficult to pull off. A lot of moving parts can show the reader the strings to a story, the writer as puppet master behind the scenes.

The closer the plots are to one another the better they will match up and the less strings a reader will be able to notice. For example, Rorschach mailing his journal and the solution to his “mask killer” theory directly relates to one another. Before going off to confront the possible villain, Rorschach mails his journal, afraid that he might not make it back. In instances such as these, subplots coming together make sense. Readers may feel fulfilled with the plot developments closing, but there’s no need to think of the writer trying to end plots because the developments make sense on a character level. Readers are still in the story.

But, over developments, such as Ozymandias heading out to his secret base, Nixon preparing for a possible holocaust, and the end of the missing scientists and artists plot, border on coincidental. So, right when Night Owl and Rorschach need Ozymandias’ help and accidentally stumble on to the fact that Ozymandias is behind The Comedian’s death is when Ozymandias, unaware of his old teammates’ actions, leaves town to complete his master plan? If Ozymandias was still around, then Night Owl and Rorschach would not have accessed Ozymandias’ computer and would have never solved the case. Ozymandias has to leave for that plot point to work. Readers may begin to see the story’s strings. But, why does this work? Why do readers just follow this thread in Watchmen? In the thirty years since the comic’s publication, as well as a major blockbuster film adaptation, I have never heard of anyone complaining about this plot point. So, why do readers buy this, when in many other stories, readers would call out such coincidental actions? For one, and I think this is very important, there’s a strong payoff in the next two issues. I believe readers, at least many of them, are fine with overlooking the shuffling of the game board to set up something epic. And Watchmen succeeds in that. When there is little payoff, then readers begin to question the reasons behind it, and because those reasons don’t produce a stronger narrative, writers face a backlash. Secondly, for all the importance the scene has to the solution to the long-running plot of The Comedian’s murder, the comic has become much more than that mystery. The comic began with The Comedian’s death, but since then, the comic has opened up and The Comedian is barely mentioned anymore. The scene of Rorschach and Night Owl stumbling onto the truth is only three pages long. By moving onto other story elements and not building this one moment up to the reader, readers are less likely to look so hard on the scene. The scene is written as if it were just something inconsequential. Confronting Ozymandias is the important moment, finding out that the heroes need to confront Ozymandias is something that needs to happen, but that isn’t really important in the long run.

Another coincidental moment, and perhaps one that is more difficult to pull off, is the end of the missing scientists and artists storyline. This story has existed on the edges of the comic. None of the main characters even seem to care. Most of the information has been given to readers through newspaper articles and TV programs that are on in the background. Here, in issue ten, the storyline ends in a two-page scene. There’s a ship departing the island where the scientists and artists have been kept, no exactly prisoner though. They seem to have been promised a great deal of money and now think that they will be free to continue their lives. Then, a bomb is discovered on the ship, it blows, and everyone is killed. This may seem coincidental, and it is. At the moment when the heroes will soon close in, the biggest evidence against the villain is destroyed. But, this moment has to happen—well, not necessarily the bomb, but the solution to the mystery. The reason this coincidental moment works is that it does not actually affect the story. At all. It never changes one of the main characters’ path. By being so inconsequential to the story, the scene actually succeeds. It’s just information for the reader. The main characters, other than Ozymandias who makes it happen, never actually find out about it. The plot has existed in the background this whole time and it ends in the background. The missing scientists and artists help explain how Ozymandias creates this master plan of his, which we’ll find out more about next issue, so it’s necessary to the story, but it never actually changes anything. It’s an explanation more than an actual subplot.

At some point, coincidence is essential to storytelling. Some reader will always be able to ask questions like, “So, Silk Spectre picks this very moment to leave Doctor Manhattan, who wouldn’t have left Earth if she were still around?” Or, “Obi Wan Kenobi just happens to find Han Solo, a rogue with a heart of gold, in the cantina?” Or, “Superman just happens to land in Kansas as the Kents drive by, instead of in water?” At some point, readers just have to buy that certain story elements will occur. Any story can have holes poked in it. Coincidence in storytelling fails when it affects the main storyline, when it affects the protagonist(s). Readers then see the strings, see the writer working the story into a certain position, instead of allowing the story to evolve naturally.

