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I started 2025 with a Watchmen page and a confession. 2026 will start in a similar way. I had given up on ever owning a Watchmen page some time ago figuring they had moved beyond what I'd pay for one. It was my first piece of 2025 and I thought, OK. That is done. I am happy with the page I got because it checked off many of the boxes I was looking for in a page.
My confession last year is that I don't really like the Watchmen as a comic. So, WTF!!! Buying a second page from a a book you don't like!!
My dislike is still true, I find it hard to read and a chore to get through. What I like and appreciate it the design, layouts and visual language used in the book. It is genius and no one can take that away from the collaboration of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
Another Watchmen page wasn't even on my radar. An Italian friend reached out to me after seeing this page at a small auction house in the UK and there was a chance it was going to fly under the radar. He was interested but didn't have think he would go the distance on it. We agreed to be co-owners on it. I couldn't rightfully just buy it myself as he introduced me to it. We won and then I ended up buying him out of his interest in it the art. In the end, what might have been a bargain turned into a fair price for a another page. It was interesting because this auction took place in the middle of nowhere (my apologies if you are from New Castle on Tyne). The city and auction house are so small that two of the options for delivery were to hire locals to take it on a train or with a car to London. I had it dropped off with my friend Nick and I picked it up while in England dropping my daughter off for school.
The page came framed and it looked quit aged and browned on the auction site. In person and out of frame it was quite brown and had been framed with out a thought to archival materials. The page is off to a conservationist now to hopefully deacidify, reverse any damage and protect the art for the future.
Now about that art. It is a variation on the 9 panel grid and at first quick glance it could be nine panels as there are linear elements to the middle tier single panel that divide it up. Architecture and repetition are very important in the visual vocabulary of the series and the first tier executes this well with the staircase and the progression down. None of those are stat images. The middle tier changes perspective and shows us the treasures of Ozymandias. We pan out in the final tier and are left with a single, simple image of snow and something small in the snow. It is difficult to appreciate in the final art, but that is a butterfly, now dead and covered in snow that is more obvious on a printed page. The butterfly imagery plays an important role in this issues.
Although small images, there is Rorschach and Nite Owl in costume along with Ozymandias who is explaining they rational for his grand plan. Cool moment in the story made more interesting by visuals that lead us along and through Ozymandias's crib and machinations.
My confession last year is that I don't really like the Watchmen as a comic. So, WTF!!! Buying a second page from a a book you don't like!!
My dislike is still true, I find it hard to read and a chore to get through. What I like and appreciate it the design, layouts and visual language used in the book. It is genius and no one can take that away from the collaboration of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
Another Watchmen page wasn't even on my radar. An Italian friend reached out to me after seeing this page at a small auction house in the UK and there was a chance it was going to fly under the radar. He was interested but didn't have think he would go the distance on it. We agreed to be co-owners on it. I couldn't rightfully just buy it myself as he introduced me to it. We won and then I ended up buying him out of his interest in it the art. In the end, what might have been a bargain turned into a fair price for a another page. It was interesting because this auction took place in the middle of nowhere (my apologies if you are from New Castle on Tyne). The city and auction house are so small that two of the options for delivery were to hire locals to take it on a train or with a car to London. I had it dropped off with my friend Nick and I picked it up while in England dropping my daughter off for school.
The page came framed and it looked quit aged and browned on the auction site. In person and out of frame it was quite brown and had been framed with out a thought to archival materials. The page is off to a conservationist now to hopefully deacidify, reverse any damage and protect the art for the future.
Now about that art. It is a variation on the 9 panel grid and at first quick glance it could be nine panels as there are linear elements to the middle tier single panel that divide it up. Architecture and repetition are very important in the visual vocabulary of the series and the first tier executes this well with the staircase and the progression down. None of those are stat images. The middle tier changes perspective and shows us the treasures of Ozymandias. We pan out in the final tier and are left with a single, simple image of snow and something small in the snow. It is difficult to appreciate in the final art, but that is a butterfly, now dead and covered in snow that is more obvious on a printed page. The butterfly imagery plays an important role in this issues.
Although small images, there is Rorschach and Nite Owl in costume along with Ozymandias who is explaining they rational for his grand plan. Cool moment in the story made more interesting by visuals that lead us along and through Ozymandias's crib and machinations.
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A propos de Dave Gibbons
Dave Gibbons est un scénariste et dessinateur de comics britannique. Il dessine de nombreuses couvertures et des récits pour quasiment tous les personnages de DC. En 1986, il collabore avec Alan Moore sur la série limitée Watchmen qui révolutionne les comics.
