The first such offering was Whatmen?! from IDW Publishing, written by Scott Lobdell, with artwork by Alejandro Figueroa. This one-shot is essentially a Mad-like treatment of the material, in which the basic plot of the original is retained (albeit significantly condensed) with silly variations (Dr Manhattan becomes Dr NYC, Nite Owl is called Hooty Owl, Rorschach is known as Nutsack, and The Comedian goes by the name of The Stand-Up, for example). There's the obligatory fart joke (Nutsuck relies on his own gases instead of an aerosol can to fan a flame while trying to escape the police) and numerous "objects substituted for Dr NYC's big blue penis" shots reminiscent of the opening of one of the Austin Power films (a very few of which were actually clever... in both cases!), just as you'd expect from a send-up that would appear in Mad Magazine. You also get a lot of self-referential moments, such as Dr NYC showing up unexpectedly to speed things along while winking at the audience and saying, "No time for subplots!"It's the sort of thing that only works if you know the source material really well (like I, and thousands of other comic fans do) and even then... well, at least I smiled at a few of the better jokes. I didn't mind the comic, and I don't begrudge the 15 or 20 minutes that I spent reading it, but I'm no more likely to ever go back and re-read it than I am to hunt down those lost issues of Mad from my childhood.
A much less predictable and more enjoyable read was Rich Johnston and Simon Rohrmuller's Watchmensch one-shot from Brain Scan Studios. I've enjoyed Johnston's "Lying in the Gutters" weekly column for years, and he brings much of that same biting humour to this work. Rather that simply re-treading the Watchmen story as Whatmen?! had done, Johnston chose instead to make the whole thing a metatextual treatment, much as Alan Moore had done in the first place (where Moore used the conventions of the comic genre as his palette). As such, it's a much denser read, requiring a lot more thinking than you'd ever expect to engage in with a straight-up satire.
Specifically, the plot of Watchmensch uses the expected band of characters (again, with parody names such as Krusty the Clown in place of the Comedian and Mr Broadway in the Dr Manhattan role) to provide humourous commentary on the well-publicized falling out between Alan Moore and DC Comics, as well as the less-than-commendable treatment of comic creators in general by the publishing business. As such, there's a lot going on within its black-and-white pages, as most of the events and dialogue resonate on a few different levels, including: the pre-requisite parody of Watchmen the comic series; jabs at the very notion of turning Watchmen into a 2.5-hour film; the history of Moore vs DC; and creators vs publishers going back to Siegel & Shuster signing away the rights to Superman. There's enough going on here that I actually could imagine that I might pick this comic up again in the future and want to give it another read, as I could imagine that I missed a few things along the way.
And one of the funniest lines that I've read in years shows up early on, set against the backdrop of the famous opening scene in which a cop is staring down at the street from a high-rise apartment: "Now the whole industry stands on the brink, staring down into legal limbo, all those spokesmen and public faces and Twitters... and all of a sudden no one can use the word 'Superboy'." I'll be damned if I didn't laugh out loud when I read that one!
I think the main difference between these two parodies is essentially the same distinction that so many of us see between Watchmen, the comic series and Watchmen, the film: one is subtle, layered, clever and ironic... and the other was produced by people who just doesn't operate on any of those levels.
1 comment:
I only just finished the original!!
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