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Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #91: Sentimentality

29 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Heroes Never Rust

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Alan Moore, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Heroes Never Rust, sean ironman, This Side of Paradise, Watchmen

Heroes Never Rust #91 by Sean Ironman

Watchmen: Sentimentality

Watchmen presents a bleak world. Superheroes are no the superheroes many people are familiar with. The world, or at least a great deal of the world, seems to hate the vigilantes. But, there is one real moment of, not happiness, but positivity. At the end of the ninth issue, Silk Spectre convinces Doctor Manhattan to return to Earth. He feels that humanity is no different than anything else in the universe—a collection of atoms. By the end, though, he sees that life is special:

In each human coupling, a thousand mission sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter…until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold…that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermodynamic miracle.

In my Forms of Illustrated Narrative course a few weeks ago, as we discussed the second half of Watchmen, one student remarked that the ending to the ninth issue is a bit sentimental. I don’t view it that way, but I can see the student’s point, especially because it seems that when a work presents a bleak view, emotion is okay, but when there is some happiness or positivity involved, the work becomes sentimental. Sentimentality is looked down upon in literary writing. Many writers, especially those at the beginning of their careers, are so afraid of their work being labeled sentimental that the emotion is stripped from the story. The stories become bland and do not affect the reader. The stories die on the page. But, what is sentimentality, and how can a writer produce a work that feels alive that has emotion in it without the work being labeled sentimental?

First, sentimentality does not just relate to positive emotions. Sentimentality, at least in its current use, appeals to shallow, unsophisticated emotions with no regard for reason or logic. In This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “I’m not sentimental—I’m as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last—the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won’t.” Sentimentality takes the reality out of the story and presents a simplistic view in an effort to get the reader to feel what the writer wants the reader to feel.

That’s a problem for a number of reasons. Instead of focusing on the characters and the story, the writer is trying to manipulate the reader into feeling a certain way. No one likes to be sold something. Present the story and let the reader feel what they will feel. Another problem is with the simplistic view. James Baldwin once remarked, “Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty…the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mark of cruelty.” In sentimental work, emotion is contrived, dishonest. We, literary writers, are out to explore humanity. Honestly. We search for the Truth, for meaning. But, sentimental work is about controlling the reader, not exploring the story and the subject matter. Life is complicated. Situations are complicated. Emotions are complicated. That complication needs to be shown in the work.

In a work, like Watchmen, a writer must balance emotions. Watchmen is dark, not overly so, but it is about a world on the brink of nuclear war and deals with many superheroes who do nothing about the situation. Until recently, sentiment used to be the standard word for feelings. Now, it has been twisted to mean describe empty, meaningless emotion. That’s the issue with sentiment, really. It affects adult readers in the opposite way, making the reader not feel. Sentimental work is broad and deals with unearned emotion. Emotions are sloppy. Highly emotional situations are not overly sad, or overly happy, but a combination of emotions that leave a person not knowing how to feel. It’s not so much emotion that should be avoided, but expected emotion. In Watchmen, the end of issue nine works because it is one ray of positivity in the twelve-issue comic. The positivity interacts and counterbalances with the negativity, creating a story that the reader has to think about. The work becomes intellectual, not just emotional.

There are such things as simple emotions and complex emotions. This is supported by psychologists, by the way, not just my own rambling. Simple emotions are fear, happiness, anger, sadness, etc. Complex emotions, such as shame, pride, guilt, require us to know about the character’s situation and values. Simple emotions are basically like an animal reflex, according to Keith Oatley, a professor emeritus of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto. In order to understand complex emotions, one must think, analyze, and interpret events—events that are complicated because there are multiple contradictory emotional triggers. Sentimental works try to get the reader swept up in emotion, controlling the heart instead of the head, but this doesn’t work well with adult readers. I do not mean to look down on YA works or younger readers, but biologically speaking, younger people have more difficulty regulating emotions, causing them to be more impulse and driven by emotions rather than logic and reason. Emotional reactivity grabs younger readers easier than adult readers, which is why there are many YA books that are sentimental, and that work even though they are sentimental. It’s all about audience.

But, adult readers need messier, more complex situations. Adult readers need to be challenged emotionally. At the end of the day, avoiding sentimentality in one’s writing is the same solution as just writing in an age that so much narrative is competing for readers—give the reader something new.

