comic / cartoon: watchmen motion comics

Wow. Really. 

I have a geek-fession to make: I never read the comic. People kept telling me I should, and it was on my reading list, but I just hadn't gotten to it. So when they started making these motion comics and H started making me watch them, I didn't try too hard to avoid them. And I'm glad. This is amazing. Dark, weird, frequently disturbing, shot through with bits of amazing clarity and wonder, detailed with these beautiful bits of stark humanity, both for the good and the bad... Just mind blowing. 

I admit it: I should have read it when all of you told me to.

I think my favorite are the Doctor Manhattan bits-- he makes no sense in a human scale and humans don't really make any sense to him, and I'm just in love with his atemporality: everythign is now. The whole story is now. His chapter where he tells his own story is just amazing to me, and the one, later, where he and Laurie are on Mars is almost as amazing-- he knows what's going on in all timeframes, but he still has to react to them in the way he also knows he will. 

But there's also Rorschack, who's seriously messed up-- but at least half of that messed-up-itude is a lifting of the veil: he sees what things are really like, and he doesn't feel a need to play along with society's lies to get things done. That's almost admirable. And he doesn't compromise through the whole thing, even when he admits that he isn't easy to get along with, even when he should, for the betterment of mankind. He likes his friends as much as he can in his limited way, and he lives for his job, and that's all he needs.

I'm kinda meh about Ozymandias, but at least he had a purpose-- somewhere in the middle, it looked like he wouldn't. 

Nite Owl and Silk Specter... also sort of meh, but mostly because of all the victimyness; once they step up and start doing something about the world, it's easier to like them and to root for them.

It's a pessimistic view of the world, but even as that, things turn out the best they can, and everyone stays true to who they are. 

I like that.