The main problem I'm having with the ads now is that V is presented like a superhero with the swishy knives. Is this mostly an ad thing?

Yeah, it's mostly an ad thing. I mean, there are a few swishy knife scenes, but it's actually a pretty talky film. And he's definitely not a superhero.

I felt that it felt like early work of an author I loved, who hadn't quite mastered his form yet, but made a good show.

Yes, this. At least the first third reads like a really promising good try from someone who had never met any women, ever. t /Evey issues

At least, I had been led to believe there was a pause of some time in the middle of the original run.

I don't know how much of a break he took in between books, but my understanding is it was written over several years. By book 3, he'd learned to write.

I think he took something like 7-8 years in the middle there.

it felt like early work of an author I loved, who hadn't quite mastered his form yet, but made a good show. Like lisa, the plot felt a little.... off to me, but that may be attributable, at least in my case, to Moore pausing in between writing the bulk of it and finishing it up

Man, I agree. What's neat is that the version in my memory always smooths out the rough edges and turns it in to a scalpel-sharp short story, but when I re-read it, I remember how lumpy and unfocused major part of it are.

V ran in Warrior from 1982 to 1985. Warrior went out of business when they were near the end of book 2. Then DC published the whole thing in 10 issues in 1988.

I liked V much more than Watchmen. They both have problems, but V at least feels alive. Watchmen is like a Rube Goldberg device.

Just three years between the first part and last part? Wow. He got better fast.

What did you think was scattershot about it? I thought it quite tight, so I'd appreciate the perspective.

I never understood why V picked Evey to come be his acolyte or whatever she was suppposed to be. It seemed like that would be explained and it never was.

And it's possible I may not have been paying enough attention but the whole thing about the government watching everybody all the time seemed to pop up out of nowhere halfway through.

I guess I was like Evey whining at V about how she didn't understand what was happening. And suddenly she understands but I never did.

I'm reading Watchmen now. I read it before but years ago and I don't really remember what happens. It's entertaining but mostly I just think the women are drawn strangely. Maybe it's just the bad 80s high pants or something.

I liked V much more than Watchmen.

Ditto. It's much more felt. Watchmen is a formalist exercise in comparison.

I like the mechanics of Watchmen better, I think. It stuck with me more, and left me with more of an urge to reread.

Watchmen is a formalist exercise in comparison.

I like Watchmen better myself. To me, it's an indictment of everything in our culture that allows fascism to take root and grow, of everything about us that says "yes, we're actually okay with fascism, as long as we have our toys." And one of the things he focuses his attention on is super hero comics.

It seems even more prescient now, in subtle ways, particularly the Nixon-still-being-President thing, what with the power players in the BushII administration having trained under Nixon, and using his playbook.

Plus what ita said.

I also liked Watchmen more. I think it and V for Vendetta take mirror strategies into the same political stance (which is exactly what Sean says: rampant consumerism and absolute trust in authority for security is fascist mentality), with Watchmen imposing authority from capital (and, incidentally, crazy superheroes) and VFV imposing authority from government. Frankly, I think Watchmen works better because the characters seem a little better-conceived. In VFV, the government is entirely unbelievable in its textbook psychology of the major players, although the dissolution among the ranks seemed true enough, and the character of V seemed altogether too close to the omniscient, omnipotent, super-fast serial killer-type from the movies - y'know, the one who has perfect knowledge of how other people will react in any given situation and has somehow had the time to lay plans that allow him to be 3 steps ahead of everyone else, no matter what. It always strikes me as a little lazy that V is perfect.

That said, I don't want to come down too hard, because I think it's a fantastic comic.

In other news, I saw both Junebug and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit this past weekend and enjoyed the heck out of both.