Make your writing as emotional as you want. But, make your writing complex. Don’t give the reader something that he or she already knows. Aim for an emotional ambiguity. It allows you as a literary fiction (or nonfiction) writer to explore the subject matter fully and create complex characters, and it avoids the sentimental.

I have told this my undergraduate nonfiction workshop many times—If you write an essay about a dead grandparent, don’t write about how sad you are that the grandparent is dead. That would be writing into readers’ expectations. Give readers something new. Write about how happy you are that the old hag is dead. Or don’t write about death at all. Remember, sentiment is socialized. Sentiment is expected, simplistic emotion. Sentiment is pre-conceived. Sentiment is controlling your reader and treating them like an animal, only allowing the reader instinctive, reflexive emotional responses. Allow the reader to think. Send your readers into the deep end and see if they can figure their way out. Emotion and sentiment are separate from one another. Emotion can be present in your work (positive or negative), but just make it complex enough that you are not telling the reader how to feel.

Ambiguity is a good thing.

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Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #90: Skip the Door

22 Wednesday Apr 2015

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Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Heroes Never Rust, sean ironman, Watchmen

Heroes Never Rust #90 by Sean Ironman

Watchmen: When Not to Show

Watchmen, for the most part, is devoid of action. There are blips on the radar, but the comic is very much a bunch of talking heads.

But the eighth issue is the most action packed. We get Rorschach taking on Big Figure and his henchmen, Night Owl and Silk Spectre breaking Rorschach from prison, and the murder of Hollis Mason, the original Night Owl. The issue is bloody and violent, but upon re-reading it, I was in awe of how little Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons show the violence. Many beginner writers go overboard with action scenes, and they could do worse than studying the eighth issue in finding a way to be violent without showing too much. This goes for every aspect of a story, really. When does a writer cut away? What does a writer show to the reader?

In the first action scene of the issue, Big Figure, a crime boss from the 1960s that Night Owl and Rorschach put in jail, uses the prison riot distracting guards to his benefit and goes to Rorchach’s cell with two henchmen. Rorschach pisses off one of the henchmen, who tries to grab Rorschach through the bars. Rorschach ties his hands so that Big Figure can’t open the cell. Wanting revenge, Big Figure has the second henchman cut the first henchman’s throat so they can get to the lock. In one panel, we see the second henchman with a shiv to the first henchman’s throat. But, we don’t see the throat cut. We get a shot of Rorschach with a stone cold look on his face as blood splashes onto his stomach.

Why change perspective there? Does it have something to do with the reader not being able to handle the grisly scene? Some might say so, but I wouldn’t. If someone didn’t want to read a comic with violence like this, they would not have advanced to the eighth issue. And if they miraculously did and still did not want to see violence, they still get a scene where a person’s throat is cut. They might not see the knife cut through skin, but they know what’s going on. The slitting of the throat is not shown because it does not matter. It’s unimportant. Skip the door and all that.

The henchman is barely a character. Readers are shown Rorschach’s response. He’s one of the main characters of the comic. And his response is that he has none. He doesn’t even acknowledge the man dying. The moment is used to support Rorschach’s characterization, not to give the audience a violent encounter. That’s the difference between violence being used gratuitously and violence serving the story.

Later, violence is used in a similar fashion when Night Owl and Silk Spectre proceed to rescue Rorschach from prison. At first, Rorschach refuses to leave until he settles the score with Big Figure, who has run into a bathroom. Big Figure’s death is not shown. Instead, readers stay with Night Owl and Silk Spectre as they wait in the hall. Again, Big Figure is not important. It might be “cool” to get a death scene, but the story does not require it. The story needs to keep the main characters front and center. So, while the reader can understand what is going on in the bathroom, the reader would not understand what Silk Spectre and Night Owl discuss while waiting. It’s more important for the reader to stay with those two and their conversation than to follow Rorschach. There is nothing surprising about what happens to Big Figure. Skip the door.

Now, the final action scene of the issue—the death of Hollis Mason, the original Night Owl, is a bit different. No main character is present. One could argue that the scene does not affect the main plot of Watchmen, and one would be right in that assumption. Yet, it still is an important scene. It deals with the aftereffects of the main plot. It gives the story weight.

