Our Patron-exclusive essay series continues. You can read all of these incredible analyses for as little as a dollar a month on our Patreon.
This month, our esteemed Manga Editor Masha Zhdanova reads Watchmen for the first time and has some thoughts on the beloved book.
I’ve been reading comics for most of my life. When I was 8 one of my career aspirations was to draw the comics in Nickelodeon magazine. In middle school, while attending an educational summer camp to study mystery suspense, and horror in literature and film, I saw some graphic novels in the program’s bookstore that were required reading for the graphic novel class of the program. I asked if I could buy a copy of Understanding Comics even though I wasn’t taking that class, and was permitted to do so. They were also selling a graphic novel with a yellow and black cover I didn’t recognize, and I thought, “that’s probably not my kind of thing” and did not buy it.
Eleven years, two comics-related degrees, and an editorial position at this humble Eisner-winning establishment later, I still have not read Watchmen.
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