PAGE 13
Panel 1: With the return to the newsstand, we get
Moore’s juxtaposition of the two narratives – the main one alongside the pirate
comic. In this panel we have the
newsvendor commenting that the movies shown at the Utopia (an ironic title for
such an establishment) are “raves outta the grave…” Meanwhile, the narration in the comic has the
protagonist, still on his raft, considering his “ravings” as a desperate plea
for company, as if he were “convers[ing] with [his] perished shipmates,” who
would obviously be in graves if they were not keeping his raft afloat.
Panel 2: The customer’s comment – note that he’s a
member of the Knot-Top gang – is in reference to the film currently showing at
the Utopia, The Day the Earth Stood Still, which is a classic science
fiction film about an alien that comes to Earth and tells its citizens they
must live in peace or be destroyed – which parallels Adrian Veidt’s
self-proclaimed mission, and is an apt summation of the book’s overall theme.
The
film has an obvious connection to the contemporary fears in the world of Watchmen,
as the “space guy” in the film warned of nuclear war, even as newscasters are
predicting a ten-day window within which nuclear war could be launched in this
reality, which is what the second Knot-Top is raving about. Her reference to “katies” is a reference to a
popular designer drug in this reality.
She wants to “get crazy” and not have to think about the doom that is
approaching.
And
that comment, “I wanna get crazy,” is a commentary on the pirate comic
dialogue, wherein the protagonist hears the voices of his dead companions
seeping up from the water, something that only a “crazy” person would
experience.
Also
of note: the Pale Horse jacket, for fans of that band, is a common apocalyptic
symbol seen throughout the book.
Panel 3: Joey
is the cab driver we’ve seen before. She was the one who picked up Laurie when
she left the Rockefeller Military Research Center in Chapter III, and she is
also the one who asked the newsvendor to put up the Pink Triangle poster in Chapter V.
Now,
with regard to the juxtaposition of the two sets of dialogue, the tables are
turned as the pirate comic’s text: “The
conversation of the dead: dreary, bitter, endlessly sad…” is a commentary on
the “real-world” conversation being had.
With the impending nuclear war, which everyone believes is coming, these
people could all be seen as “the dead.”
And their conversation – Joey commenting that she has broken up with her
longtime girlfriend; the Knot-Top making an ugly slur against homosexuals (Joey
being one) with his “superfags” remark – is indeed dreary and bitter and sad.
If you
look in the background, just above Joey’s head, you will note that the delivery
truck for the New York Gazette, the
paper both the Knot-Top and Joey asked for, is approaching.
Panel 4: The juxtaposition of the two dialogues in
this panel can be seen as a piece of foreshadowing. The Knot-Top is going on about how Dr.
Manhattan is the cause of this nuclear fear, along with those who were involved
with the tenement rescue – which, despite the newscaster’s claims to the contrary,
is known to have been carried out by Nite Owl and Silk Spectre.
In the
pirate comic, the text states that “interminable bad news” came from the mouths
of the dead. As the Knot-Top follows his line of thinking that these
superheroes are responsible for all the bad stuff happening to them, coupled
with the knowledge that Nite Owl was involved in the tenement rescue, his
thinking will become bad news for Hollis Mason.
The
caption remarking on the “interminable bad news” is also a remark on the
arrival of the New York Gazette
delivery man, as the headline for the current edition will make things even
less stable for the general populace.
Panel 5: As the newsvendor will relate in the following
panel, the headline for the New York
Gazette reads:
Sing
Sing
Erupts:
Captured
Vigilante
Sparks
Riot:
Five Dead
The Knot-Tops
mistaken remark that the sudden re-emergence of these heroes is like the
“Spirit of ‘76” is a comment on the Nova Express
cover blurb, “The Spirit of ‘77” – 1977 being the last year heroes were able to
work unhindered, prior to passage of the Keene Act. It is humorous, but understandable, that he
would get this wrong, as the “Spirit of ‘76” is a famous painting by Archibald
MacNeal Willard, which was exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in
Philadelphia as a commemoration of United States independence in 1776.
Mistakenly
inserting ’76 for ’77 puts the heroes and their current actions into a
different light. Using the “Spirit of
‘76” phrase and all that it conjures up about America, one can then look upon
Dan and Laurie as trying to win back their independence from the strictures of
the Keene Act, even as they embark upon a mission to free Rorschach and provide
him his independence from prison. This
remark can also put the costumed adventurers into a more patriotic light – a
position, one could argue, many people might take with regard to these heroes.
And
again, the pirate comic text comments on the contemporary dialogue as the
“rotted fellows,” those contemporary characters in this panel who feel the end
of the world fast approaching, “talked together,” as exhibited by all the
dialogue balloons vying for space in the primary image of this panel.
Panel 6: The conversation the “rotted fellows” (from
the previous panel) were having was of “life, and its endings,” as related by
the pirate comic caption box in this panel.
This relates directly to the events swirling around everyone here,
exacerbated by the aforementioned headline about the prison riots in Sing Sing. The newsvendor sums up this reality –that the
end is nigh – as he says, “Well, I guess that’s it.” This is a variation on the warning he saw
daily, when Rorschach was a regular customer at his newsstand.
The
smoke being blown by the young Bernie reading the pirate comic, and the remark
by the older Bernie, the newsvendor, that, “…the balloon’s gone up,” leads
directly into
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