In Watchmen, much of the public dislikes superheroes. A gang blames Doctor Manhattan and the other vigilantes for the troubles of the world, for the world being on the verge of nuclear Armageddon. Hollis Mason released a book years earlier revealing he was Night Owl. The gang, not understanding there is a new Night Owl, go to kill Hollis because they think they are stopping a superhero. They break into his house and beat him to death.

Instead of seeing him die, the scene is cut up. Readers are given one panel of the fight, and then one of Hollis in the past as Night Owl fighting criminals. Due to the break in the scene, the sequence becomes about more than just the death of Hollis Mason. It becomes about consequences.

About the aftermath. Doctor Manhattan, Rorschach, Night Owl, and Silk Spectre can’t save everyone. Their existence, in itself, is capable of bringing pain to others. And what happens years later to these superheroes, when they’re old and forgotten?

Watchmen, at its very heart, is a study about superheroes in the real world. The consequences of their existence. The effect they have on the world. That’s what makes Watchmen so interesting. But, superheroes can’t just affect the world in a good way. That’s not interesting. That’s not real. Bad things will happen, like they do with Hollis Mason. No one can save the entire world.

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Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #89: Dream Sequences

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust

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Alan Moore, comic books, Creative Writing, Watchmen

Heroes Never Rust #89 by Sean Ironman

Watchmen: Dream Sequences

When I took Introduction to Creative Writing as an undergraduate student, I was given a list of things that I could not use in my writing. I was told that my stories would be stronger if I did not include certain things, at least as a beginning writer. I have forgotten most of the list, but a few of the items were: flashbacks, drug-addicted protagonists, and dream sequences. After reading the list, I was pissed off, as many undergraduate students seem to be when given constraints for their writing. But, as I get older and more experienced as both a writer and a teacher, I believe my instructor was right in restricting the content of our work. Yes, those items I listed are used in many stories, but as a student it was important to limit the playing field so that I could learn certain craft elements before moving on to more complicated elements. I still have a habit of trying to avoid elements such as dream sequences in my own work, but when used well, they can strengthen a story in unique ways.

Issue seven of Watchmen is focused on Dan Drieberg (Night Owl II) and Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II). Up until this issue, the two have mainly reacted to the story’s events, staying on the sidelines. But, now, they are reinvigorated and put on their costumes that have gathered dust over the years since their retirement and they go out into the night and rescue tenants from a burning building. And, in the end, Dan decides that they need to break Rorschach out of prison. Watchmen has entered its second half and it is time for the characters’ stories to come together.

The difficulty in this issue lies in getting Dan and Laurie to put their costumes back on. They have been retired for years. In a comic, at least in this one, there is no interiority, no thought bubbles. And while that may be different in prose, point of view could prove limiting at times, and it may be more interesting to show something than to tell. Here, Dan falls asleep and the reader is given a one-page dream sequence (although there are two panels of the dream sequence on the next page). In the dream, he runs to a woman dressed in a black vigilante costume. She removes his skin from head to toe to reveal that he is Night Owl, and he in turn removes her skin, revealing Laurie. They go to kiss, but a nuclear explosion behind them obliterates the two lovers. The dream itself is very obvious in its metaphor. Deep down, Dan is a superhero. So is Laurie. He was not Dan Drieberg pretending to be Night Owl. He was Night Owl pretending to be Dan Drieberg. And now that he has found happiness with Laurie, it is too late. The world will be destroyed. Finding happiness does not really mean anything. He has to protect the world or else his happiness will be destroyed. Because of this dream, he decides to suit up, and along with Laurie in her Silk Spectre costume, they head out into the night to protect the city.

The dream sequence works on a technical level because the sequence changes style from the rest of the comic. Most of the comic is told in a nine-panel grid (3×3). But, the dream sequence is told is many more panels, which are thinner. There are two rows of six panels, and the final row has four dream panels and one panel (the size of two dream panels) of Dan waking up from the dream. The reader should not be tricked. The reader should not turn the page and think what they are seeing is really happening in the story. By changing the structure and the style of the panels, the comic signals the reader that there is a change. The pacing picks up. It takes a shorter amount of time for the reader to absorb smaller panels than larger ones. Then, in that final panel of the page of Dan waking, the reader stops, hit with the same intensity that Dan is. There is no other page in the issue that is set up like this dream sequence. And it works because of just that. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons makes the dream crucial to the story, stylistically different so that readers know it’s a dream, and a combination of easy to understand and weird to take advantage of a dream state without losing the reader.

