In 1986 The Watchmen was first published; a 12-issue limited series from creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  It was a smash success and has had numerous printings over the past 20 years.  It is not only considered the greatest graphic novel of all time; but it was voted among Time magazine's 100 Best Novels from 1923 to the present, quite an accomplishment for a comic book.

March 2009 will see the big screen adaptation of The Watchmen, just in time for that movie and the holiday season is the book Watching The Watchmen from Chip Kidd, Mike Essl and Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons.  Unfortunately due to many feuds with DC Comics, the publisher of the series, writer Alan Moore didn’t contribute to this book, but his presence is felt and the material is so good he’s not really missed.Watching The Watchmen is an art book that allows readers into Dave Gibbons archives, here we get to see Gibbons artwork for the series compared to the finished inked, colored and lettered product, unpublished pages, thumbnails of specific issues in the series, sketches, pewter figures, posters, international covers for the collected editions of the mini-series along with Gibbons notes, thoughts and remembrance of the production of the series (similar to a director’s DVD commentary).   

Watching The Watchmen also includes a hand-written letter from Alan Moore to Gibbons that came with the first script. Gibbons also talks about praise for the first few issues of the series and his regrets for the deal he made with a comic owner to buy each issues art in its entirety.  If Gibbons had held onto any of that he could make a fortune on each page, but as he writes “a deal’s a deal.” Anyway, the series could have stunk and the comic owner still would have had to buy the pages.

Today a consistently on-time comic is a bit of a rare occurrence, Watchmen took almost two years for the 12 issues to come out, proving that greatness just takes time.  No one today comments on the shipping of that book, just what a groundbreaking series it was.

Watching The Watchmen is a great companion to the series and whets the appetite for the movie on March 6, 2009.  Fans of the mini-series, those curious about the movie, art lovers and those who want to see behind the scenes of what it took to create this landmark series won’t be disappointed when they read this book.