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'Watchmen' is not only the greatest comic ever written, it's a really important work of fiction.

When 'Watchmen' was published in 1986, the vast majority of comics readers deemed it a watershed in comics history. The 12-part serial comic book was widely acclaimed as a genius subversion of the superhero genre, and it did much to popularize comics to adults.

The problem for me is that 'Watchmen,' one of the great comics of all time, is a look at superheroes that has gone beyond the concept of or necessity for superheroes.

The difference between 'Watchmen' and a normal comic book is this: With 'Batman's Gotham City,' you are transported to another world where that superhero makes sense; 'Watchmen' comes at it in a different way, it almost superimposes its heroes on your world, which then changes how you view your world through its prism.

It seems like they make every comic book into a film. 'Watchmen' is my favorite of all time.

Indeed, the hype around 'Watchmen' is its curse. If you want to enjoy the comic for what it is, ignore the attributions of literariness and the novelistic pretensions with which some critics have imbued it. This isn't high culture, and it doesn't pretend to be. It's good, juicy pulp fiction with a little nuclear apocalypse thrown in.

One of the things I think is important about 'Watchmen' is that it have resonance within cinematic pop culture as well as superhero culture.

Within the macho-melodrama tropes of the superhero genre, it's fair to say 'Watchmen' stands out for its rich entertainment, its darkness, and its lurid pleasures. Its vividly drawn panels, moody colors and lush imagery make its popularity well-deserved, if disproportionate.

I had always been fascinated by comics, but it had taken me several weeks to make up my mind to buy 'Watchmen'; for someone on a publisher's assistant's salary, it was some quite unheard-of sum of money.

People unacquainted with graphic novels, including journalists, tend to think of 'Watchmen' as a book by Alan Moore that happens to have some illustrations. And that does a disservice to the entire form.