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Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #88: Turning Exposition into Plot

08 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust

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Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Dr. Malcolm Long, Exposition, Heroes Never Rust, Plot, Rorschach, Watchmen

Heroes Never Rust #88 by Sean Ironman

Watchmen: Turning Exposition into Plot

At the end of the fifth issue, Rorschach was caught by the police and unmasked. The sixth issue of Watchmen deals with the fallout and gives Rorschach center stage. While the other characters kind of sit around, Rorschach is the active one. He is the only one concerned with who killed The Comedian. So far, he has been the hero of the comic. At the same time, Rorschach is screwed up. He’s barely sane. No one seems to want much to do with him, including his ex-partner, and he slinks through the shadows in his mask and trench coat. But, readers have yet to find out why. Why is Rorschach the way he is? Readers, at times, do need to understand why the characters readers are following act the way they act. Character motivation is important for readers to know. But, the issue with backstory is that exposition is boring for readers. Get back to the murder mystery. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons have their cake and eat it too. They get to keep the story moving forward and reveal Rorschach’s backstory by introducing another character.

Say hello to Dr. Malcolm Long, Rorschach’s prison psychiatrist.

When Doctor Manhattan was given a focus in issue four, he was the main character of that issue. But, in issue 6, Rorschach’s issue, Dr. Malcolm Long is the main character. Rorschach is relegated to a supporting role. Think of it like a novel that is told from multiple characters’ point of views. When one character takes over, the others become supporting characters for the chapter. The issue is refocused so that the story is no longer Rorschach dealing with being in prison but now it is Dr. Long’s attempt to understand and help Rorschach. This allows backstory to be given directly to the reader and still keep the story going because as we learn more about Rorschach, Dr. Long is getting closer (or so he believes) to his goal. The issue basically acts as a mini-story in the larger Watchmen comic.

Scenes in which Dr. Long does not appear in are from notes he is given after the fact. For example, a scene depicting Rorschach in line for food beat another inmate after said inmate attempts to stab him. The reader is shown the scene as if the reader was following Rorschach, but the scene is introduced with a narration caption from Dr. Long’s point of view. “The Deputy Warden just called. Apparently Kovacs was involved in an incident today, just after he’d seen me. It happened during lunch, in the canteen…” The comics medium allows for the scene to be presented in a visual manner and not stay in Dr. Long’s language. There is more leeway here than in prose, but the concept remains the same. By introducing the scene from Dr. Long’s point of view, the story stays focused on showing Dr. Long’s analysis of Rorschach, rather than just giving readers Rorschach in prison. There is a story to follow.

If Dr. Long’s story only featured Rorschach, the issue would fail. If it is indeed supposed to be Dr. Long’s story, then readers need to be given his whole story. He needs to become a real person and be just as well rounded as the other characters in Watchmen. Throughout the issue, readers are presented with scenes from Dr. Long’s personal life. It begins innocently with Dr. Long working late hours at home and his wife makes him take a break. A few pages later, the scene is repeated. Only this time, Dr. Long refuses to take a break and his wife goes to bed angry. The story readers are following quickly becomes not one of Dr. Long helping Rorschach but one of Dr. Long being corrupted by Rorschach. He begins to see only the horrors of the world, like Rorschach, and stop believing in the goodness of people. At the end of the issue, nothing has changed with Rorschach—his own plot has not been moved forward. But, Dr. Long is broken. The final sequence features Dr. Long staring closely at a Rorschach test in the dark and the comic ends with an all black panel. “We are alone. There is nothing else.” The issue is not taken totally away from Rorschach, however. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons understand still that this issue is one piece of a larger story. By having Rorschach be the reason this seemingly fine doctor breaks down makes Rorschach’s own journey more interesting and relatable. Readers are put in Dr. Long’s place. We are also trying to understand Rorschach. And at the end, just like Dr. Long, we too could not handle the horrors Rorschach faces.

