View from the Gutters Comic Book Club

View from the Gutters Comic Book Club


Episode 100 — Watchmen

January 07, 2015

Happy 100th Episode! Thank you to everyone who has listened to the show in the last 2 years. We hope you will continue to listen and enjoy our podcast for the next 100 episodes.


This week on View from the Gutters our topic work is Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. One of the seminal modern comics, Watchmen is an emotionally, politically, and metatextually dense work. On one level it is the story of a world on the precipice of nuclear armageddon, desperately looking for any way to avert disaster. On another, it is a meditation of the nature of superheroes, their morality, identity, and the effect they would have on society.


Set in 1985, and released in ’86 and ’87, the story begins with the assassination of The Comedian—a retired golden-age superhero. His death attracts the attention of Rorschach, an outlaw crime-fighter, whose investigation leads us to examine the various heroes of this universe, from the street-level to the god-like.


Please be sure to tune in later this week when we will release a bonus episode discussing the 2009 film adaptation of Watchmen. And on the next regular episode our topic work will be Flashpoint.


Our hosts for this episode are Andrew Chard, Tobiah Panshin, Joe Preti, Brant Gillihan-Eddy, and Cade Reynolds.