LITERATURE: Watchmen

It is 2:30 in the morning, and I still have not completed the reading for tomorrow’s class. The Watchmen is in comic book format, combining graphics and text. My problem is twofold. First, I expect there to be a heavy underlying meaning to this book, so I am distracted from the reading by constantly searching for this meaning so as not to appear an idiot when discussing the book. Second, I have never liked this format. Even as a child I didn’t like it, and chose the normal text format. Perhaps the effort required to read what is essentially just dialogue or character thoughts, then visually scan the images for the action (and in Watchmen, for “clues”) is beyond me, or just frustrating to my style of approaching literature. Probably the last bit of “literature” I have read in this format was MAD Magazine. These definitely required searching the graphics for bits of information or irony that was not harmonious with the ongoing plot of the text. Maybe it is just this “read, stop and look, read, stop and look” distraction that interrupts the flow that I find bothersome. In Contemporary Art as well as in Intro to Literature I was exposed to online visual art that included text as well as textual poetry that included background images. While I found some quite phenomenal and conceptually brilliant, I did not enjoy the format. I remember writing, “poetry is poetry and visual art is visual, why combine the two?” For me, text will evoke images created in the reader’s mind, and I am put off by having the image created for me. i.e., I may have imagined a protagonist as a redhead, and in being presented a blonde, am at odds with the story, as well as insulted by the author’s lack of faith in my ability to perceive for myself. Likewise, visual art presents a text that may be in conflict with one of the many perceptions of the image shown. This stuff isn’t new, so I can take comfort in the fact that it is not old-fashioned reluctance to accept what is new. However, it may be even worse. I may be stubborn to accept other than what I like to view or see. I shall, by 11:30 this morning, plow through the rest of the chapter of Watchmen, only because I have to, and hope that I may be enlightened by teacher and classmates as to its meaning and value so I can more easily involve myself in it from there.

I am either the worst possible student for a New Media Course, or present the best opportunity for conversion.