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Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #87: Subconscious vs. Conscious in Watchmen

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust

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Heroes Never Rust #87 by Sean Ironman

Subconscious vs. Conscious in Watchmen

A few weeks ago, my Forms of Illustrated Narrative class discussed Watchmen, and when I asked my students what they thought of the symmetrical structure in issue five, they look looked confused and began flipping through the book. Rorschach is the focal character of issue five. The comic itself features a symmetrical panel layout. The first page matches the layout and coloring of page twenty-eight. The second page matches with page twenty-seven. And so on. At mid-point, the story moves away from Rorschach and features a scene that is an assassination attempt on Ozymandias’ life. At the exact middle, Ozymandias strikes his would be assassin, with Ozymandias featured on the left page and the assassin on the right, with those two pages acting as the mirror for the comic. The issue is all about duel identities, so it’s a fitting choice, the symmetrical layout. Rorschach is finally unmasked. Ozymandias acts as the mirror for the layout because he is the comic’s true villain, not yet revealed. Once I pointed all of this out to my class, the students seemed to understand and were somewhat amazed at the craftsmanship on display. Yet, the students did not notice when they first read the issue (for some students, this was not their first time reading Watchmen). What’s the purpose of a craft decision that the reader will not notice, or at least many readers will not notice? This is a lot of work to do for the writer and artist. Should readers understand the ways craft elements are used while reading?

This is not just an issue for comics, either. The other day, a short story writer spoke to me about how her workshop failed to notice that the ending to one of her short stories mirrored the opening. She thought it obvious, but the approach seemed to go over everyone’s head, even the professor’s. It comes to me now that there may not be an answer to my questions. Whether a story or an essay or a comic is successful or not depends on the goals of the writer. If one’s goal is to show off a certain technique or structure—for example, if the goal of issue five of Watchmen was to show off the symmetrical structure—then the creator(s) may feel that the work failed because readers did not understand. But, if the goal is to the story and to the characters, then the reader not consciously understanding a certain technique may not be a problem. My goals as a writer have little to do with showing off or feeling intelligent, so for me, story and characters come first. A reader not realizing some intricate subtlety is of little concern for me.

How many times does it take to read a piece of writing for you to understand it? When I read poetry, I read a poem three times, each time slower than the last. A poetry professor during my MFA taught me that approach. Reading a poem three times allows me to understand it. I feel the same with other works. My first time seeing a film is not the best time. Once I understand what will happen, I can study each scene. With essays and short stories, I prefer the second or third reading. When I teach a work, I mostly prepare by reading the work again and again. I may read an essay four or five times before teaching it (and that is not counting the times I read it before I put it on the syllabus). The first time through, I understand the plot (hopefully), but not until a few times through am I able to really see the craftsmanship on display. Now, I confess, I may just not be as smart as other readers, and I am sure there are stronger readers than I myself, but I have three college degrees and will begin work on my PhD this fall, so I am not an idiot and I feel on the scale of reading and analysis strength I am on the stronger end. There is only so much a person can keep track of at one time. Having to read a work multiple times to understand craft is not a terrible thing.

To me, most work a writer does a reader feels subconsciously. This may be why it is so difficult for students to analyze work. My students may not have consciously noticed the symmetrical structure of the fifth issue of Watchmen, but they felt it. They felt secure in the storytelling. They understood the themes and plot and character arcs of the issue. Understanding how the writer and artist did their job will take multiple reads and intense study. That is why writing professors have jobs. To show students to slow down and really study a piece of writing.

In a creative nonfiction workshop last semester, I told students to study the beginning and the ending of essays and they will notice that the ending of a personal essay typically refers to the opening either by reusing certain language, imagery, or plot details. Once students began paying attention, they could pick it out quickly. They were then able to use the same approach in their own essays. Writing, to me, is not much different than crafting anything else. You can build me a house and I will not be able to walk through it once and understand how everything was constructed. I will only see a house, at first. But, if I carefully study each room, each window, each door, each separate element of construction, I will be able to understand the craftsmanship on display. The same goes for music, movies, paintings, etc. Artists work in the subconscious. That is why it is difficult to make art. A reader does not need to understand everything you have done as a writer. A reader only needs to understand the literal events of a piece of writing and get something out of the time he or she spent reading it. Accept that most of what you do as a writer will only be noticed by other writers, and feel content in knowing that if other writers stop to study intently your work, then you have crafted something worth understanding fully.

