Watchmen

One thing I draw huge inspiration from is Alan Moores award winning graphic novel creation Watchmen. Watchmen centres around a group of vigilante crime fighters in an alternate 1980's America, where war with Russia has escalated to boiling point and Richard Nixon remains president of the USA. In this alternate time stream masked heroes are a norm and have been outlawed and until one of the former masked heroes is murdered it brings them out of retirement to solve the crime. The novel looks a things such as drugs, politics and sex, it reads like an actual novel and not a graphic comic. 

The idea and art direction behind the book is raw and interesting, it creates a whole alternate universe. Moore used the story as a mean to reflect contemporary anxieties and to deconstruct and parody the whole superhero concept. Watchment depicts an alternate history where superheroes emerged in the 1940's and 1960's, helping the united states win the Vietnam War. In 1985, the country is edging toward nuclear war with the soviet union, freelance costumed vigilantes have been outlawed and most former superheroes are retired. The story focuses on the personal and moral struggles of the protagonist as an investigation into the murder of a government sponsored super hero takes them out of retirement.

Creatively the focus of Watchmen is on its structure. Gibbons uses a nine-pannel grid layout throughout the series and added recurring symbols such as the blood-stained smiley face. All but the last issue feature supplement fictional documents that add to the series' back story, and the narrative is intertwined with that of another story, an in-story pirate comic Tales of the Black Freighter, which one of the characters reads. Structured, at times, as a nonlinear narrative the story skips through time, space and plot. In the same style, entire scenes and dialogue have parallels with others through synchronicity, coincidence and repeated imagery.