PAGE 20
Panel 1: where Mrs. Long has surprised her husband, in
order to meet him on her own terms.
The
newspaper headline – “WAR?” – above the newsvendor’s head foreshadows the hostility
that is about to erupt at this intersection over the final pages of this
chapter.
Panel 3: Mrs. Long’s remarks here – “…I can’t’ live
with someone who feels driven to help hopeless cases, then lets their misery
affect our lives…” – is not only a commentary on their marriage, but also a
commentary on the relationship between Joey and Aline, and specifically Aline’s
feelings about Joey, which we can see unraveling in the foreground of this
panel.
Joey’s
ripping up of the book Knots is her own futile attempt to cut her own
Gordian Knot – this relationship that she wants to have with Aline, but which
Aline is walking away from, and the internal conflict such an experience generates
within us.
Panel 5: Again, Mrs. Long’s remarks are a reflection
of this panel’s imagery. She tells her
husband that she won’t share him “with a world full of screw-ups and manic
depressives…” even as she shares this sidewalk with people who are emotionally injured
in a manner similar to those she describes.
Panel 6: Ironically, Dr. Long and his wife are having
the opposite discussion that Laurie and Dr. Manhattan had on Mars in Chapter IX.
Panel 8: This panel is yet another example of the way
in which Moore & Gibbons create an image that resonates with multiple
meanings. As Dr. Long is drawn into yet
another instance of others’ grief, the younger Bernie is drawn into the grief
of the Black Freighter protagonist as
he continues to read this pirate story, even while we, the readers of Watchmen,
are pulled into that same grief in the Black
Freighter comic, as the “camera” pulls in closer to the younger Bernie and
transitions to
Panel 9: and a close-up of the comic page that Bernie
is reading.
Dr.
Long’s comment that he “can’t run” from the ugliness in this world is mirrored
by the Black Freighter captions as
the ugliness of the actual Black Freighter comes closer and closer to the
comic’s protagonist – something he too is unable to run away from.
The
tall rectangles created by the prow of the ship and the panel border within the
Black Freighter comic, along with the
sea bird (most likely a gull) flying over the surface of the water, transition
directly to
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