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Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #86: Watchmen: Non-Chronological Storytelling

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust

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Alan Moore, Flashbacks, Heroes Never Rust, sean ironman, storytelling, time, Watchmen

Heroes Never Rust #86 by Sean Ironman

Watchmen: Non-Chronological Storytelling

The fourth issue of Watchmen is a centerpiece for delving into Doctor Manhattan’s character. At the end of the third issue, he teleports to Mars. There, he builds a massive clock tower and, basically, reflects on his life. Reflect might not be the right word. Doctor Manhattan is the one vigilante with superpowers. He sees time differently than we do, with events taking place simultaneously. He is, at once, in the past, present, and future. The issue with all of this, of course, is that the reader is not Doctor Manhattan. At the end of the day, no matter how experimental a comic is or prose is, a person reads one sentence at a time, views one panel at a time, in sequence. These smaller pieces add up. Letters to words to phrases to sentences to paragraphs to pages. Even in comics, a visual medium, the reader views events in a sequence. An issue that many stories may have (comics or prose) is showing non-chronological storytelling. When your story features a character who literally views the world non-chronologically, the problem may be exacerbated. The reader needs to understand the story, regardless of whether he or she likes the story or not. Understanding the events presented is important.

Doctor Manhattan goes through his entire history from being a boy wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps as a watchmaker to attending Princeton to meeting Janey Slater to falling in love to his accident and supposed death and eventually his rebirth as a superpowered being to becoming a vigilante and meeting Laurie, the second Silk Spectre. There are other events that I’m leaving out, too. All of this is taking place as Doctor Manhattan reflects on his life from the story’s present day on Mars. To keep track of all of these different time periods (over a few decades), the story is given a framing device of Doctor Manhattan searching/walking on Mars. The frame is returned to time and time again, actually similar to a car revving. Each time, the story leaves the frame, the story gets a little bit more confident going further into the time periods and returning to the frame less and less and jumping from time period to time period without being taken back to the present day. Readers are still firmly placed—they aren’t thrown around time, so they can keep track of events.

In visual design, like on the comic book page, a viewer/reader needs a line of sight. A viewer/reader needs to understand how to read a page—basically a line to move a viewer/reader down and across the page. A story needs a similar line. Readers need through-line to move them from scene to scene. The frame story of Doctor Manhattan on Mars is that line. It gives the reader a base to feel safe and secure. I have written about this before, but it is important for a reader to feel like the writer is in control, that the writer is not just throwing whatever is on the top of his or her head at the reader.

Comics have a bit more leeway on changing the scenery and time period suddenly because readers are capable of processing images faster than text. Just changing the colors and images between panels is enough to communicate to a reader that there has been a change in time and setting. So, comics can change scene faster and still have the reader keep track of what is going on. But, Watchmen also uses text. If there’s one thing I learned about transitions in prose (and I think this goes for nonfiction as well) is that beginning writers tend to overthink them. Elbows and knees are ugly. How many people can say that the most beautiful part of their partner is the elbow? There are exceptions, I’m sure, but the elbow serves a utilitarian purpose. It’s not meant to be beautiful. The same with transitions. Transitions are utilitarian. They serve a purpose to move the reader from one place in the story to another place in the story. Many beginner writers try to turn transitions into art. In Watchmen, readers are moved from one time period to another period in a simple manner—“It is 1985. I am on Mars. I am fifty-six years old.” You cannot really get simpler than that. Readers get the year, the place, and the age of Doctor Manhattan, the narrator. The text firmly places us into the time period. The transition is also written in a style befitting Doctor Manhattan—there is no emotion. Alan Moore uses the text as not only a transition, but also as a means for characterization. But, the transitions are not overdone. They fit the voice of the character, and they move readers from place to place. And that is it. The transitions do not do the heavy lifting. They get the job done, and the story moves on.

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Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #85: Watchmen & Sex

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Erotic Literature, Heroes Never Rust

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Alan Moore, Heroes Never Rust, sean ironman, Watchmen

Heroes Never Rust #85 by Sean Ironman

Watchmen: Sex

A great deal occurs in the third issue of Watchmen. Laurie and Dan get their taste for superheroics reinvigorated when they are jumped in an alley. Doctor Manhattan is confronted on television for allegedly giving cancer to people around him due to his super powers. He leaves Earth for Mars. Rorschach continues with his theory that someone is trying to plot against the superheroes. But, the scene that sticks out to me as the most interesting is Doctor Manhattan’s sex scene with Laurie toward the beginning.

