Lostbreak Book 1

[pocket1_pita]

I’m working my way through a Lost-related reading list during the Lostbreak. The first one on my list is The Watchmen. I’ve read it before, but not for a long time. I see they are making a movie from it that’s supposed to be out in 2008. I am dubious, but maybe it will be good.

 

Lost connection: Well it’s pretty obvious and I’ll get into it in my review, but just for starters: Damon Lindelof called Watchmen "the greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced".

 

Watchmen by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons

 

Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Originally published by DC Comics as a monthly limited series from 1986 to 1987,it was later republished as a trade paperback. It was one of the first superhero comics to present itself as serious literature, and it also popularized the "graphic novel" format. Watchmen is the only graphic novel to win a Hugo Award, and is also the only graphic novel to appear on Time Magazine's 2005 list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present." 

Watchmen is set in 1985, in an alternative history United States where costumed adventurers are real and the country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union (the Doomsday Clock is at five minutes to midnight). It tells the story of a group of past and present superheroes and the events surrounding the mysterious murder of one of their own. Watchmen depicts superheroes as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues, who struggle with neuroses and failings, and who - with one notable exception - lack anything recognizable as super powers. Watchmen's deconstruction of the conventional superhero archetype, combined with its innovative adaptation of cinematic techniques and heavy use of symbolism, multi-layered dialogue, and metafiction, has influenced both comics and film.

The rest of the lostbreak list:

The Watchmen, Alan Moore (May 29- )

Bad Twin, Gary Troup

Living Lost, J. Wood

The Hot Zone, Richard Preston

Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens

The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell

Island, Aldous Huxley

Watership Down, Richard Adams

A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein

Black Holes and Time Warps, Kip Thorne

Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco

The Third Policeman, Flann O’Brien

Lancelot, Percy Walker