Watchmen: Chapter VI - page 7

PAGE 7

Panel 1: The image of a young Walter Kovacs with an unidentified fruit smashed across his face is symbolic of the “face” he will adopt as Rorschach. 

The overlapping word balloons – signifying the overlapping remarks being made toward Kovacs – mirrors the cacophony he experienced in prison on the facing page.  However, in this scenario, the young Kovacs reacts differently than his older self.

Panels 7-8:  This page showcases the turning point in Kovacs’s life – the point when he first fought back – and the way Gibbons draws these panels perfectly exemplifies that fact, the eerie, “animalistic” look in the boy’s eyes in panel 7 mirrored with the eyes of Rorschach in the close-up of panel 8, as we transition back to the present.