The scene opens with Doctor Manhattan’s blue hands touching Laurie’s face. Then, a third hand appears. Freaked out, Laurie screams and the sex stops. Two Doctor Manhattans are in bed with her. When she goes to another room in their house, she spots a third Doctor Manhattan in some sort of a lab—his office, I presume. Laurie, upset that her boyfriend thinks so little of loving her that he duplicates himself so that he can continue his work, storms out. It’s a short scene, only two pages, but it’s a vital one that helps develop both characters and moves the plot along, giving Doctor Manhattan no reason to remain on Earth after Laurie leaves him.

Sex can be difficult for some readers to get through in a story. It’s not for me (as a writer or a reader) so sometimes I’m confused by certain readers’ responses to stories featuring sex. I can understand when readers feel sex scenes are gratuitous, and I feel the same in certain works, True Blood, for example. But, gratuitous can go for any type of scene. A conversation can be gratuitous. A gratuitous scene goes overboard long after the scene accomplishes what it was meant to accomplish for the story. If a conversation goes on too long, then it is gratuitous. The same with an action scene. Any scene. Of course, there are gratuitous sex scenes. But, just because sex is present doesn’t meant the scene is gratuitous.

First, there is little nudity in the sex scene in issue three. Laurie pulls the covers up. The reader knows she is naked, but showing her breasts would be gratuitous here. Readers are shown Doctor Manhattan’s ass, but he spends the majority of Watchmen nude, so that doesn’t really count. The scene is shown knowing full well that most people view sex as an intimate act. It’s personal. And because most readers would agree with that idea, the scene works well. Doctor Manhattan has become so distant from his humanity that he cannot even be present when making love to his girlfriend. If readers did not view sex as a personal and private act, they might very well agree with Doctor Manhattan as Laurie complains and storms out. Instead, readers are able to understand that Doctor Manhattan has become less interested in human acts. He would rather stick to his experiments. During the argument, Laurie throws a beaker filled with some sort of liquid at Doctor Manhattan. It smashes on the counter, spilling its contents. As one Doctor Manhattan tells Laurie he is prepared to discuss why she is angry, another duplicate fixes the mess and recreates the beaker and liquid. Even as he is fighting with girlfriend, his mind is really on his experiment.

Second, the sex portion of this scene is only in three panels (four if you count the larger panel of Laurie pulling away from the two Doctor Manhattans). Twelve panels show the argument and Laurie storming out. The sex is not the important aspect of the scene. (When are the physical actions of a scene the most important aspect? Most of the time it’s the mental or emotional responses of the characters.) The sex is presented to get to Laurie storming out. She can only stand so much of Doctor Manhattan not caring. In an act as intimate as sex, she needs him to care. To want to be there with her in the moment. The sex that is shown is only a close-up of Doctor Manhattan’s hands on Laurie’s face. It’s enough to have the reader understand what is going on, but that’s where the sex ends. Once a reader understands the choreography of a scene, the scene can focus on character development, show reflection, or show internal thoughts. Beyond that, a scene can become gratuitous.

Watchmen is a book for adults. In my opinion, if one is writing for an adult audience, nothing is off limits. Adults can handle it. If they can’t, then they need to take a look at their life. Hiding away from what’s in the world is not in the interest of art. At some point in the creative process, a writer must consider their audience. I don’t mean pandering to their audience. But, a writer should ask himself or herself who they are writing toward. I read Watchmen the first time when I was eighteen. Perhaps I could have read it a couple of years younger, but to truly appreciate it, readers must be mature. If I read Watchmen back when I was only reading X-Men comics and discussing them with neighborhood friends in my parents’ driveway, I would have hated it. Including sex in adult stories is not a necessity, but it does allow a writer to connect to readers and to get readers to think about an idea in a different way. I spent my childhood reading superhero comics, and when I read Watchmen, I finally understood what it would mean to have superpowers. Watchmen places superheroes in the real world—the comic makes them relatable. We have sex, and so do the superheroes.

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Photo by John King